Cambodia drafts PPP programme
In order to meet Cambodia’s starving need for infrastructure born out of high-octane economic growth, the government is now aggressively developing the foundation of its own public-private partnership (PPP) programme.
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Cambodia currently needs between $12 billion and $16 billion to build infrastructure for its expanding economy, which grew 7 per cent in 2012 and is expected to remain the second fastest growing economy in the region over the next few years, according to the World Bank.
In the impoverished Southeast Asian nation where memories of genocide still linger with those in the middle age, the most imperative projects have been identified as schools, hospitals and innovative social sector infrastructure.
Malnutrition is an insidiously destructive force for the economy’s productivity, a reality these projects plan to target. About 40 per cent of Cambodian children are stunted from poor health, while the prevalence of wasting among children rose from 8.4 per cent to 10.9 per cent between 2005 and 2010, according to the ADB’s Asian Outlook 2013 report.
The Cambodian authorities are currently strengthening the environment for PPPs by compiling an ambitious range of initiatives under way to address legal, regulatory and institutional shortcomings, along with a technical assistance grant provided by the ADB. International Enterprise Singapore has also joined hands with the ADB to develop PPP programmes in ASEAN.
Yet transparency in Cambodia remains a perennial fact of life. Cambodia has fallen prey to so-called “scalper developers,” who in turn promise the impoverished nation vanity projects that often stall. The opaque conditions under which these deals are done means that public spending is little accounted for a susceptible to becoming lucrative kick-backs.
[caption id="attachment_9401" align="alignleft" width="300"] Cambodia's infrastructure is in need of improvement[/caption] In order to meet Cambodia’s starving need for infrastructure born out of high-octane economic growth, the government is now aggressively developing the foundation of its own public-private partnership (PPP) programme. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Cambodia currently needs between $12 billion and $16 billion to build infrastructure for its expanding economy, which grew 7 per cent in 2012 and is expected to remain the second fastest growing economy in the region over the next few years, according to the World Bank. In the impoverished Southeast Asian nation...
In order to meet Cambodia’s starving need for infrastructure born out of high-octane economic growth, the government is now aggressively developing the foundation of its own public-private partnership (PPP) programme.
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Cambodia currently needs between $12 billion and $16 billion to build infrastructure for its expanding economy, which grew 7 per cent in 2012 and is expected to remain the second fastest growing economy in the region over the next few years, according to the World Bank.
In the impoverished Southeast Asian nation where memories of genocide still linger with those in the middle age, the most imperative projects have been identified as schools, hospitals and innovative social sector infrastructure.
Malnutrition is an insidiously destructive force for the economy’s productivity, a reality these projects plan to target. About 40 per cent of Cambodian children are stunted from poor health, while the prevalence of wasting among children rose from 8.4 per cent to 10.9 per cent between 2005 and 2010, according to the ADB’s Asian Outlook 2013 report.
The Cambodian authorities are currently strengthening the environment for PPPs by compiling an ambitious range of initiatives under way to address legal, regulatory and institutional shortcomings, along with a technical assistance grant provided by the ADB. International Enterprise Singapore has also joined hands with the ADB to develop PPP programmes in ASEAN.
Yet transparency in Cambodia remains a perennial fact of life. Cambodia has fallen prey to so-called “scalper developers,” who in turn promise the impoverished nation vanity projects that often stall. The opaque conditions under which these deals are done means that public spending is little accounted for a susceptible to becoming lucrative kick-backs.
