Foreign Direct Investment in Cambodia’s Telecommunications Industry

Abstract

In order to obtain a mobile telecommunications network rapidly and at low cost, the Cambodian government opened the sector to all comers wishing to make appropriate levels of investment. The subsequent turmoil of investment and aggressive marketing of products led to a situation of hypercompetitiveness, which is unsustainable and resulted in several companies subsequently divesting. Using the results of a programme of quantitative and qualitative research, this paper reports on these events and the implications of foreign direct investment in a lightly-regulated sector in which excessive competition may be solicited. Keywords: Cambodia, foreign direct investment, hyper-competitiveness, telecommunications