World Bank Sees Challenges to Government Income Target
Cambodia appears unlikely to meet its target of becoming a high middle-income nation by 2030 and years of gains it has made reducing poverty could be erased by even a modest shock to the economy, according to the latest World Bank data.
World Bank senior country economist Enrique Aldaz-Caroll said Wednesday that the government had done “phenomenal” work reducing the country’s poverty rate. He was speaking at the start of a two-day forum in Phnom Penh on Cambodia’s quest for middle-income status hosted by the Cambodia Development Resource Institute, a local think tank.
The official poverty rate has dropped from 53 percent of the population in 2004 to 20 percent today. But Mr. Aldaz-Caroll warned that even a small drop in per capita consumption of 1,000 riel, or about $0.25, a day would quickly wipe most of those gains away. …
While the ranks of the middle class have doubled between 2004 and 2011, those not in poverty but close to it have also grown dramatically over the same period from 35 percent to 56 percent of the population. That, the World Bank economist said, means 3 in 4 Cambodians are still either poor or very nearly so. …
Undaunted, the government has set itself the ambitious goal of moving from low income status to high middle-income status by 2030. Based on the World Bank’s definitions, that would mean raising gross nation income (GNI) per capita from $880 today, according to the World Bank’s figures, to just over $4,000.
Mr. Aldaz-Caroll said Cambodia could hit low middle-income status, set at $1,026, as soon as 2015. But even at the bank’s most optimistic projections of steady 8 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth, he said, Cambodia still would not hit high middle-income status by 2030. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/world-bank-sees-challenges-to-government-income-target-45405/
