About 41 percent of the population live on 2 USD per day or less in Cambodia (Photo: adb.org) Phnom Penh (VNA) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan worth 40 million USD and an aid package worth 600,000 USD to help strengthen Cambodia’s financial sector and promote financial inclusion within the country’s unbanked population.
Cambodia’s impressive economic growth in recent years has helped reduce the poverty rate from 47.8 percent in 2007 to 13.5 percent in 2014, according to ADB.
However, many people are still vulnerable to poverty, especially those in rural areas where 90 percent of the poor live, and about 41 percent of the population live on 2 USD per day or less, said the bank.
It also added that financial sector of the Southeast Asian country needs to be further developed, because only 59 percent of the population have access to formal financial services, and about 30 percent of the adult population are excluded from any form of financial services.
The project will help the Cambodian government develop its financial sector and promote inclusive growth, said Hiroyuki Aoki, senior financial specialist at the ADB’s Southeast Asia Department.-VNA
