Cambodia’s GDP to see negative growth in 2020: IMF
Phnom
Penh (VNA) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted
that Cambodia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will experience a negative growth of 1.7
percent in 2020 due to social distancing measures to contain the
COVID-19 pandemic.
If
the prediction comes true, the Cambodian economy will grow negatively for the
first time since IMF began assessing the economy in 1988.
In
a more optimistic scenario, IMF believes that if COVID-19 vaccine is produced
and used in the second half of this year, the global and Cambodian economies
will increase 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively.
The
report “Great Lockdown” by IMF released on April 16 indicated that the
economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was the worst since the
2008-2009 global financial crisis – the time Cambodia’s
economic growth was 0.1 percent.
Since
1998, Cambodia has experienced quite high economic growths with a yearly average
growth of 8 percent. The poverty rate plummeted to 10 percent in 2019 from 53
percent in 2004. Other areas such as education and health have also improved
significantly.
To
ease the economic shock caused by the pandemic, the Cambodian government has announced
a 2-billion-USD budget package to
support pillar sectors of the national economy, including agriculture and banking, and help workers in garment and tourism who lost jobs./.