While governments worldwide spend extravagantly to buffer their economies from the Covid-19 pandemic’s ill-impacts, Cambodia is instead tightening its belt.
Last week, Phnom Penh surprised observers by announcing it would slash next year’s state budget by around 50%, notably at a time regional neighbors like Thailand and Singapore are rolling out richly-financed rescue programs.
Specifics of the austerity cuts are still being devised, but it appears provisionally that officials will bring expenditures down to around US$4 billion in 2021, a massive reduction from the $8.2 billion earmarked for 2020.
In full: https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/pandemic-math-not-adding-up-in-cambodia/
