The first stock market will be open soon in Cambodia. It was actually scheduled to be established late last year. But as one may notice, it has been delayed.
Having started working regularly, I have set aside more or less nowadays. It may be time for me to begin to consider how to manage my money.
I first got interested in financial management when I was 20 year old, and lost all of my earnings (though it was very small amount) in a stock market. Since that time, I have been looking at stock and foreign currency exchange markets to gain a sense of investment and financial management.
Cambodia was also at the centre of my interests. Through my development career, I have been thinking about not only country’s poverty but also its potential on business. Then, I found that this poorest country had the largest potential in terms of economic growth for some reasons including:
1. Quality and Quantity of Labour Forces: the country experienced the most notorious era of mass killing genocide in the late 1970s. One-third of the whole population were killed off with the particular target of educated people with knowledge and special skills such as doctors, journalists, teachers, researchers etc. This serious loss of life and human capital has slowed the country’s economic development. But now, after one generation from that era, the population is increasing rapidly and people are more educated.
2. Political Stability: after the year of 1998, Cambodia has had almost no domestic conflict at all. Surely, there are still problems about corruption and unstable relationship with Thailand. Other than that, its governance seems to be very much stable and be favour of its economic development. In fact, its economic growth rate has kept around 7 % on average per annum for the past decade.
3. Natural Resources: Cambodia is full of natural resources such as: the Mekong River, mineral mining, and well-fertilised agricultural land, port and railways (to be constructed soon).
Taking these factors into serious consideration, there would be no reasons the country’s development stop except for political risks. Anyway the stock market will be open in this year.
