Cambodia’s trade deficit with the rest of the world continued to widen last year to $5.2 billion, as the Kingdom’s imports outstripped its exports once again, a National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) report released on Saturday said.
The NBC figures revealed that the Kingdom imported $18.8 billion worth of goods last year while it exported only $13.6 billion. The central bank’s figures showed that the year-on-year growth rate of import value was 21.3 per cent last year, while exports were 21 per cent.
“The increasing demand for goods such as construction materials, vehicles, food-related goods, as well as the increasing price of imported oil and more demand for raw materials for the manufacturing sector, are the main factors accelerating imports,” NBC said in its report.
Cambodia’s trade deficit last year amounted to $5.2 billion – a 22 per cent increase on $4.27 billion in 2017 said the report. The Kingdom’s trade deficit in 2015 and 2016 amounted to $3.94 billion and $3.84 billion respectively.
