Cambodia’s trade deficit stands to widen together with a weakening United States dollar, experts have told The Post.
The Kingdom’s trade imbalance stood at US$904 million for the first nine months of the year, according to Ministry of Commerce figures.
Economists said a depreciating American greenback would make imports denominated in other currencies more expensive, increasing the gap between imports and exports.
Cambodia’s largest export market for garments – the largest domestic export industry – is the United States, which pays for its orders in dollars.
Imports, in contrast, are more diverse and are bought in a number of different currencies, many of which are appreciating against the greenback, experts said.
“Although the export price does not change, the import price in dollars is increasing,” Suzuki Hiroshi, chief executive officer of Business Research Institute for Cambodia said.
“In other words … the trade deficit is widening,” he said.
The value of the dollar has declined against most international currencies since the US Federal Reserve announced a plan last week to spend US$600 billion on government bonds over the next year as part of a second round of quantitative easing, dubbed QE2