‘I Borrowed Until I Was Poor’

[geovalin]

Khmer Times/James Reddick

As the country’s economy expands, lines of credit continue to reach further, including to this rural village, where the dull crack of a hatchet splitting bamboo fills the air at all hours. In Tamol village in Kampong Cham Province, families have taken the same gamble as more than half of the households in the country: to take out loans from microfinance institutions in the hopes of a better life.

Microfinance credit in Cambodia is booming. In the first nine months of this year, MFIs lent nearly $2.7 billion. Micro-credit has transformed lives here in Tamol; many for the better, but some for the worse. Residents say that entire families unable to pay their debts have fled debt collectors. Everyone Khmer Times spoke with had a cocktail of loans from various microfinance institutions, big banks like Acleda and from informal moneylenders with exorbitant interest rates.

“I borrowed until I was poor,” said Nal Simath. She is one of the many Cambodians who have taken out loans from a bank or micro-finance lender in order to pay back existing loans.

read more: http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/17509/---i-borrowed-until-i-was-poor---/

[SOTIRIOS]

...bravo for them....here they have hoodlums lending money....and suffocating the borrowers...