Cambodia: Between Pentium and Penicillin?

Cambodia is, perhaps, one of the latest entrants to the club of developing countries that shifted from the import-substituting growth strategy and embraced the outward-oriented growth path. But, as compared to other countries, the task that Cambodia had to undertake has been undoubtedly more arduous because the reformers had to inherit a devastated and destabilized economy.1 The rest of the world, however, has been highly sympathetic to the cause of Cambodia as evident from the formation of International Committee for Reconstruction of Cambodia (ICORC), through which several governments pledged around $2.3 billion for the period 1992–96. Bretton Woods Institutions also helped in macroeconomic stabilization followed by a package of structural adjustment beginning from 1994 (Kannan 1997). Moreover, Cambodia emerged as a major action point for most of the leading NGOs in the world. As a result, notwithstanding the difficult task at hand and the rocky road that the country had to traverse, the achievements during the last decade appear remarkable.