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World News
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Friday, May 8th, 2009In many ways the country is suffering the worst of two worlds: the bureaucracy, inefficiency and corruption of communism coupled with the greed and excesses of capitalism. Some of this is to be expected from the recent shifts in our politics and economy. If the abuses are not brought to light and moderated, however, they could become a way of life.
A good case in point is the large trade deficits we have with our neighbors. Cambodia has an annual trade deficit of $3.2 billion with Vietnam, Thailand and China alone. You can imagine 32 million $100 bills with wings flying out of the country each year on a one-way migration. That’s the amount of money we have to recoup by begging foreign countries and overseas relatives and selling our women to sex tourists.
When Khmer people have money, they want to buy the finest imports. They want to impress their friends by being able to afford overpriced foreign brands. They think of little else. That’s why there are only a few goods like bottled water, beer, and one brand of instant noodle that are manufactured and mass-marketed in Cambodia. If you need coffee, razor blades, toothpaste, batteries, and other consumer staples, you’ll have to settle for imports. Even though we have a huge garment industry, you won’t find many clothing with “Made in Cambodia” labels here. The finest Khmer-made garments are shipped to places like the US and Europe while inferior goods are imported from Thailand for domestic use.
If ordinary Khmers would only give value to our own goods, that might encourage Khmer entrepreneurs to build manufacturing plants to make them domestically. The government can do its part by offering tax incentives to Khmer manufacturers while implementing some trade restrictions on imports to help our own manufacturers.
The $3.2 billion that would otherwise go to grow the economies of Thailand, Vietnam and China would lead to the creation of millions of jobs for Khmer people. More jobs means more demand for labor. More demand for labor means higher wages. Higher wages means less poverty and higher standards of living for everyone.
Meanwhile, a flourishing economy based on manufacturing and agriculture provides a major source of tax revenues for the government. More employment opportunities in the private sector will further encourage some civil servants and police and military personnel to leave the public sector, freeing up more public funds to increase the wages of existing government employees, thereby REDUCING CORRUPTION.
So what is it going to be? Are we going to drink Johnie Walker or Angkor Beer? Are we going to eat Mama Instant Noodle (Siam) or Mee Yerng? Are we going to make it a habit to prefer and demand Khmer-made goods, so that others have an incentive to produce them?
As you can see, it doesn’t take much to change the world. But we must take the first step ourselves, rather than constantly crying foul and relying on others to walk the walk for us. Some people like to call for a revolution to solve our problems, but they forget to do the little things that matter.