World Bank cuts growth outlook to 6%

Devastating floods as well as the economic slowdown in Europe and the US have prompted the World Bank to lower its outlook for Cambodia’s economic growth this year to 6 percent, down from a previous projection of 6.8 percent. In its economic update for the region released yesterday, the World Bank said that the revised gross domestic product figure for Cambodia was largely due to the blow suffered by the agricultural sector, which accounts for a third of the country’s economy. “The flood damaged hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice seedlings, paddy rice plantations and other agricultural crops,” the World Bank said in the report. Originally projected to grow by nearly 4 percent, the agriculture sector is now expected to increase by just 1.5 percent this year…