Cambodian Future

[denith]

What do you think about Cambodian Future?

What will Cambodia LOOK like in the next 10 years?

[Panharath]

I have no idea at all. Wait and see the next 10 years then.
But I hope to have more investments in Cambodia.

[denith]

I just want to see growth in domestic products...

[Keo Somala]

What do you think about Cambodian Future?

What will Cambodia LOOK like in the next 10 years?

Amidst the development appearing in front of you, nowadays Cambodia is exactly in the process. Looking at Cambodia from a foreigner's perspective, one Burmese man told my lecturer that to his eyes Cambodia developed so rapidly. Unbelieveable! Compared to Burma, Cambodia stands a great chance. The man felt saddened with his country's slow development, just a few buildings erected and built around the city. He marvelled at many tall buildings growing in the city centre.

So now what do I think? As I see it, everybody or every country does have a future, a matter of 'more or less'.Likewise, Cambodia is, with hope,going to prosper. The economic growth is noticeable. Yet, another issue also happens at the same time of the growth.It's inflation. As a Cambodian citizen, it's significant that economists and the government look carefully at this urgent problem. With inflation raised here, I want to point out that the rich might find it bearable while the poor are hit the hardest.   

From my vision to the future of Cambodia, high rise buildings will grow like mushrooms.... but challenges will happen. They need investigating. 

[Panharath]

I just want to see growth in domestic products...

Thought you wanna see more growth in cosmestic products.. 

What do you think about Cambodian Future?

What will Cambodia LOOK like in the next 10 years?

Amidst the development appearing in front of you, nowadays Cambodia is exactly in the process. Looking at Cambodia from a foreigner's perspective, one Burmese man told my lecturer that to his eyes Cambodia developed so rapidly. Unbelieveable! Compared to Burma, Cambodia stands a great chance. The man felt saddened with his country's slow development, just a few buildings erected and built around the city. He marvelled at many tall buildings growing in the city centre.

So now what do I think? As I see it, everybody or every country does have a future, a matter of 'more or less'.Likewise, Cambodia is, with hope,going to prosper. The economic growth is noticeable. Yet, another issue also happens at the same time of the growth.It's inflation. As a Cambodian citizen, it's significant that economists and the government look carefully at this urgent problem. With inflation raised here, I want to point out that the rich might find it bearable while the poor are hit the hardest.  

From my vision to the future of Cambodia, high rise buildings will grow like mushrooms.... but challenges will happen. They need investigating. 

Mala, If we compare to other countries which are high in devolopment, we will see how low cambodia are. When I was young I remembered my dad always told me that I should compare myself to students who are in great scores and ability better than comparing myself to students who have weak scores, so that I can see how great or bad I am.
Back to the point, I think we also should compare our Cambodia to the high development countries, then we will try our best to find ways in order to reinfore Cambodia be in the same class with other developed countries, and sure enough, economic for the first issue.

I completely have no idea how poor people can live with this high raise of inflation, even myself.

[Tdol]

Unfortunately, the economic troubles in the US, UK and elsewhere are probably going to be around for a few years, which will have an impact on important areas of the economy here.  There's a lot of debate about how serious the situation is, but many think we're heading for a crisis in a number of countries, including those that buy garments and come here as tourists.

[Keo Somala]

If we compare to other countries which are high in devolopment, we will see how low cambodia are. When I was young I remembered my dad always told me that I should compare myself to students who are in great scores and ability better than comparing myself to students who have weak scores, so that I can see how great or bad I am.
Back to the point, I think we also should compare our Cambodia to the high development countries, then we will try our best to find ways in order to reinfore Cambodia be in the same class with other developed countries, and sure enough, economic for the first issue.

I completely have no idea how poor people can live with this high raise of inflation, even myself.

I couldn't agree more with comparing Cambodia to developed countries. However, it's also important to get a comment from a foreigner comparing Cambodia to his country. And it's a good idea to compare Cambodia to other more developing countries in the same region like Thailand or Vietnam.

But actually, in a depressing circumstance, you can't always compare yourself with somebody greater. You can end up very depressed too. That's why in such a hard-pressed period like this, Cambodia rather stays still but should not expect too much out of the situation.

One thing for sure, it'll take years for Cambodia to be one of the developed countries, you know. Cambodia is now taking its step forward, with trials and errors. I agree with you. Cambodia should learn what other economically powerful countries have done to imporve their own economics.

It's a big inflation. The annual report by CDRI says that between Jan 2007 to Jan 2008, Cambodia has 18.7%, an increase rate of inflation. In the cities, the incease rate is just about 17% while in the provinces 19%.

Right now the Cambodian economics doesn't seem very active. More investments are welcomed.

[Panharath]

Yeah Mala, It’s great that we got compliments from some of foreigners as it’s a pride for our Cambodia. But, in order to improve ourselves more than what we already had, we should learn to compare ourselves to others who are greater in position. If we compare our contries to Thailand or Vietnam, we are still lower than them even about the trends and everything, our Cambodian’s acceleration are also in a slow pace. Out to my point, comparing to other high development countries is an inspiration which lead us to make our Cambodian to be possibly at a top of rank, or at least in a better and better rank. If we don’t have any comparison, how come we can reach to this position?

Honestly, I always compare myself to somebody else who are best or better than me and it’s a useful part which inspire me to strive my best to be like them.

Basically, it’s not about Depression but Inspiration.

[Ramin]

For me I do have an optimism in our country’s future. Just as we have seen since 1993, we have obtained a two-digit growing every single year, that some countries in the region can not. The increase in the number of investors in every field.

The inflation impact and the US economic downturn both make a great pressure on global economy, and developing nation like us is easily affected, but I heard that some experts said that the growth will continue with just only a slight drop in the 2 or 3 years. With the help from the oil income, I strongly hope that we will become the developed country in the next 20 or 30 years if there’s no any error.

I can’t wait to see all Cambodian people live in a high standard just like American or Japanese! 

[denith]

Your visions are truly great. However, there are more things to concern.

1. What about the education standard, as we can see its outstanding problems and arising scandals. How will this issue impacts the development and vision of Cambodian leader. In the future, these people of this generation will leads and work for the country, the human resources of Cambodia are doubtful to me. We do receive news that companies are using and paying compensate to foreign workers and specialists. Thats underlines the current requirement and tendency on outside workforces. When will Cambodia provide reliable sources of human resources who hold domestic qualification and certification which will be well-recognized and highly regarded?

2. We do have bombing economics, but I did mention domestic products. This is important. Keep this in mind that we are still receiving heavy imports from many countries onto various areas. WE ARE STILL RELYING ON FOREIGN PRODUCTS. This is not lucrative to our nation, consider products and prices can be charged due to some outside matters. We need our established products, manufacturers and design to compete. We do have lands and resources, we SHOULD not let be consumed - by some particular degree - by outsiders. WE are the owner of our wealth rite?

3. Culture! VERY IMPORTANT. Yes, open for investment is like open for foreign culture. We have seen much change in Cambodian society now. This issue should be brought into serious discussion since this concerns the FUTURE of our cultural aspect existence. We are well-known of being one of the oldest nations of Asia and having one powerful culture in the area. Look at people now! Look at them and think... do we, in the first place, worth being address by these titles? Young people is the key to the culture. If they were twisted, who will retain? WHO?

[Tdol]

I hope you're right, Ramin, but I really do fear that this is far, far worse than a downturn; we are only just starting what is going to be very long and painful process like the one Japan went through in, where people saw 80% of the value of their homes disappear.  In the UK, where I'm from, we had the first run on a bank (where people are queuing up outside to get their money) and the government has sunk billions of dollars into it to keep it from bankruptcy. Bear Stearns is in similar trouble in the US.  Personal debt in the UK (mortgages, credit and overdrafts) is getting close to 4 trillion (yes) dollars; we actually owe more than we earn as a nation.  It took Japan over a decade to recover from its crash.

Some economists are beginning to talk of this as being the biggest crisis since The Great Depression.  The American once said that 'deficits don't matter', and that is the kind of thinking that has got the West into the mess it is in.  I hope it's a downturn, but I expect it to be a drawn-out and painful recession, and once stagflation hits, there's no telling where it will end.  The fact that most banks don't actually know how much they are exposed to the sub-prime disaster, to me, says it all- they can't even count their money because they have made the system so complex.   In the cold light of day people are asking themselves why they borrowed money to buy bad debt packages.  At the heart of it, the sub-prime mortgage deals were a fraud and we're going to be paying for this for years.  I hope that the knock-on effects here are limited, but think that there will be less cash for tourist holidays here at the least.  And as China has made a large part of its recent wealth from selling goods to the US, things in this part may be bumpy.

[Keo Somala]

1. What about the education standard, as we can see its outstanding problems and arising scandals. How will this issue impacts the development and vision of Cambodian leader. In the future, these people of this generation will leads and work for the country, the human resources of Cambodia are doubtful to me. We do receive news that companies are using and paying compensate to foreign workers and specialists. Thats underlines the current requirement and tendency on outside workforces. When will Cambodia provide reliable sources of human resources who hold domestic qualification and certification which will be well-recognized and highly regarded?

I'd like to share your concern about this issue. We every day hear that the Cambodian education system isn't much qualified. We need to look at the problems even more closely. For example, now English private instistutes are growing like mushrooms, but the quality of the English teaching isn't guarenteed. This is because most of the schools are business-oriented. Even more, foreign teachers are paid more than the local ones who need a lot of training. It's as simple as that. A lot of companies also expect to recruit foreigners who are willing. i can't give you an answer to your question now but I hope you can have a look at the historical miracle in Japan. Japan, after World War II, started everything from scratch. It adopted a symstem called 'Toktek' (if my memory serves me well). The system imployed by the government encouraged everyone to go abroad and learn something new like specialized knowledge. Those people who had chances to go and learn came back and shared it among their nation. It's possible because Japan did it. After some time, Japan tried to attract investors and foreigners to come invest and live in Japan. Already, Japan had a huge human resource size.

[Keo Somala]

2. We do have bombing economics, but I did mention domestic products. This is important. Keep this in mind that we are still receiving heavy imports from many countries onto various areas. WE ARE STILL RELYING ON FOREIGN PRODUCTS. This is not lucrative to our nation, consider products and prices can be charged due to some outside matters. We need our established products, manufacturers and design to compete. We do have lands and resources, we SHOULD not let be consumed - by some particular degree - by outsiders. WE are the owner of our wealth rite?

Like what Ramin said, Cambodia, one of the developing nations, is easily affected by powerful phenomena. Sadly, Cambodia is so dependent on imports from especially our neighbouring countries. Products ranging from tooth picks to cosmestics or foods are imported and distributed throughout Cambodia. The domestic supplies aren't always enough because there aren't many producers. The percentages of farmers in Cambodia decrease from 80% to 60%, according to the annual report by CDRI, while other producers feel reluctant to continue their businesses when they see there's no future for the businesses. (just fear). Obviously, it's so significant to encourage domestic products. It's so essential for Cambodia to supply itself sufficiently. You're right, we are the owner of the wealth. Somehow, the reality can be different. Farmers are increasingly losing their land. For the real case I saw in Oddar Meanchey, a crowd of people there gathered together in a protest to a company ready to take away their fields in an excuse of planting potatoes or sowhatever. A real issue, indeed. That's why we need to be quite nationalistic when it comes to this. You can decide to help your people by buying their products or others.

One sad truth is that Cambodia doesn't have a law to take a tax from land ownership. NOt a day goes buy without land being sold. We see many plots of land which are not being used but kept. The land owners are waiting for the land price to boom but they don't know they are also part of strangling themselves. If farmers lose their land, who's going to produce your rice and food? Then, Cambodia will be even more dependent on imports.
 

3. Culture! VERY IMPORTANT. Yes, open for investment is like open for foreign culture. We have seen much change in Cambodian society now. This issue should be brought into serious discussion since this concerns the FUTURE of our cultural aspect existence. We are well-known of being one of the oldest nations of Asia and having one powerful culture in the area. Look at people now! Look at them and think... do we, in the first place, worth being address by these titles? Young people is the key to the culture. If they were twisted, who will retain? WHO?

That sounds a bit negative. In fact, for one country to develop itself, one doesn't have to retain its culture or stop other culture from coming in. I remember, a Cambodian political scientist said in a Media role seminar at the Royal Academy Institute in 2007, "It doesn't necessarily stop other culture to interfer in Cambodia while in fact Cambodia should learn to be more open to a new culture." Sometimes, you can look at the past. In a lonely island where tribal people lived, life was very hard. But things changed when newcomers brought in a civilized culture. But I'd like to request a balance! After all, I mean that if Cambodia wants to develop itself, it has to learn to adopt a new good culture. If we Cambodians still try to embrace their own culture strongly, I don't know if there will be a change to it.
I believe it's possible to attract foreign investments to Cambodia without distorting our culture. We can't put the blame on the investments for the changing behavour in Cambodia. It's what the media have to do to help too. Believe me, things are changing, not only in Cambodia.

[Pros_DingDong]

My vision on the Cambodian future is quite positive but very reserved.
There have been more investments in service sector as well as agriculture and mining. We can see significant increase of home building.
Living condition and life style have been better. We also notice more shopping centers, an indication of increased wealthy population.

However, prices of goods have increased in an alarming rate. Rich people (mostly benefited from selling lands and houses) are ok with it, but the majority who don't have land or houses to sell are feeling bitter about the current situation and blame it on the government. That is because the government doesn't have a system to control inflation. Anything that is working well in Cambodia must be private-owned. The Government is a paralysed statue that just sits there allowing high ranking and powerful people to get rich and richer while the poors become less able to survive.

The current governement doesn't care much about the well being of its people. It only cares about strengthening partisanship and group power by encouraging more corruptions as a token in exchange with party loyalty and election's financial contributions.
A government without any accountability, ethical value, and authentic anti-corruption system is the most vulnerable one.
With the economy largely depending on the garment business that faces uncertain future due to possible recession in the US and the vulnerable governing system, Cambodia's future is very unpredictable and vulnerable.
 

[denith]

Just hope to see a better Cambodia.

Yes, there are developments along with burdens. This always happen. My question is: shall we leave all these to the leaders, or shall we participate by any means necessary?