High Commodities Prices Could Threaten the Livelihood of the Rural Poor

7th April 2008
By Hassan
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization

Agence France Presse reported on Sunday that many humanitarian organisations predicted that the high prices of commodities could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of the rural poor who are facing food shortages.
According to a research, the prices of fish, meat and all other basic necessities have increased by 40% since last year. The Phnom Penh Post reported this week that, in 2007, the inflation rate in China was 18%, Sri Lanka was 34% and the inflation rate in Vietnam was 25.2%.(Inflation in Cambodia could be as high as 60%? Read the links below).
Kang Chandararot, an economist from Cambodian Institute of Development, has told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper that the prices of local goods have remained unchanged without having been affected by the crisis. He said: “If the prices of rice increased, they (the people) will wait and see. And on the other hand, the financial system is totally crippled.”
A World Bank economist based in Cambodia, Mr. Stephane Guimbert, has told the Phnom Penh Post that the non-expansion of the food processing industries, which were instrumental in boosting the economy and which is called macro-economy, has made it hard for the economy to be able to adapt to external pressures of price increases, despite today’s inflation being caused by a huge demand which exceeded the supply.
Mr Son Soubert, a member of the Constitutional Council, said that politics and economy are interrelated. He said: “There is no way that external crisis did not affect local prices. Regarding the inflation, there had been a prediction that it will go up, but no one cared to take any measures to contain it.” //
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Link 1:http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2008/04/commodities-prices-in-battambang.html
Link 2:http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2008/04/commodities-prices-in-phnom-penh-have.html