A New Growth Strategy for Cambodia: Economic Scenarios
Cambodia was one of the fastest growing economies in the world prior to the pandemic. Given this strong performance, The Royal Government of Cambodia’s Vision 2050 aims for the country to reach high-income country status by mid-century. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a troubled domestic real estate sector have made it chal...
Cambodia Economic Diversification Pathways
Cambodia’s rapid economic growth over the past two decades has been driven primarily by structural transformation, as labour shifted from agriculture to higher-productivity jobs in manufacturing and services. However, the country’s growth model—dominated by garment manufacturing, tourism, and construction—is now facing limitations, necessitating a...
Delivering the skills for Cambodia’s clean energy transition
The clean energy transition presents a significant opportunity to create a dynamic new workforce for Cambodia, spanning roles from highly specialised urban planners to technical engineers. However, there is currently a significant skills gap that must be addressed if Cambodia is to maximise the benefits from the shift to green energy. Cambodia has...
Overcoming Constraints for Effective Policy Implementation
Over the past three decades, practical policy reform has been part of Cambodia’s political stability and economic success. There are also examples where policy changes were introduced and effectively implemented, and demonstrate strong capabilities for mobilisa¬tion, organisation, management, and imple¬mentation. Actualising new policies and strate...
Climate Change, Gender, and Social Analysis for Cambodia’s New Growth Strategy
In pursuit of sustaining growth in the economy, Cambodia also strives to enhance resilience, inclusiveness and sustainability. This paper discusses the key climate, gender and social issues that need to be addressed in order to achieve this goal. Specifically, the following issues need to be tackled: (i) high carbon footprints of the growth sectors...
A Macroeconomic Review: Cambodia’s Current State and Future Outlook
Economic Performance and Outlook:Cambodia's real economy grew by 5.1% in 2022, driven by strong performance in garment and emerging non-garment industries, alongside a gradual tourism recovery. On the other hand, key sectors such as construction are yet to recover.Inflation reached 5.4% in 2022, driven by rising food prices, core inflation, and oil...
Increasing the Inclusiveness, Resiliency and Sustainability of Economic Growth in Cambodia
To realise its aspirations to become an upper middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050, Cambodia has to pursue inclusive growth that is also sustainable and resilient. This is the type of growth that generates sustainable jobs in the manufacturing and services sectors, and fair and consistent returns for the self-employed, in...
Structural Transformation and Economic Growth in Cambodia
This study investigates Cambodia's economic structural transformation and growth using descriptive and productivity decomposition methods on output and employment data of 12 industries from 2000 to 2022. Cambodia's economy is undergoing a structural transformation, and the growth driver has been shifting from agriculture to manufacturing and servic...
Cambodia’s Economic Trajectory: 2000-2022 Macroeconomic Analysis
Economic growth pathSince 1998, Cambodia has transitioned from an agrarian-based economy to one driven by industry and services, achieving robust growth of over 7 percent annually from 2000 to 2019. This progress led to Cambodia attaining lower middle-income status in 2015, setting the stage for long-term quality growth with ambitions of achieving...
Cambodia's New Growth Strategy: An Assessment of Medium and Long-term Growth for Resilient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Development
Cambodia’s recent economic expansion has been remarkable; however, the factors that have historically driven its growth are unlikely to sustain the same momentum in the future. The real estate boom has subsided, and the large-scale transition of labour from agriculture to manufacturing, along with the conversion of forests into farmland, can no lon...