[Tlc] C-economy

[justinm at ucr.edu]

FYI.
Thanks,
justin

Boom time hits Cambodia, but not all are smiling
Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:34pm EST

By Ed Cropley

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - After decades of war and upheaval,
including the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields", Cambodia is
enjoying an unprecedented boom, its economy expanding at
around 10 percent annually for the last five years.

But the breakneck growth, fuelled mainly by garment
manufacturing, tourism and real estate development, is turning
its once-sleepy capital into a building site and forcing many
ordinary Khmers from their homes.

"I will move only when they pay me enough to find another
place to live," said 49-year-old Ngay Tun, a fisherwoman
living on Boeung Kak, a 120 hectare (300 acre) city-centre
lake about to be drained and filled in to make way for a
housing project.

"I worry about it every day, that they are going to come
suddenly in the night to kick us out," she said, paddling a
small wooden boat through floating banks of morning glory.
While the outlook for the garment industry and tourism appears
solid -- especially while the U.S. dollar, Cambodia's de facto
currency, continues to fall -- the same cannot be said for
real estate, where prices are spiraling to dizzy heights. ...
Full story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSBKK478020080129?sp=true

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu