Cambodia’s Struggle With Globalization

Phnom Penh Governor inaugurating the portrait of Phnom Penh Port (background) which was opened in 1866.

Hal Hill, Jayant Menon & Chan Sopha
The Jakarta Globe

The charming riverside capital of Phnom Penh, home to about 1.5 million inhabitants, has seen a lot in its turbulent history. But arguably nothing is on the scale of its first skyscraper, the 42-floor Gold Tower now nearing completion, not to mention the university and bank complexes mushrooming throughout this ancient city.

This changing physical landscape reflects broader developments across the country, which has been experiencing rapid economic growth — the sixth fastest in the world in the decade to 2007 — for the first time in its history.

More than two million tourists now visit this country of 14 million, a 20-fold increase over the figure in the early 1990s.

The Cambodian people have better nutrition and access to education and health services than ever before.

Since the cessation of internal hostilities almost two decades ago, life expectancy has risen by almost a decade and infant mortality has fallen significantly.

The macroeconomy is stable, with inflation under control, underpinned by very high levels of dollarization, currently about 90 per cent.

Debt service is almost negligible and public debt has fallen sharply, to about one-quarter of GDP.

The economy is highly open, with exports plus imports equivalent to more than 120 per cent of GDP. The investment climate is welcoming, with generous tax incentives and low tariffs.

Aid flows are very large, currently almost $1.1 billion in a $10 billion economy. The country’s openness meant that growth dried up in 2009 as the global financial crisis hit, but the economy is now rebounding.

So much for the good news. Cambodia, however, also faces many daunting problems.

The country ranks 166th and 135th respectively out of 181 countries surveyed in the Transparency International corruption perception index and the World Bank’s Doing Business indicators.

Deforestation and what is referred to locally as “land grabbing” have also been rampant.

The local dailies abound with reports of land being awarded to the politically powerful for nominal amounts, and a startling detailed account is presented in the 2008 study by Global Witness entitled “Country for Sale.”

In addition, the land price boom has often made some of the most vulnerable worse off, as they have been evicted or forced off their land. The periodic household expenditure surveys report a significant increase in inequality.

The country will also miss some of its Millennium Development Goal targets.

These problems are illustrative of the challenges faced by poor transitional economies in the process of opening up without the institutions to manage the complex process of globalization.

In this environment, the recent discovery of oil and gas could complicate things, as articulated in the resource curse thesis put forth by Richard Auty.

The central challenge is to achieve growth that is durable, equitable and environmentally sustainable. This in turn requires the development of institutions which, while they may be rudimentary, are effective, trusted and clean.

Where to start? Consider the following, for example:

• Cambodia has no shortage of laws, especially after its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2004. But businesses view the courts as the most expensive last resort when all else fails. Legal judgements are routinely for sale.

• Civil service salaries are meagre. A mid-level senior employee with a foreign masters degree receives $70 per month, compared to a private sector alternative of about 20 times this amount. Ministers receive about $500 per month, but some seem to live quite lavishly.

• The country’s tax effort (its tax revenue as a percentage of GDP) is a paltry 11 percent, despite the introduction of a broad value-added tax. Thus the country’s infrastructure remains inadequate, in spite of the very large aid flows, and notwithstanding recent improvements.

• The number of banks has increased rapidly due to unfettered entry. The lax prudential supervision carries with it the possibility of a future meltdown.

• Shipping a container from factory to port costs about double the regional average owing to widespread “facilitation” costs, a feature apparently of most transactions with the government.

Five general lessons for late reformers stand out from the Cambodian experience.

First, liberal and open economies cannot function without due respect for property rights, as exemplified by the widespread land grabs.

Second, these liberal regimes need adequate regulatory capacity to manage a modernizing market economy, as illustrated by the banking example above.

Third, large inflows of foreign aid and natural resource revenues ought to be viewed as transitory, and invested wisely for broad-based development.

Fourth, donors need to better coordinate their work and avoid imposing excessively on a weak bureaucracy.

Fifth, civil service reform has to be undertaken early, with clear incentives and disciplines.

Unless these conditions are met, the danger is that in Cambodia, and many other similar states, the achievements over the past decade in particular could be undone by economic crises, or rising civil unrest driven by outrage at the political and bureaucratic excesses.

Hal Hill is a professor of economics at the Australian National University; Jayant Menon is principal economist at the Asian Development Bank; and Chan Sophal is president of the Cambodia Economic Association.