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ploys 450 people—and has gained a local following for being Cambodian owned and run.
“Business can move very fast,” Kang said over coffee—a $2.40 Americano—at Brown's
airy riverfront store, an artfully converted colonial warehouse built in the 1890s. “If you
have an idea and you work hard for it, I think it's possible to start something here.”
The success of Brown speaks to the social and economic changes that have gripped
Cambodia's capital during a recent surge in economic growth. Between 1998 and 2007
Cambodia's gross domestic product grew by nearly 10 percent per year—the sixth fastest
2008-09, the upward trend resumed. In 2004 one out of every two Cambodians was liv-
ing in poverty, according to the World Bank; by 2011 the figure had dropped to one in
from $240 in 1993 to what was a projected $1,000 by the close of 2013, and spawning
a small middle class with the disposable income to spend on cars, motorbikes, and con-
sumer electronics like smartphones and iPads. Cambodia is now on the verge of admis-
sion into the World Bank's club of “lower middle-income” countries.
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In many ways this is a remarkable accomplishment. When Cambodia's civil war ended
in the late 1990s, roads and infrastructure remained in a state of near-collapse and eco-
nomic indicators, especially in areas wracked by years of fighting, languished at pre-1970
levels. But Hun Sen's Cambodia has come full circle, from battlefield to marketplace:
today it is one of the most open economies in Asia, where starting a business is relatively
easy and foreign-owned firms can operate without a local partner. The dollarized eco-
nomy, an unintended legacy of the UNTAC years, reduces the risk of exchange rate fluc-
tuations. The government has made other efforts to woo overseas business. Since 1999 it
has hosted a twice-yearly Government Private Sector Forum attended by Hun Sen and his
cabinet, at which investors can air concerns directly to ministers. “They've taken away
the exchange rate risk, they've taken away the foreign ownership risk, there's a large pool
of cheap labor,” said one foreign business figure with ten years' experience in Cambodia.
“You've got a compelling country to do business in.”
Cheap labor, untapped markets, and open economic policies have attracted large in-
flows of foreign investment from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, and
Thailand, which have poured billions into the garment, construction, and tourism sec-
tors—the main drivers of the recent growth. Garment manufacture in particular has been
a huge success: since 1994, the country has built an industry with an export value of $5.5
billion as of 2013, most of its output being exported to the US and the European Union.
The garment sector now employs some 475,000 people and accounts for more than 80
percent of Cambodia's exports, and dozens of apparel factories dot the outskirts of Ph-
visa policies have drawn young entrepreneurs who have opened sophisticated bars and
