Cambodia has been able to attract FDI, mainly from Asian developing countries. However, the factors that have determined this inward FDI in Cambodia have not yet been studied in detail. This paper seeks to identify the most important determinants of FDI flows into the Cambodian economy during 1995–2005 and to elaborate on some possible policy implications. In the light of the discussions presented in Section three, the relationship between FDI and its influencing factors in Cambodia is modelled as follows:
FDI ¼ fðRGDP; DGROWTH; RER; RTRADE; RIR; DINFLA; RPOLRISK; RLP; DIST; ASEAN; CRISIS; CHINAÞ (1)
where FDI is the annual inflows of real FDI in Cambodia; RGDP is the ratio of real Cambodian GDP to the home country’s real GDP; RER is the ratio of the real exchange rate of the US$ to the home country currency ; DGROWTH is the difference between the annual GDP growth in Cambodia and the home country; RTRADE is the real Cambodia’s external trade (exports and imports) to and from the home country; RIR is the ratio of Cambodia’s real interest rate to the real interest rate in the home country; DINFLA is the difference between the inflation rate in Cambodia and the home country; RPOLRISK is the ratio of the annual political risk scores in Cambodia to the home country; RLP is the ratio of labour productivity in Cambodia to the home country; DIST is the geographic distance between Cambodia and the home country in kilometres; ASEAN is the dummy for the number of years Cambodia was a member of ASEAN (1999–2005); CRISIS is the dummy for the number of years during the Asian crisis, defined as being equal to 1 for 1997 and 1998, and zero otherwise; CHINA is the dummy variable, defined as being equal to 1 for the years China became a member of the WTO (2001–2005) and zero otherwise.
The relationship between the dependent variable and the explanatory variables in Eq. (1) can be re-written explicitly in the following log-linear form: