Spending dollars vs spending Riel in Cambodia

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khmerhamster
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Re: Spending dollars VS. spending Riel.

Post by khmerhamster »

Pizzalover wrote:Ironically even the state museums charge in USD. You can pay in riel but they would add a premium as do the supermarkets, mini marts.

You usually gain a little if paying in riel in the market, restaurants that charge in riel. 1-2% depending on the time of the year. Guesthouses do the same. So riel is ok. The argument with the small bills is also long gone with 20 and 50K riel bills around. For a tourist the difference wont make a noticeable difference but for an expat reducing grocery and other bills by 1 percent is nice. For the nay sayers: I know, you always go to that bank which offers a percent less interest on your deposit.

I have not seen a fake 5K riel bill but quite a few single USD bills (in Siem Reap). The latter are used by supermarkets and other preferably after dark when it is harder to detect those.
It would take much more than a 1% saving to convince me to pay my supermarket bill in riel. Often money changers don’t have the big bills so you’d end up carrying a serious wad of riel.
Surely the convenience of carrying fewer notes trumps all else.

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Flexxman
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Re: Spending dollars VS. spending Riel.

Post by Flexxman »

bucknaked wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:04 am that pharmacy was still there in December, the old battle axe working in the exchange outside
explorer wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 8:20 am
fax wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 8:12 am Interesting, I have never encountered it myself. Did the pharmacy own the exchange and desperately tried to rescue one failing business by killing any chance of success of the pharmacy?
I believed they owned the exchange.

I think they had the ideology that Cambodia should use riel like every other country uses their own currency.

It did a lot of business, as it was in a good location.

I dont know what happened in the last 2 years.
They actively promoted the use of riel - I own one of the t-shirts they were selling for that purpose in the exchange: on the front "I <heart> Riel the Khmer currency" and a similar message in Khmer and on the back a large currency symbol for Riel. In good, thick quality I might add. Never seen it anywhere else but I am not sure whether it was their own promotion campaign or that it is/was a wider movement...

In this video cruising through SHV dated October 2018 showing many of the new buildings, you can see the pharmacy still sitting at the same corner at the 04:00 mark: https://youtu.be/K6VBScNlias?list=PL3mQ ... k2lhhlOOL5
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CEOCambodiaNews
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Re: Spending dollars VS. spending Riel.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Riel use set to increase, but the dollar still dominates
20 Mar 2019
The use of the riel in the Cambodian economy is set to see a significant increase as more use it for large transactions, but its market share remains dwarfed by the dollar, according to a survey by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

While riel use is set to increase, the use of the US dollar in the local economy has increased at similar rates, resulting in the riel’s market share of the Kingdom’s GDP remaining around 10 per cent.

According to the NBC-Jica riel survey – which collected data by observing the currency’s use among 2,264 households and 856 enterprises from 2014 to 2017 – the riel is mainly used by people in rural areas and has seen a gradual decline in the Kingdom’s business firms.

Financial institutions, in particular commercial banks, continue to offer loans in US dollars despite the increasing trend of micro-financial institution loans in riel.

Currency imbalance
Speaking during the closing remarks of a seminar on Tuesday, NBC deputy governor Neav Chanthana said the preferred currency for borrowing among households and firms remains the US dollar. Banks and microfinance deposit-taking institutions (MDIs) also grant loans largely in the US currency.
https://www.tourismcambodia.com/news/tr ... inates.htm
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