Food Imports See Big Jump

CAMBODIA’S total food and beverage imports jumped 28 percent year-on-year through June to US$74 million, as domestic demand continued to outpace the Kingdom’s production capacity. The demand comes as Cambodia’s economy regains momentum following the global financial crisis, said officials at the Ministry of Commerce, who released the figures late last week. Now the country is looking to regional partners such as Vietnam, Thailand, China and South Korea for supply, officials said. “We have to import these kinds of products to supply the market because our production is not enough to meet the rising demand,” said Kong Putheara, director of the Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Statistics, on Friday. However, the inflation affecting these partners is also being imported, and he said the Kingdom had few options to combat the problem in the short term. The National Bank of Cambodia this month decided against raising banks’ reserve requirements as a way to fight inflation, which the central bank projected would be 6.5 percent in 2011. The International Monetary Fund expects the same level of inflation this year.

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