The World Bank on Sept. 28 released a new report claiming that Cambodia needs to focus on expanding trade and investment, as well as job creation, if it is to recover economically from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 52-page report, entitled “From Containment to Recovery: World Bank October 2020 Economic Update for East Asia and the Pacific” was released on Sept. 28 and forecast negative growth of -2 percent for Cambodia’s economy this year.
While this may be the sharpest economic contraction in recent history for Cambodia, the World Bank paints a much less gloomy picture than the Asian Development Bank (ADB) did last week, where they predicted a -5.5 percent decline for the economy—a stark contrast to the government’s own predictions of -1.9 percent shrinkage for 2020.
