Walk down almost any street in Phnom Penh and you will pass neighborhood pharmacies with shelves packed tight with medicine. But as local media recently pointed out, while Cambodia has started building up its own pharmaceutical plants, production capacity remains quite limited. Local factories just cannot produce enough, so the country still has to import the vast majority of medicines people rely on when they get sick.
Data from the first eight months of this year shows Cambodia importing a massive volume of medical drugs. Whether you step into a major hospital or a small roadside pharmacy, local supply falls far short of demand, forcing the country to keep buying from abroad.
If you have lived here for a while, you have probably noticed it yourself. Catch a fever or a bad cold, head out for a quick pharmacy run, and most of the medicine boxes you bring home are made overseas. Having local plants is a good first step, but gaining real self-sufficiency in healthcare is still a long road ahead. For everyday workers navigating the dusty, traffic-choked streets of the city, getting sick remains an expensive affair, and the cost of basic medicine is not coming down anytime soon.
