Cambodia Bolts Into Its New Normal

The road ahead is long and lonely for Cambodia, with Chinese largess checked by the pandemic and Western interests soured by pre-pandemic crackdowns.

Cambodia has raced ahead in opening-up after fully vaccinating about 80 percent of its population, with Prime Minister Hun Sen declaring he was confident that “we won’t have another outbreak” of COVID-19.

It was a bold prediction amid the economic concerns of the business elites, who control much of the formal economy in the one-party state, and are pining to refill their coffers.

Foreign investment has collapsed to not much and the pandemic to date is expected to cost about 6 million jobs in the informal economy, which analysts say accounts for about 80 percent of the country’s GDP, drawn from a population of 16.5 million people.

In full: https://thediplomat.com/2021/11/cambodia-bolts-into-its-new-normal/

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