page_title: Chinese Cambodian
section_title: Trade and industry
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese Cambodian / Trade and industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Vladimir Putin met with Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen on the sidelines of the Russia-ASEAN summit.
context_page_description: Chinese Cambodians or Sino-Khmers, are Cambodian citizens of Chinese or partial Chinese descent. The Khmer term Khmer kat Chen is used for people of mixed Cambodian and Chinese descent while Khmer Chen can mean Cambodian-born citizen of Chinese ancestry. Khmer people constitute the largest ethnic group in Cambodia among whom Chen means "Chinese". Contact with ethnic Chinese people such as envoys, merchants, travelers and diplomats who regularly visited Indochina verifiably existed since the beginning of the common era. However the earliest record of an ethnic Chinese community in Cambodia dates to the 13th century. As a result of a century-long settlement history people with mixed Chinese and Khmer ancestry account for a sizable portion of the population.
  Chinese Cambodians also play a leading role in Cambodia's business sector and dominate the Cambodian economy today. In addition, Chinese Cambodians have a strong presence in Cambodia's political scene with many high ranking government officials and much of the political elite being of partial Chinese descent.
context_section_description: Like much of Southeast Asia, ethnic Chinese dominate Cambodian commerce at every level of society. Entrepreneurial savvy Chinese have literally taken over Cambodia's entire economy. Ethnic Chinese wield tremendous economic clout over their indigenous Khmer majority counterparts and play a critical role in maintaining the country's economic vitality and prosperity. The ethnic Chinese community is one of the most socioeconomically and politically influential and powerful communities in Cambodia. The community dominates the entire Cambodian business sector and is economically prosperous relative to their indigenous Khmer counterparts. With their powerful economic prominence, the Chinese virtually make up the country's entire wealthy elite. Within this structure, Cambodia as a plural society where one's place in the economic structure depends on one's ethnic background. Furthermore, the Chinese Cambodians "not only form a distinct ethnic community, they also form, by and large, an economic class: the commercial middle and upper class in contrast to the poorer indigenous Khmer majority working and underclass, who have traditionally looked down on commerce.
  Chinese economic dominance of Cambodia dates back the pre-French colonial kingdoms where Chinese merchants often maintained patron-client relationships with the Khmer monarchy. William Willmot, a Sinologist at the University of British Columbia estimates that 90 percent of the Chinese in Cambodia were involved in commerce in 1963. Playing a crucial economic role in the country, the Chinese control almost all of Cambodia's internal trade and substantial portion of the manufacturing including rice-milling and transportation sectors. Today, an estimated 60 percent are urban dwellers engaging in commerce while the rest of the rural population work as shopkeepers, processors of food products (such as rice, palm sugar, fruit, and fish), and moneylenders. Throughout Cambodian cities, Chinese dominated numerous industries such as retail, hospitality, export-import trade, light, food processing, soft drinks, printing and machine shops.  In addition, virtually all of Cambodia's richest people are of Chinese descent. Rural Chinese businessmen operated general shops that provided ethnic Khmer peasants with essential purchases such as farming supplies, groceries imported from China, sampots and sarongs, bamboo baskets, perfume, kerosene for lamps, alcohol as well as tobacco. Those in the Kampot Province and parts of Kaoh Kong Province cultivate black pepper and fruit (especially rambutans, durians, and coconuts). Additionally, rural Chinese Cambodians also engaged in salt water fishing. In the 19th century, French colonials allowed Chinese-run businesses to flourish due to their laissez faire capitalist policies. Willmott estimated that the ethnic Chinese controlled 92 percent of the Cambodian economy by the mid-20th century. They traded in urban areas and worked as shopkeepers, moneylenders and traditional healers in rural areas, while Chinese farmers controlled Cambodia's lucrative Kampot pepper industry. Chinese Cambodian moneylenders wield considerable economic power over the poorer indigenous ethnic Khmer peasants through usury at an interest rate of 10 to 20 percent per month. This might have been the reason why seventy-five percent of the peasants in Cambodia were in debt in 1952, according to the Australian Colonial Credit Office. Chinese Cambodian entrepreneurs are also estimated to control 70 percent of the industrial investment and are actively engaged in trading, real estate development, construction, small-scale manufacturing, alcohol distilling, hospitality, fast food restaurants, and food processing. Ethnic Chinese also dominate the silk weaving industry where key commercial positions in the Cambodian silk trading networks are completely held in Chinese hands.
  Cambodia's rice milling industry is completely under Chinese hands and wield a complete monopoly on rice distilling. At the turn of the 20th century, Cambodia's rice mills was completely controlled by the Chinese an
caption: Hun Sen’s pragmatic, capitalist-oriented vision of rebuilding Cambodia has been an impetus for attracting an influx of foreign capital investment, particularly from Mainland China.
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