About this blog
What is this blog about?
While data can never tell the whole story, I believe it has the power to reveal some fascinating trends, especially if taken in the context of the broader historical, political, as well as geographical context.
I hope to present and explain the extent, direction and ambition of Cambodia's economic growth and development in the most recent decades, from a variety of angles. In this sense, I discuss general metrics such as GDP per capita, as well as numbers related to very specific investment areas that I consider crucial for a long-term, sustainable growth of any economy, such as government expenditure on education.
In making this blog, I am using primarily readily available data such as data published by the World Bank. All of the analysis and commentary are my own. In particular, I chose to make comparison with countries belonging to the regional ASEAN economic group, as well as World Bank's income cohorts. I tend to exclude from this analysis Singapore, which both in absolute economic terms, as well as trajectory of development surpasses the remaining member countries of ASEAN that in practice it has a skewing effect on average values we consider for comparison purpose.
Who is this site for?
I hope to inform and inspire anyone who would like to understand Cambodia - not only as an economic entity in a certain income group, or a member of an economic alliance like ASEAN; but more importantly as a country which has gone a long way and whose economic growth in the recent decades is comparable to that of its neighbors, despite a recent history of violent internal conflict and foreign occupation.
It would make me really happy if other researchers in particular found my analysis somewhat useful or at the very least - an inspiration for further research into Cambodia which I call my second home.
The data used and presented in this blog is publicly available and I include links to the original sources where relevant. At the same time, the analysis and commentary are mine. Feel free to quote, paraphrase or otherwise use what you find here, but if you do please give credit to myself.
About me
My name is Gyubin Han. I am a senior currently studying in Northbridge International School Cambodia. I am writing this blog as a passion project to dive in, understand, and share insights on Cambodia’s economic development with others.
I spent 13 years (well over half) of my life in Cambodia, but it was only after I started looking into the statistics and numbers that a fascinating picture of Cambodia's remarkable economic growth in the past 30 years has started to emerge before my eyes.
Cambodia went through extremely turbulent and painful history of the ruthless Khmer Rouge regime, a dictatorship that led to deaths of a quarter of Cambodia's population in the seventies, followed by long occupation by Vietnamese forces that only ended in 1989.
Ever since, Cambodia has managed, albeit admittedly not without hiccups along the way, to achieve stunning economic growth, achieving in terms of GDP per capita a level well above what World Bank defines as "low income countries average" (see my analysis here).
I hope you enjoy the read, and if you would like to get in touch, feel free to drop me an email.