WHEELS START TO TURN IN THE SPECIAL ZONE

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Van So Pors, an 18-year-old from a remote Cambodian village, earns $50 a month assembling bicycles for the European market in a Taiwanese-owned factory in eastern Cambodia, 6km from the Vietnamese border.

Each month for the last four months, $20 of her wages is sent home to her parents and her three younger siblings. “My family is poor so I decided to come to get a job here to help them,” she says as a half-assembled bicycle moves past her on an assembly line.

Ms Pors and the 600 other workers in the factory are the beneficiaries of Cambodia's first operational special economic zone, the Manhattan-Svay Rieng Export Processing Zone, a Taiwanese-run enclave that backers say could eventually include up to 30 factories.
The bicycle factory and a nearby plant with 1,200 workers that produces shoes for Clarks were set up after Europe imposed anti-dumping duties on shoes and bicycles from China and Vietnam.

But for Cambodia they represent the hope that by establishing magnets for much-needed foreign direct investment the country will be able to generate the jobs it needs to absorb the estimated 300,000 young Cambodians who are entering the workforce each year.

Located mainly near the country's borders with more prosperous neighbours Vietnam and Thailand, the zones are intended to overcome infrastructure bottlenecks and to smooth investors' interaction with notorious bureaucracy.

“The key word is reducing production costs,” says Sok Chenda Sophea, secretary-general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, the state investment promotion agency.

Despite World Trade Organisation membership, Cambodia remains a tough sell as an investment destination, given its poor roads, costly power, dilapidated and slow port, excessive red tape and pervasive corruption.

Cambodia also, however, has abundant, cheap labour and benefits from preferential tariffs extended to it as a “least developed country”.



Van So Pors今年18岁，来自偏远的柬埔寨山村，她每月赚50美元，在柬埔寨东部一家台资工厂里为欧洲市场组装自行车，这里距离越南边境只有6公里。

过去4个月，她每个月都把20美元工资寄回家，给自己的父母和3个弟弟妹妹。“我们家穷，所以我决定来这儿找份工作，贴补家用。”就在她说话的时候，装配线上一辆组装了一半的自行车经过了她的面前。

Pors和这家工厂里的其他600名工人，是柬埔寨首个投入运营的经济特区的受益者。曼哈顿-柴桢出口加工区(Manhattan-Svay Rieng Export Processing Zone)由台商经营，其支持者称，这里的工厂数量最终可能达到30家。

这家自行车厂和附近一家有1200名工人、为其乐(Clarks)生产鞋子的工厂，是在欧洲对中国和越南的鞋品及自行车征收反倾销税后建立起来的。

它们代表着柬埔寨的希望：通过建立经济特区吸引急需的外国直接投资，柬埔寨将能够创造所需的工作岗位，吸收每年约30万进入劳动大军的年轻柬埔寨人。

这些特区大多设在与较繁荣的邻国——越南和泰国相毗邻的边境地区，目的是为了克服柬埔寨基础设施的瓶颈，理顺投资者与声名狼藉的官僚机构之间的关系。

柬埔寨发展委员会(Council for the Development of Cambodia)秘书长索真达索披(Sok Chenda Sophea)表示：“关键是削减生产成本。”该委员会是柬埔寨的国家投资促进机构。

尽管柬埔寨是世界贸易组织(WTO)的成员国，但由于公路交通不发达，电力成本高昂，港口破旧且效率低下，政府的繁文缛节过多，腐败现象普遍存在，这个国家仍难以吸引外国投资。

不过，柬埔寨拥有丰富而廉价的劳动力，而且享有作为“最不发达国家”所能享受到的优惠关税。