SBR- Content.pmd - INBO

6 - Macroeconomic trends in the Lower Mekong BasinMacroeconomic trends 6in the LowerMekong BasinIn the last ten years, the economies of the four countries that share the Lower Mekong Basin haveundergone considerable change. Not only have industrial and service sectors grown as agriculturalsectors have declined; in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam, economies have been changing fromallowing and even promoting free enterprise.The rate of economic development has also changed. In the 1980s and first half of the 1990s,Thailand had one of the fastest growing economies in history. In 1991, Cambodia signed theParis Peace Accords, which ended decadesof war and isolation, and within a few yearshad growth rates of over 5 percent. In the mid-1990s, the economies in Viet Nam and LaoPDR also began to grow rapidly, with annualgrowth of 7 percent or more per year. 1The last five years however has seen a dramaticfall in economic growth in all four LMB countries.The unprecedented growth of the early and mid-1990s stalled dramatically in 1997-1998 after theAsian Financial Crisis began in Thailand. As willbe discussed later in this chapter, the crisis wasfelt the most dramatically in Thailand, where itEconomic growth in urban areas of LMB countrieshas done little to improve the lives of rural peopleIn the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, theSoutheast Asia region has had one of the fastestgrowing economies in historybegan, but the other three LMB countries werealso affected, as were countries all over Asia. 2In the chapter that follows, data are presentedon the contradictions in the economies of theLMB. On the one hand, LMB countries haveconsiderable undeveloped hydro, mineral, and insome cases, timber resources, as well as tourismpotential. At the same time, they faceconsiderable obstacles to development that havekept them among the poorest countries in Asiaand the world.85