A country once suffered from decades of civil war, Cambodia has been undoubtedly basic in economy. Approximately 75 percent of the population remains involved in subsistence farming, and the foreign aid appears to be indispensable to rebuild the economy.

The government, however, has been struggling quite hard to consolidate its economic condition, especially after joining the world of competition, WTO. Cambodian economic reform became precisely visible only after Cambodia and US signed a Bilateral Textile Agreement, which provided Cambodia with quota textile imports to the US. Given that, the vibrant garment industry has offered more than 240,000 jobs and become the most critical pillar on which Cambodia rests.

The textile industry continued to thrive in, constituting the most to the GDP’s growth regardless of the quota termination in 2005. Besides the giant garment industry, Cambodian economy depends in part on another foreign currency earner, tourism industry, whose rapid growth has brought about the positivity to the nation as a whole.

The number of tourists surpassed more than one million in 2005 alone and is expected to increase continually throughout the following years. The potential lies on the fact that this little exotic land richly endows with a wide array of scenic, historical, and cultural attractions.

In 2005, the hidden-treasure of Cambodia was also reported to have been home to the exploitable oil and natural gas deposits lying beneath territorial waters, which is believed to be worth thousands of millions of dollars annually upon commercial extraction. This in turn represents a new light of Cambodian economic strength.