A worker unloads locally produced bananas in Siem Reap. Minister of Finance Keat Chhon said Tuesday that agriculture would help prevent a Cambodian recession in 2009. (Photo by: BLOOMBERG)Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Nguon Sovan
Phnom Penh Post
While rejecting alternative forecasts, Minister of Finance Keat Chhon says agriculture will drive economy this year and next.
CAMBODIA’S economy will expand 2.1 percent this year on the back of strong growth in the agriculture sector, Finance Minister Keat Chhon said Tuesday.
The agriculture sector was expected to expand 5 percent this year despite the recent destruction wrought by Typhoon Ketsana, he said.
Economic growth would accelerate next year to 3 percent, he added, led again by agriculture but boosted by a slight recovery in tourism.
However, he expected the garment sector to continue to struggle in 2010.
“The US market still doesn’t have any purchasing power,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a four-day securities conference that opened Tuesday in Phnom Penh.
The United States takes around 70 percent of Cambodia’s garment exports. Ministry of Commerce figures show US buyers took just over US$1 billion worth of output from Cambodia’s garment manufacturers over the first eight months of 2009, down 29.9 percent from $1.42 billion a year earlier.
The forecast, which Keat Chhon said was based on figures from the National Institute of Statistics, is a downgrade from previous government predictions of 6 percent growth this year, and is in stark contrast to recent projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which he continued to reject. adsense code
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