As the nation prepares to enter the WTO, one TV program is teaching Cambodians good business practices

AFP , PHNOM PENH Sunday, Aug 01, 2004,Page 12

Business Edge, a half-hour magazine-style show broadcast weekly, is catering to the growing number of small and medium-sized businesses in Cambodia helping the economy revive after decades of conflict that ended only in 1998.

The program, which kicked off a year-long series in September and is likely to extend into a second season, fills a gap on Cambodian TV, squeezed between glitzy variety shows, melodramatic soap operas and dry political commentary.

"This is the first and only program ever shown in Cambodia to provide people with both basic and in-depth information on the Cambodian business situation," ministry of commerce secretary of state Sok Siphana said.

"More business people are turning to it for business advice and students too, for practical examples of the theory they've learned in school," he added.

The program explores challenges faced by businesses anywhere, but with a Cambodian slant.

Topics covered so far include securing finances, pain-free office relocation, the plus-es of recycling, including car tires, and building loyalty among employees.

Producer Dim Sovannarum said the show was blazing a unique trail in Cambodia.

"Our production is different from Chinese drama series, game shows and so on and we mainly focus on only three elements: information, information and more information," he said.

Filming the show presents peculiarly Cambodian challen-ges, with some otherwise feisty entrepreneurs declining to appear for fear of being kidnapped after having their success advertised, or being extorted, Dim said.

Kidnappings are rare in the kingdom, but the wariness is probably a legacy of the years of violence here, including the 1970s regime of the Khmer Rouge, when all private enterprise was suspended and even money abolished.

Shyness is another obstacle to overcome.

"That's typical of Cambodian people," Dim said.

Chhim Vannak, the owner of a now booming fried-banana shop in downtown Phnom Penh that began as a humble street stall in 1994, has starred on the show and says he is picking up a few pointers himself from tuning in.

"I have watched about 20 episodes so far.

They teach and explain how to run a successful business," he told AFP, adding that he had learned to focus more on quality and service, while he has also decided against raising prices.

The show is funded by the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF), itself backed by an array of international donors and which aims at boosting growth of small and medium businesses in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam as a way of firing up their economies.

The MPDF's Lili Sisombat said the show's idea was hatched in 2001 when they were brainstorming how to spread business news in Cambodia, a mainly agricultural country where a third of the population survives on less than a dollar a day.

"Cambodian people here were just not reading enough ... and there were no radio channels professional enough to broadcast this kind of program," she said, adding that television was the obvious next choice.

Media giant CNBC was also called in to provide advice on international angles for some segments of the program, which is broadcast across five of Cambodia's 24 provinces and municipalities to an estimated 15,000 viewers.

The commerce ministry's Sok Siphana hopes that the show may help give Cambodian businesses an edge as they face up to stiffer competition when the kingdom accedes to the World Trade Organization within the next few months.

"The WTO will open the international market for Cambodia, but if Cambodian people do not understand business it will be very difficult," he warned.