Why Russia will not write off Cambodia's $1.5 billion debt

[geovalin]

 

Gleb Fedorov, RBTH

Despite the fact that ASEAN countries now occupy a key place in the updated Russian Foreign Policy Concept, Moscow’s economic ties with Phnom Penh remain stagnant. Experts attribute this to the unresolved debt issue. Cambodia has repeatedly asked Russia to forgive its Soviet-era debt of $1.5 billion. 20/01/17

November 23, 2015. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, center, is welcomed at Phnom Penh International Airport during his working visit to the Kingdom of Cambodia. Source: Alexander Astafyev/RIA Novosti

It is not quite clear why Russia refrains from writing off the $1.5 billion in debt that it is owed by Cambodia, an informed source familiar with Moscow’s ASEAN policy-making told RBTH.  

The source noted that despite this vexing problem, bilateral relations witnessed a positive trend in 2016. “The parties are attempting to settle the issue of the debt and it will not be a simple write off,” he says. “Russia wants to solve the issue towards the benefit of Russian businesses.”

 

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Russia is not the only country that is unwilling to cancel Cambodia’s debt, according to Nadezhda Bektimirova, who holds a doctorate in historical sciences from Moscow State University. “The U.S. refused to write off a much smaller sum of  $300 million,” she says, agreeing that that the debt is a tool for getting future preferences for Russian businesses. 

“This was confirmed during a meeting of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, when the former offered to cover part of the debt with the supply of Cambodian products and convert another part into a mechanism that provides preferential treatment for Russian companies in Cambodia,” Bektimirova adds.

Since the establishment of Soviet-Cambodian relations in 1950s, the USSR and the Southeast Asian country maintained strong contacts in the areas of education, science, culture and health. The peak of this cooperation was in the 1980s, when the Soviet Union gave Cambodia full-scale economic and military assistance.

Medvedev's visit in 2015

 

read more http://rbth.com/business/2017/01/20/why-russia-will-not-write-off-cambodias-15-billion-debt_685201

[BuaBS]

Debt should NEVER be written off.

[F4UCorsair]

Dance with the devil.......there is a price to pay.

[Baerboxer]

Wonder where all that money went?

[soalbundy]

2 hours ago, BuaBS said:

Debt should NEVER be written off.

mine should be

[elgordo38]

2 hours ago, F4UCorsair said:

Dance with the devil.......there is a price to pay.

Just wait till the Chinese piper must be paid. All the poor countries in the world are in their debt. That is on top of the previous debt they owed and thus it becomes compound debt. 

[F4UCorsair]

2 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

Wonder where all that money went?

 

Let me see......having worked in Cambodia for some time, I can say, with some authority, based on observations, that it didn't go to any cause that would have benefited the Cambodian people.

 

They seem remarkably happy as a people though, in spite of their government, and the atrocities of the past.

Edited January 23, 2017 by F4UCorsair

[Briggsy]

What you gonna do for me then, Cambo??

[mrfill]

10 hours ago, BuaBS said:

Debt should NEVER be written off.

Especially the $19 trillion the US owns and for the new president to ask creditors to accept 85% is offensive. They should pay it back immediately.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/10/news/economy/us-debt-ownership/

[spidermike007]

Hun Sen could pay that debt off with one years earnings. His fortune is enormous. And it has been earned on the backs of his people. With the tacit endorsement of the US. Though they object to Thailand due to the junta, they endorse Burma, and Cambodia, even though they are still more or less controlled by despot leaders.