Workforce Must Improve to Compete in Asean Bloc
Cambodia’s workforce must quickly improve its skills base if it is to compete with other countries in the region when the Asean bloc becomes a single market in 2015, officials said yesterday at a seminar held in Phnom Penh. When the Asean Economic Community goes ahead in less than three years, barriers on the movement of people, capital and goods are supposed to be lifted. But with Cambodia’s workforce still unskilled, experts say Cambodians in the job market could lose out to better-trained workers from other countries in Asean. Cambodia is crying out for more people trained in vocations such as engineering and mechanics. … By the year 2015, Cambodia also aims to eliminate all tariffs on goods entering and leaving the country . Economists say that entering into a free market could place a lot of pressure on Cambodia’s exports, which currently lack diversity.
