I'm trying to restrain myself and not put a link to everything I read about what's happening here these days, but here is just one more article :Kids get no free breakfast
And one more : BBC: How to solve the global food crisis. An interesting article, and people can comment at the bottom of it- there are interesting comments!
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Monday, May 05, 2008
Cooking gas!
My mother in law now has cooking gas! For awhile (a few weeks I think) she didn't have any and so was cooking outside using charcoal. Cambodia used to buy gas from a near by country but around the same time we stopped exporting rice, they stopped selling us gas. The price of gas in Phnom Penh seemed to double overnight, and in the province where she lives they ran out altogether. I think now we are buying it from another country, which is further away. So gas prices are down a bit , but still more than the original price.
If you want to see all the blog post I've written on this whole inflation thing, click on Economy.
If you want to see all the blog post I've written on this whole inflation thing, click on Economy.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Inflation part 2
Last October inflation was starting to become an issue, now it’s become a big issue. Below are just a few things I heard or read over the weekend. Apparently prices in 2008 will be 30% higher than in 2007.
*Yesterday I went to an English language Christian church service. On the hand out there was a note encouraging members of the congregation to consider what kind of pay rise they should be giving their staff.
*Also yesterday was a protest in town against the price increases, click here for photos or here to read a Yahoo News article about it.
*Pork sellers are selling less pork; people can’t afford to buy so much food these days. But sellers of charcoal are having a boom because cooking gas is so expensive.
*Many people from all over Cambodia live in Phnom Penh and work in factories. On the front of the Phnom Penh Post this fortnight is an article about how many are going back to the provinces. The cost of living in the city is becoming too great. Rent, food everything is going up so fast. Apparently there might be a $6 a month wage increase, but people say this is still not enough, it doesn’t reflect the magnitude of inflation. (I think the minimum factory workers wage is $50 per month. And it seems people are here so they can earn money to send to their families in the provinces.)
“Cambodia’s annualised rate of food inflation hit 24% last month- the highest in almost a decade, and one of the highest in the region.” (PP Post, Cat Barton, April 4-17 2008)
*Yesterday I went to an English language Christian church service. On the hand out there was a note encouraging members of the congregation to consider what kind of pay rise they should be giving their staff.
*Also yesterday was a protest in town against the price increases, click here for photos or here to read a Yahoo News article about it.
*Pork sellers are selling less pork; people can’t afford to buy so much food these days. But sellers of charcoal are having a boom because cooking gas is so expensive.
*Many people from all over Cambodia live in Phnom Penh and work in factories. On the front of the Phnom Penh Post this fortnight is an article about how many are going back to the provinces. The cost of living in the city is becoming too great. Rent, food everything is going up so fast. Apparently there might be a $6 a month wage increase, but people say this is still not enough, it doesn’t reflect the magnitude of inflation. (I think the minimum factory workers wage is $50 per month. And it seems people are here so they can earn money to send to their families in the provinces.)
“Cambodia’s annualised rate of food inflation hit 24% last month- the highest in almost a decade, and one of the highest in the region.” (PP Post, Cat Barton, April 4-17 2008)
Friday, April 04, 2008
Inflation
My husband grew up mainly eating rice and prahok, that’s all they could afford. I think many Cambodians are in a similar situation, and they must be having a really hard time at the moment.
Since September prices have been going up faster than usual. In October when we first noticed, it was quite scary.
According to the March SE Globe:
“Consumer price inflation spiked to more than 10% at the end of 2007, over double its average level in the preceding five years.”
“Food prices are under special pressure, with staples such as rice, fish, pork, beef, vegetables and fruit up by over 30% last year, and with the biggest rises in the last few months.”
“Rising fuel prices are adding further pressure, felt both directly and as add-ons to transport and production cost. There is evidence that the trend will continue in 2008.”
South Eastern Globe, March 2008, Philipp Coggan
www.se-globe.com
Just in the last few weeks we’ve been noticing inflation everywhere. Prahok more than doubled it’s price in the last 12 month, I read in the Cambodia Daily on March 18.
Over the next few days I heard people talking about how rice was about to get heaps more expensive. It’s already been increasing in price over the last six months, how will people afford it if it increases more? I was listening to Radio Australia one night and there was a program about the rice shortage in the world at the moment. Lots of countries have stopped exporting rice including India and Australia. The next day (March 26) I read Cambodia had just stopped exporting rice too.
Within days of this happening a bottle of cooking gas went from $20 USD to $40. In October we stopped using our electric kettle and rice cooker. To save money we started doing everything on our two gas hot plates. But now gas has gone up too!
It seemed logical to me that I should give my language helpers a pay rise. When I was explaining this to one of them she thought it was a really strange idea.
“Why? I’ve never heard of this before?” Even though the cost of everything is going up people are still earning the same amount. In some cases earning less- people have less money to spend so are buying less. For example my mother in law sells ready made breakfast food. She gets up around 5am each morning to finish cooking and start selling. Her costs are rising but her customers declining.
For us it may mean that we cut back on some things- like beef and dairy products for example*. But what does it mean for people who couldn’t afford those types of foods to begin with?
This is meant to be just a snap shot of our life, not an economic analysis. There a various reasons why this is all happening. It’s connected to agricultural/environment issues both here and internationally, as well as other things that are happening in the economy and politics. I didn’t mention land prices; these have also been going up faster and faster. If you want to know more you could start with these links : Food inflation, Rice price hike, , some more comments on this and what the BBC has to say about rice in Asia these days.
*Beef and dairy
When I first got to Cambodia 1 litre of UHT milk cost 90cents. Currently the closest shop to us is selling it for 1.55-1.70.
A year ago a kg of beef cost $4. In October it went up to $4.50. Last month it went up to $5.
Since September prices have been going up faster than usual. In October when we first noticed, it was quite scary.
According to the March SE Globe:
“Consumer price inflation spiked to more than 10% at the end of 2007, over double its average level in the preceding five years.”
“Food prices are under special pressure, with staples such as rice, fish, pork, beef, vegetables and fruit up by over 30% last year, and with the biggest rises in the last few months.”
“Rising fuel prices are adding further pressure, felt both directly and as add-ons to transport and production cost. There is evidence that the trend will continue in 2008.”
South Eastern Globe, March 2008, Philipp Coggan
www.se-globe.com
Just in the last few weeks we’ve been noticing inflation everywhere. Prahok more than doubled it’s price in the last 12 month, I read in the Cambodia Daily on March 18.
Over the next few days I heard people talking about how rice was about to get heaps more expensive. It’s already been increasing in price over the last six months, how will people afford it if it increases more? I was listening to Radio Australia one night and there was a program about the rice shortage in the world at the moment. Lots of countries have stopped exporting rice including India and Australia. The next day (March 26) I read Cambodia had just stopped exporting rice too.
Within days of this happening a bottle of cooking gas went from $20 USD to $40. In October we stopped using our electric kettle and rice cooker. To save money we started doing everything on our two gas hot plates. But now gas has gone up too!
It seemed logical to me that I should give my language helpers a pay rise. When I was explaining this to one of them she thought it was a really strange idea.
“Why? I’ve never heard of this before?” Even though the cost of everything is going up people are still earning the same amount. In some cases earning less- people have less money to spend so are buying less. For example my mother in law sells ready made breakfast food. She gets up around 5am each morning to finish cooking and start selling. Her costs are rising but her customers declining.
For us it may mean that we cut back on some things- like beef and dairy products for example*. But what does it mean for people who couldn’t afford those types of foods to begin with?
This is meant to be just a snap shot of our life, not an economic analysis. There a various reasons why this is all happening. It’s connected to agricultural/environment issues both here and internationally, as well as other things that are happening in the economy and politics. I didn’t mention land prices; these have also been going up faster and faster. If you want to know more you could start with these links : Food inflation, Rice price hike, , some more comments on this and what the BBC has to say about rice in Asia these days.
*Beef and dairy
When I first got to Cambodia 1 litre of UHT milk cost 90cents. Currently the closest shop to us is selling it for 1.55-1.70.
A year ago a kg of beef cost $4. In October it went up to $4.50. Last month it went up to $5.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Power
Coming from Australia the land of the drought to Cambodia I was surprised. To keep cool I was told to have lots of cold showers each day, rather than turn on the air con. Why? Air cons use lots of power and power is expensive in Cambodia.
“…an estimated 40% of Cambodians still relying on car batteries as their sole source of power. Those same people are also paying more than most consumers in the world with no respite from rising cost.”
“…Electricity in Cambodia is among the priciest in the region, if not the world.”
South Eastern Globe, Feb 08, Craig Guthrie
www.se-globe.com
We live in the city so we have power. And on top of that we live on the school campus and the school has a generator. So when the power goes off, it comes back on within a few minutes. This last week though the town power has been on and off heaps, and I think the school generator/s must be getting too tired and hot. The power has been off a lot. The meat in our freezer defrosted, so we’ve been eating lots of beef and fish this week!
“…an estimated 40% of Cambodians still relying on car batteries as their sole source of power. Those same people are also paying more than most consumers in the world with no respite from rising cost.”
“…Electricity in Cambodia is among the priciest in the region, if not the world.”
South Eastern Globe, Feb 08, Craig Guthrie
www.se-globe.com
We live in the city so we have power. And on top of that we live on the school campus and the school has a generator. So when the power goes off, it comes back on within a few minutes. This last week though the town power has been on and off heaps, and I think the school generator/s must be getting too tired and hot. The power has been off a lot. The meat in our freezer defrosted, so we’ve been eating lots of beef and fish this week!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Evacuation Plan: Dangerous place to live
This time of year is when my visa and our health insurance is due. The main reason I want health insurance is so I could be evacuated if necessary. If we’re in a bad traffic accident or get a serious case of dengue fever the international doctors here would recommend being medivaced to Thailand.
Apparently it can cost around $20,000USD. I asked around other foreigners what insurance they have, to see if there was a company people recommended. But all the ex-pats I talked to are with organizations so they hadn’t applied themselves.
I found an insurance company that sold international health insurance and bought some last year. However this year we decided to buy membership of an international medical clinic instead, our membership includes an evacuation plan. There are pros and cons of both; it’s hard to know which is the best until you’re in a real situation.
The price of membership has gone up about $200 dollars compared to this time last year. They told me this is due to the fact that Cambodia in now a more dangerous place to live. Traffic accidents have increased, last rainy season there was more Dengue Fever than usual and Bird Flu is an issue. The first 2 I was already well aware of but the only time I think about bird flu is when I break an egg and remember to wash my hands well, and when I see one of the many many chicken flu ads on TV.
Apparently it can cost around $20,000USD. I asked around other foreigners what insurance they have, to see if there was a company people recommended. But all the ex-pats I talked to are with organizations so they hadn’t applied themselves.
I found an insurance company that sold international health insurance and bought some last year. However this year we decided to buy membership of an international medical clinic instead, our membership includes an evacuation plan. There are pros and cons of both; it’s hard to know which is the best until you’re in a real situation.
The price of membership has gone up about $200 dollars compared to this time last year. They told me this is due to the fact that Cambodia in now a more dangerous place to live. Traffic accidents have increased, last rainy season there was more Dengue Fever than usual and Bird Flu is an issue. The first 2 I was already well aware of but the only time I think about bird flu is when I break an egg and remember to wash my hands well, and when I see one of the many many chicken flu ads on TV.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
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