“The state has to use money to address the problem,” Prime Minister Hun Manet said. By his count, Cambodia has already spent more than $360 million just to help cover fuel costs and cut taxes on fuel-importing companies.
He was speaking on September 16 at the inauguration of Luang Mer Hospital, and the Phnom Penh Post carried his remarks. Cambodia has taken hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from the economic fallout of the war in the Middle East, through subsidies and measures to hold down fuel prices. More spending is coming, he said, for other hit groups, tuk-tuk drivers in particular.
“That is not all; the costs continue to rise,” Hun Manet said. The government has provided $350 million in subsidies, and that does not yet include the $50 million Electricité du Cambodge spent to keep electricity prices from rising.
A new round of payments
For families across Cambodia, the next step is a fresh programme. Hun Manet said he had just signed off on subsidies for more than one million affected families, tuk-tuk drivers among them. Recipients will get three payments. No eligibility rules or payment dates were given, and he did not say over what period the earlier totals built up.
Money for relief, not rockets
The prime minister cast the spending as a choice. “We have to spend nearly $100 million rather than spend that money buying BM [rockets] to fight. We should use that money to help our people first,” he said. He called such spending necessary and better than “using public funds to wage war or buy bullets to fight against Thailand”.
The state has also paid substantial sums to support displaced people, armed forces and people returning from Thailand after the border conflict began, as well as children affected by it. No headcounts or amounts were given for those groups.
Sources
- Cambodian PM Manet highlights ‘hundreds of millions’ spent to cushion economic impact of Iran war
- Cambodian PM highlights ‘hundreds of millions’ spent to cushion economic impact of Iran conflict
