Responses of Cambodian government to the global crisis (2008)

A lot of the countries around the world suffered from the impact of the global financial crisis which started to take place at the end of 2007 and in the early of 2008. Similarly, Cambodia is also among those countries which got severe impact from that crisis. For example, monthly exports from garment sector in Cambodia fell 50%, from US$250 million in 2008 on average to $100 million in January 2009 (Jalilian, Chan, Reyes, Saing , Phann & Pon, 2009). Additionally, the real GDP of this country also decline noticeably. In order to response to this phenomenon, Cambodian government has implemented three main effective policies to tackle the effect from the global financial crisis.

            The first policy that the Cambodian government did to counterattack with the global financial crisis is implementing the fiscal policy. The Cambodian government has increased its spending on infrastructure, agricultural, and social safety nets in order to increase the demand (Jalilian, Chan, Reyes, Saing , Phann & Pon, 2009). In this way, the increasing of government spending will leads to an increase in the amount of money in circulation which causes an increase in aggregate demand. Additionally, people have few assets left during the financial crisis and thus are income-constrained during such periods; government spending is a way to get income into their hands-income that they are likely to spend immediately (Miller, 2011). As the Cambodian government increased its spending, it will push the aggregate demand backs to its level and fulfilling the recessionary gap (Figure 1).. As a result, the fiscal policy has helped a lot to the Cambodia’s economy during the crisis times.

            As we have known, garment sector is one of the main distributors to the Cambodia’s economy. Cambodia’s garment industry represents 90 percent of the country’s exports and employs more than 300,000 workers by some estimates (Palatino, 2012). During the crisis time, the Cambodian government decided to suspend the 1 percent advance profit tax, and reduced 10 percent in export management fees and other fees. By doing that, the Cambodian government could foresee that that there will be more investments in Cambodia and evade the existing investments from bankruptcy or leave the country. In this respect, a lot of the company around the world was meeting trouble or bankrupt during the crisis time since the demand for most of the products declined markedly. Thus, the decreasing in taxation could induce firms to supply the products and services at the regular level as before. As represented in the figure 2, the decrease in garment’s taxation will help out to push the short-run aggregate supply curve backs to its equilibrium level.

Another policy that the Cambodian government established during the global crisis is strengthening the monetary policy and banking. There were some banks in other countries bankrupt because of the global financial crisis and as a result, those banks could not repay all of the liabilities that they owed to the depositors. There was a tendency that in the near future, some of the Cambodia’s bank would meet that problem too and a lot of depositors in Cambodia’s bank were likely to withdraw their money back in which the bank did not have all of those amounts of money. Hence, the Cambodian government has increased the reserve requirements from 8 percent to 16 percent for deposits and borrowings in order to insure the depositors and stay away from the huge amount of unexpected withdrawals from the depositors that the bank could not afford to repay immediately (Chea, 2009). In addition, the National Bank of Cambodia also limited bank exposure to high risk sectors, especially real estate, by introducing a 15% cap on real estate lending. In this aspect, the price of the real estate had bubbled before the crisis happened and a lot of people borrowed money from the bank to buy houses and lands. As the crisis happened, the price of the real estate had blown out and most of the bank’s loans for real estate could not repay.  Hence, the bank confiscated a lot of houses and lands and sold them at the low price which could not recover the loans that they gave away. As a consequence, many of Cambodia’s bank had lost a lot of their capital during the crisis, but thanks to the monetary policy and banking that helped them to reduced the serious impact. 

In conclusion, the global financial crisis had considerable impacts to many countries around the world and as well as Cambodia. I think that the Cambodian government had done very well to deal with the crisis by implementing some effective policies: fiscal policy, supporting garment sector policy, and strengthening the monetary policy and banking that could reduce the impact from the crisis and curb the GDP of this country from declining. In my opinion, many countries around the world also implemented the same kinds of policy like Cambodia too.  

References

-Chea , C. NATIONAL BANK OF CAMBODIA, (2009). On the occasion of opening the

seminar on cambodian's microfinance amid global financial crisis. Retrieved from

NATIONAL BANK OF CAMBODIA website:

 http://cma-network.org/forum/speeches/HE.Chea chanto-Speech-English.pdf

-Jalilian, H., Chan, S., Reyes, G., Saing , C. H., Phann, D., & Pon, D. (2009, May). Global

financial crisis discussion series. Retrieved from:

http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/4323.pdf

-Miller, R. L. (2011). Economics today. (16 ed., p. 287). Boston: PEARSON.

-Palatino, M. (2012, Feb 21). Cambodia’s fainting workers. Retrieved from:

http://thediplomat.com/asean-beat/2012/02/21/cambodias-fainting-workers/

 

Reflection 2 on Phnom Penh City

This is maybe the last reflection paper that I write in this foundation year for Khmer Studies.  During this foundation year, I am really enjoyed studying Khmer Studies as I could learn about Khmer history, culture, custom, architecture, music, painting, festivals and many more. For this last reflection paper, I choose to write about Phnom Penh city. Phnom Penh city had been mostly destroyed during the 1970s and very few people living in the city during that time (ghost city), whereas, Phnom Penh nowadays is very crowed and much more modernizes than before. Phnom Penh has been the capital city of Cambodia since Angkor Era, but it had been once abandon for 360 years from 1505 to 1865. Later, Khmer king moved the capital city back to Phnom Penh during the French colonize period and it represents as the capital city of Cambodia since then. It has been developed noticeably after the civil war in Cambodia ended.  Below, I will reflect about the improvement of education standard and living condition in this city and the main issue which is happening now in Phnom Penh (land grabbing).

Many people in the countryside in Cambodia are moving to live in Phnom Penh city in order to find a better living standard or education. This illustrates that the living standard and the education system in this city is very good if we compared it to other provinces and cities in Cambodia. I could also see many foreign students studying in Phnom Penh; and many international schools and universities operating each year in this city such as Zaman University (2010). One of my foreign friends told me that he decided to come to study in Phnom Penh because the price of education in this city is much cheaper than his country as well as the price of living. This demonstrates that the education standard and living condition in Phnom Penh is international; together with low price compared to other countries in Europe. I am very proud as I could get an international education standard in my own city or country. However, it will be better if the Cambodia’s government could also develop the education standard and living condition in other provinces or cities in Cambodia as well in order to avoid crowed, which is not good at all. It is rare to see foreign students study at universities or schools outside Phnom Penh city in Cambodia. I can imply that foreign students did not choose to study at other universities or schools at universities or school outside Phnom Penh in Cambodia because the education standard in other provinces and cities in Cambodia is not well developed like in Phnom Penh. Coincidently, it is not safe to have many people just in one city, since there will be more traffic congestions, pollution and crimes. If the Cambodia’s government could improve the education standard and living condition in other provinces and cities, I believe that Phnom Penh will become less crowed, clean, and safe which will  attract more foreigners to visit or study in this city. As more foreigners come to visit or study in this city, it will also improve the economic in this city/country.

For the main issue which is happened nowadays at Phnom Penh city is land grabbing. I could see that many people living in some areas in Phnom Penh city such as Borei Kela and Beoung Kak were forced to move or evict from their homes in order to renovate or develop that areas. Most of the families that were forced to leave their homes in the developing or renovate areas were treated unfairly by the government or private companies which get authority to develop those areas from government. In this respect, they were given improper compensated homes or insufficient household as they have to leave their homes or lands. From this point of view, it shows that the development projects in Phnom Penh are not always good by seeing that a lot of the residents in the developed or renovate areas usually suffer from those projects. The Cambodia’s government should solves this problem as soon as possible since many of the residents in Phnom Penh now is really angry with this issue and there are usually many protestors march around the city recently, which gives a bad eyesight view to the city as Phnom Penh city seems to be unsustainable or in a turmoil. This also leads to the increasing the number of the crimes within this city.

In conclusion, the education standard and living condition in Phnom  Penh has been develop noticeable lately as many universities and schools operates each year in this city. However, the Cambodia’s government should pay more attention to develop the education system and living condition in other parts of the country too in order to avoid many people moving to live in this city which could create many problems such as crimes, pollution, and traffic congestion. Recently, there are a lot of complaints from the residents over the development projects as they have been forced or evict their habitats in order to develop or renovate some areas in Phnom Penh and they were treating unfair as they got improper compensated homes or insufficient households. I suggest that the Cambodia’s government should reconsider about those development projects and treats their residents fairly. Personally, I love to live in Phnom Penh city as this city is much less crowed than any other neighboring countries’ cities such as Bangkok and Ho Chi Min and the people living in this city are very friendly.

Euthanasia: A Person's Right to Die or an Act of a Murder

Euthanasia has been a popular discussion among many people around the world and even I also once had discussed about this issue with my family. According to BBC, Euthanasia is the termination of a very sick person's life in order to relieve them of their suffering ("Ethics of euthanasia," 2012). Euthanasia is illegal in most countries, but there are still some doctors carry out euthanasia. It is hard to decide whether euthanasia is a person’s right to die or an act of murder. However, I think euthanasia is a person’s right to die as long as it is a personal’s choice, a way to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is undergoing severe pain and suffering, and eliminate a burden to other people who take care of the terminal ill patients if patients got an incurable condition.

            To begin with, a person should have a right to decide to die since our bodies are our own. In this way, we should be allowed to do what we want with them and it seems unfair to those who wants to die as we forbid them to live longer than they want. Additionally, even we help or try to keep those who want to die to continue to live on this earth, their mind had already gone and they are just become more and more stressful with their lives. In fact making people go on living when they don't want to violates their personal freedom and human rights ("Ethical problems of," 2012). Furthermore, when one person wants to die by euthanasia, but we forbid them, they will still try other ways to end their lives. Thus, we should allow them to decide to continue to live or to die.

            As a human nature, it is hard to see by eyes for a terminal ill person who is undergoing severe pain and suffering. Why don’t we just help them to end their suffering without any longer pain and let them die peacefully? I find it is also a good deed to help ending the server pain and suffering for a terminal ill person. Very often people call euthanasia 'mercy killing', perhaps thinking of it for someone who is terminally ill and suffering prolonged, unbearable pain ("Ethical problems of," 2012). There is only a little chance for a terminal ill person to get recover and if they could manage to do so, it will take a very long time.  Consequently, euthanasia could help reducing unbearable pain for many patients and the majority of them will thank to euthanasia as they cannot manage to end their lives so.

             It is just a waste of time and money if we keep the patients with an incurable condition. In this respect, people who take care of those patients have to spend a lot of their time taking care of them and coincidently, spending a lot of money for treatment, buying medicine, and feeding the patients. It is better to finish their life earlier in order to reduce their pains and save the resources which needed to take care of those patients. Similarly, it is all right for a rich family to keep the patients or their family members as they have enough financial support and whatever the result is okay for them.  Most of the middle and poor family need to borrow money in order to cover the medical expenses for the patients in the prolong term. The patients can later paid the debt which borrow by their family if they can get recover; however, the majority of them do not recover, so their families have to pay the debt and the patients do not get recover. As a result, we should end up the terminal ill person with severe pain and suffering in order to avoid a prolong burden for the patients’ families. In addition, the patients sometimes also do not want to be dependent on other people. 

            In conclusion, there are many different ideas or perspectives toward euthanasia and most of the main reason people seek euthanasia is unbearable pain. However, euthanasia was ban by the law in most countries, but there are still some circumstances which allow euthanasia to be legal. In my view, euthanasia is a person’s right to die because it is a personal’s choice, an effective way to relieve pain for a terminal ill person, and eliminate a burden for other people.  It is up to each individual to decide whether euthanasia is a person’s right to die or an act of murder. Before making decision, you can imagine that you are in an incurable condition and decide whether you choose euthanasia or keep going on until the end of your life.

References

Ethics of euthanasia – introduction. (2012). Retrieved from

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/introduction.shtml#top

Ethical problems of euthanasia. (2012). Retrieved from

            http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/problems.shtmll

                        Word counted: 812

Mizuno Thay

Social Network: A Virtual Friend or Real Enermy

More and more people around the globe are using social networks and it becomes very popular in this generation. According to online dictionary, social networks are networks of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts ("Dictionary.com," 2012). By the time it becomes more and more popular, many arguments arouse over social networks, whether it is virtual friend or real enemy. For the word “virtual friend” means someone who is in fact does well to you and for “real enemy” means a true person who hates you and wants to harm you ("Dictionary.com," 2012). In other word to the argument, a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts does well to you or it is just harms you. In my opinion, social networks are virtual friend due to three main reasons that it facilitates my life: share and receive information, advertising, and connecting with other people.

             There are many things happening around the world everyday and a lot of people around the globe can receive the information immediately through social networks. In this way, people on social networks are likely to share the information that they got to their friends and other people around the globe. The majority of people on social networks can expose to the information quickly as a lot of people on social networks are like to share information or any interesting events every day on social networks. From this point, we can assume that social networks also serve as a media to spread information.

I always look at the advertising on social network websites as I find it is very interesting rather than on television or other advertising Medias. I also have mentioned above that some people are very busy with their works and they do not want to spend their time with shopping at all, so social networks has helped them a lot since there are a lot of small businesses advertise their products or services on social networks. Many people are shopping through social networks these days and they can save a lot of time by doing these since many small businesses now make most of the products or services available online which includes clothing, furniture, stationary, and many other stuffs. What is more interesting about social network is that, people or customers can buy stuffs or make their payment directly through the social networks as well. Not only do social networks facilitate customers for their shopping, it also allows many small businesses to get into the market quickly. In this respect, many small businesses are beneficial from social networks since they can advertise their products or services for free of charge and coincidently, they can have millions of customers known their businesses in a very short time. As a result, social networks  really help a lot in shopping and advertising for both customers and businesses.

There are millions of people on social networks nowadays such as on face book and twitter, and people can get to know each other very easily through these social networks. Similarly, there are many people in our generation who got more than one thousand friends, and this is because of social networks which allow people to make new friends much easier than the past. In the past, people would know each other when they meet outside only and they seem to not have much contact with many other people far away from them at all, whereas, a lot of people today are vice versa. We could see the potential of social networks which can make people to be more socialized than in the past.  Personally, I also got a couple thousand of friends through social networks and I would not get that much of friends without social networks. Hence, social networks really help a lot people in making new friends. Furthermore, people are really busy nowadays and they do not have much time to keep in touch with their friends or other personal contacts outside at all. Social networks have worked best to solve this problem for many people since people can communicate through social networks easily without spending a lot of time going out together or meet around and they still can communicate with each other through online. Communicate through online also can save more time and spend less money than meeting outside. As a consequent, thanks to social networks that it can maintain people’s relationship with one to another with little less time and money in order to avoid loneliness which could cause a lot of problems to one people or losing contact with our old friends or personal contact .

In conclusion, social networks become more and more popular internationally and it is growing days by days. Social networks are virtual friend rather than real enemy because it helps to connect people and help people to make new friends much easier than before, provides many business opportunities for many small businesses, and spread information around the globe. There will be some people who encounter about the points that I have made for social networks; thus, you should make sure by yourself that social networks do good to you or it is just harm you and other people.

Database software for Banking and Finance Department

There are many different database software available for the banking and financial department to use for the purpose of their work or study. It has been use quite often in this department. Some of the database software is really useful, whereas, other database software seem to be not very popular at all. Databases are commonly designed for three main purposes. These are to organize, store, and retrieve information as efficiently and effectively as possible. Among these three purposes, the retrieve information is probably the most important one. There are two interesting database software which I find it is really useful for banking and finance department and also for my future job: Microsoft Access and and AceMoney.

To begin with, Microsoft Access is one of the programs that come together with Microsoft office programs version 2007 up. This program helps us to store information for referencing, reporting, and analysis. You can also import a large amount of data or information from Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet software and arrange that information in a nicer manner. I find this program is very easy to use; there are many different interesting functions in this program such creating a report with your desire styles, a query, and form. With Microsoft Access, the errors and inconsistencies are very few if we compared it to other spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. Furthermore, you can have a higher productivity by using Microsoft Access. In this way, you need to change only a single record and all other related things in the database, and then you will automatically see the change in the database. This program works in the same manner as many other database software do by storing related information together, and letting you create connections (commonly called relationships) between different things. Consequently, the usage of Microsoft Access seem to be very effective in facilitating the baking and finance works related as the banking and finance department usually concentrate on calculating and arrange data in which this program suitable the most. Financial database software is AceMoney. It is personal financial software which can use on both Mac OS and Microsoft window operating systems. Banking and finance workers can introduce this program for their customers in order to keep track of their own financial. Users can easily organize their personal finance and it will take them a very short time.  Acemoney supports different type account types like checking, savings, credit cards, loans, debt accounts. This program is somewhat similar to Microsoft Money, but it is better than Microsoft Money since it has more functions and easy to use. In this respect, you can use it very easily; even you are not a finance expert. Most of the users will find this program very friendly as it provides all the function which most home users want to do from their home.

In conclusion, database software plays an important role in banking and finance department as most of the works in this department need to use this kind of software a lot. The database software has alleviated the burden of the data works since it can also import the large data from Microsoft Excel. Everybody in this department should start to learn this kind of program if they have not started yet.