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Phnom Penh. The global financial crisis has caused Cambodia to delay its plans to open a national stock exchange this year, officials said on Wednesday.

Cambodia signed an deal last year with the Korea Exchange (KRX), Asia’s fourth-largest bourse operator, to establish a stock market in 2009.

However, government officials said on Wednesday that Cambodia was not ready to go ahead with the plans due to the world financial slowdown.

“We are not ready in terms of capital amid the financial crisis,” said Mey Vann, director of the industry and finance department at Cambodia’s Ministry of Finance and Economy.

A new date for launching the stock market has not been set, he said, but the country plans to start trading in late 2010.

“A stock market is good for our economy. It helps collect money outside the banking system for investment,” Vann said.

While still among one of the world’s poorest countries, Cambodia has emerged from decades of conflict as one of the region’s rising economies.

After several years of double-digit growth fueled mainly by tourism and garment exports, Cambodia was buffeted by last year’s global downturn.

The International Monetary Fund in September predicted Cambodia’s economy would contract 2.75 percent this year amid the slowdown.

By comparison the economy grew by 10.25 percent in 2007 and was projected at 6.5 percent in 2008, according to the IMF.

Cambodia remains a largely cash-only economy.

Agence France-Presse