AKP Phnom Penh, December 21, 2018 --

Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. (AFC), a young financial corp. based in Hong Kong has shared its positive projection about Cambodia's economic growth next year.

According to the AFC Asia Frontier Fund's projection, Cambodia’s GDP growth is expected to be 7% in 2019, similar to 2018.

The country continues to be the recipient of robust FDI from private and government-related Chinese and Japanese companies with a focus on manufacturing and infrastructure. 

The country is also projected to see a further increase in tourist arrivals as its main cities become more interconnected regionally, by both land and air. There are plans for an expressway between the capital, Phnom Penh, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the construction of a Chinese-funded airport in the casino and industrial town of Poipet at the border with Thailand, as well as the addition of new flight routes to the port and beach resort town of Sihanoukville.

Due to the rapid influx of foreign investment over the past several years, Cambodia’s property market is in need of a pause as prices in certain areas of Phnom Penh are nearing those in the central business district of Bangkok and could pose a potential risk to the economy in the short-term. “Cambodia in 2018 followed Ukraine (+82.3% in USD) with a +32.6% performance, making it the second best performing stock market in the world. Many of the stocks are fairly valued and we do not expect a continued rally in 2019,” it underlined.

In the context of trade war, 2018 was a turbulent year for global markets with a number of headwinds such as the China-U.S. trade war, rising U.S. interest rates as well as geopolitical uncertainties, but Cambodia is one of the nations getting some benefits from that.

Based on the AFC Asia Frontier Fund, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and Myanmar are also expected to be long-term beneficiaries of a protracted trade war. This is a very important trend for the growth.

Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. is a pioneering fund management company based in Hong Kong that specialises in investing in high growth Asian frontier economies by managing the AFC Asia Frontier Fund , AFC Iraq Fund and the AFC Vietnam Fund.

The AFC Asia Frontier Fund invests in public equities of Asian frontier countries that are seeing increasing consumption due to favorable demographic trends, rising incomes and high GDP growth. The fund invests in listed equities of companies that have their principal business activities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka,  Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

By Khan Sophirom