​Enhancing trade is a key focus in Cambodia’s National Strategic Development Plan of 2010, which sets out a number of policies to promote export competitiveness and growth. The success of these policies will depend to a large extent on the global trade patterns shaping the opportunities that Cambodia faces.

Our analysis suggests that over the next 10 years, global trade patterns will be transformed by climate change, international mitigation, and natural-resource scarcity, resulting in an inevitable shift over time to a low-carbon global economy. This study has been asking what this might look like. What impact will it have on Cambodia’s competitiveness and growth? What threats and opportunities will it create? And how should policy-makers and businesses respond?

This report examines how these issues could play out in Cambodia over the next decade, particularly focusing on the energy, tourism and manufacturing sectors. It has identified potential opportunities and threats to Cambodia’s competitiveness and growth, and possible policy responses.

Karen Ellis, Jodie Keane, Alberto Lemma and Lonn Pichdara