Cambodia's exports increase as economy set to grow 5 pct

PHNOM PENH, Amid predictions that Cambodia' s economy will grow by around 5 percent this year, exports in the first nine months of 2010 have increased year-on-year by 20.97 percent to 2.536 billion U.S. dollars, local media reported on Friday, citing figures from the Ministry of Commerce.

Imports over the same period experienced a more modest rise, increasing by just 1.3 percent to 3.439 billion U.S. dollars, the figures show.

The Cambodia Daily quoted Kong Putheara, director of the trade department at the Ministry of Commerce as saying that China, Vietnam and China's Hong Kong are currently the biggest importers of goods to Cambodia, while Cambodia's biggest export markets are the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands.

Putheara said that even though most of the recovery in exports following the economic financial crisis had come from garments, there was a lot of expectation that rice would help decrease Cambodia's trade deficit in the coming years.

Still, exports to neighboring Thailand and Vietnam during the first half of the year actually decreased while exports to China and South Korea only experienced slight gains, the daily reported.

In the first three quarters of the year, Cambodia exported 29.3 million U.S. dollars of cassava, 55.9 million U.S. dollars of rubber and 54,662 U.S. dollars of pepper, while garment exports reached 2.26 billion U.S. dollars.

The largest import items consisted of textiles and petroleum, which amounted to 1.62 billion U.S. dollars and 419 million U.S. dollars, respectively, it said.