By Anne-Laure Porée
On Line Opinion
Defying the gloom descending on the tourism sector brought about by the global crisis, the capital’s airport recently launched a hopeful initiative: a new airline. Cambodia Angkor Air was launched to boost tourism between the capital and Siem Reap near the famed ruins of Angkor Wat. With tourist arrivals falling sharply since late last year, this may signal a triumph of hope over reality. If anything, the hopes and fears surrounding Cambodia’s tourist revenue and garment trade underline how the fortune of the country has become intertwined with the larger world.
Since peace came to Cambodia in the last years of the last century, the country has emerged as a poster child of globalisation in South-East Asia. In the middle of this decade, Cambodia enjoyed double digit growth and even hoisted itself up to 6th place in the rank of the fastest growing economies for the 1998-2007 period.
And now the country is experiencing the downside of dependence on the world. The sectors most affected by the crisis - tourism and garment export - are the ones that have seen the most development thanks to the integration of Cambodia into the global economy a decade ago, after peace was restored in the country.
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