Cambodia has one of the poorest economies in the world. Agriculture, especially rice farming, dominates the economy and workforce. Decades of war and the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s destroyed Cambodia's economy and infrastructure. Since then, Cambodia has slowly rebuilt and now exports some rice and rubber, but poverty remains widespread and underemployment is high.

1. Economic Setting::
Cambodia
Reported by:
Concepcion Alonzo
(Crim. 2-B, Group 8)

2. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
• Cambodia is one of the world’s
poorest nations. In 2006 its total
gross domestic product (GDP)
was $7.3 billion, yielding a per
capita GDP of just $511.30,
among the lowest in the world.

3. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Even before being plunged into
civil conflict in the 1970s,
Cambodia lacked significant
industrial development, with
most of the labor force engaged
in agriculture. The country was
self-sufficient in food and

4. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
produced exportable surpluses
of its principal crops of rice and
corn. In spite of relatively low
yields and a single harvest per
year, Cambodia annually
exported hundreds of thousands
of tons of rice.

5. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
The civil war from 1970 to 1975,
the Khmer Rouge regime from
1975 to 1979, and the Cambodia-
Vietnam War from 1978 to 1979
virtually destroyed Cambodia’s
economy. By 1974, under
wartime conditions, rice had to

6. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
be imported, and production of
Cambodia’s most profitable
export crop, rubber, fell off
sharply. The civil unrest also
disrupted Cambodia’s fledgling
manufacturing industry and
severely damaged road and rail
networks.

7. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
In 1975 the newly installed
Khmer Rouge government
nationalized all means of
production in Cambodia. Money
and private property were
abolished, and agriculture was
collectivized (ownership was

8. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
transferred to the people as a
group, represented by the state).
The Khmer Rouge Four-Year
Plan, a utopian document
drafted in 1976, envisaged
multiple plantings of rice and a
vastly expanded irrigation

9. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
system. The plan aimed to
increase income from exports of
rice and other products and to
use this income to buy
machinery with which to
industrialize the country. The
Four-Year Plan was poorly

10. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
thought out, brutally enforced,
and unsuccessful. Rice
production rose slightly, but
between 1976 and 1978,
hundreds of thousands of people
died from malnutrition,
overwork, and mistreated or

11. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
misdiagnosed diseases. The
Khmer Rouge executed hundreds
of thousands more people whom
they judged to be enemies of the
regime. The atrocities of the
Khmer Rouge period decimated
Cambodia’s labor force.

12. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
After the Khmer Rouge were
overthrown in early 1979, the
government’s grip on agricultural
production loosened, and
millions of Cambodians
attempted to resume their lives
as subsistence farmers. By the

13. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
mid-1990s Cambodia once again
achieved self-sufficiency in rice
production and began to export
small quantities of rice. The
country’s infrastructure
improved gradually in the 1990s,
largely due to massive infusions

14. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Cambodia’s poverty is masked
by the apparent prosperity of
sections of Phnom Penh.

15. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
loans, many Thai banks became
unable to service their foreign
debt, causing investor
confidence to fall sharply. The
consequent outflow of capital
caused the Thai banking system
to crash in mid-1997. The

16. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
resulting credit shortage drove
many companies into
bankruptcy and created a large
pool of unemployed workers.
Thailand’s economy remained
deep in recession through 1998,
with gross domestic product

17. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
shrinking an estimated 8.5
percent that year. In the early
2000s Thailand made a full
economic recovery, driven by
strong growth in exports.

18. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
In 2006 Cambodia had a labor
force of 6.9 million. Agriculture
was the largest employer,
engaging 60 percent of the
workers. It is followed by
services (27 percent) and
industry (13 percent).

19. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Underemployment in urban
areas is high, and working
conditions in developing
industries, such as clothing
manufacturing, are poor. Efforts
to unionize factory workers have
encountered significant
opposition from factory owners.

20. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Agriculture is the largest sector
of Cambodia’s economy,
contributing 30 percent of the
GDP in 2006. Rice is Cambodia’s
most important crop and the
staple food of the Khmer diet.
More than one-half of cultivated

21. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
land—much of it of poor
quality—is planted in rice.
Rubber, Cambodia’s other
important export crop, is grown
in plantations in the eastern part
of the country. Corn, cassava,
soybeans, palm sugar, and

22. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
pepper are also grown
commercially, while cucumbers
and fruits, including mangoes,
bananas, watermelons, and
pineapples, are raised for local
consumption. Chicken and pigs
are widely domesticated, while

23. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
cattle and water buffalo are
used for agricultural work.

24. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Services, especially small-scale
commercial activities, account
for 44 percent of Cambodia’s
GDP. Since the late 1980s
Cambodia has encouraged
tourism as an important source
of foreign exchange, and the

25. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Cambodia’s unit of currency is
the riel, consisting of 100 sen.
The value of the riel shrank from
700 riels per U.S.$1 in 1991 to an
average of 4,103 riels per U.S.$1
in 2006. Currency is issued by the
National Bank of Kâmpŭchéa,

26. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
established in 1980. There are
relatively few private banks in
Cambodia. Most of them are
foreign-owned banks operating
in Phnom Penh and other cities.

27. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Source:
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. ©
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28. Economic Setting:
Cambodia
Aw Khun!!!

29. Economic Setting
as we
Understanding

30. Economic Community
for
establish an

33. Republic of the Philippines
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Theme: “Understanding Better the Political, Economic &
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