http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/13/world/cambodia-is-short-of-everything-but-vietnamese.html?pagewanted=4&src=pm

CAMBODIA Is Short of Everything but Vietnamese - December 13, 1987

Cambodia Is Short of Everything but Vietnamese

By BARBARA CROSSETTE, Special to the New York Times

Published: Sunday, December 13, 1987

Even the weather conspires against the battered nation of Cambodia, which is already short of money, expertise, labor, reliable statistics and communications with the outside world.

A longer than usual dry season followed by late heavy rains in Asia may exact the worst natural toll on food production since the Vietnamese-backed regime came to power in 1979, officials here say.

The influx of thousands of Vietnamese immigrants has also distressed many Cambodians. And Cambodia is in trouble with its major aid donor, the Soviet Union, for reportedly ''wasting'' assistance from Moscow.

The country's Deputy Planning Minister, Nhim Vanda, told reporters with unusual candor that Cambodia was not turning Soviet investment into exports to Moscow fast enough. He implied that Soviet aid was given only for the sake of procuring tropical goods, especially timber and rubber. Rice Shortage Predicted

Although green rice fields seem to blanket the countryside, a shortage of 200,000 tons of rice is predicted for this year. In 1985, a 400,000-ton shortfall was forecast but did not occur, prompting skepticism in the region about this year's prediction.

In addition, the prices of some staple foods and other consumer goods have risen abruptly over the last few months for a variety of reasons including local corruption, officials concede. Prices may rise higher if and when the drought's effects are felt.

Officials say the Cambodian people are already getting less than the minimal nutritional requirements recommended by international organizations, although their country is fertile and underpopulated.

The population was decimated by uprootings and massacres under the former Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot, who heads the main guerrilla group fighting the Vietnamese-installed Government.

But Cambodia is lacking not only in numbers but in the technological and entreprenurial skills needed for development. Its literacy rate is about 20 percent, one of the lowest in the region.

Unlike Vietnam, Laos and other Communist nations, Cambodia has announced no sweeping economic changes. Almost all industrial production remains under state control, though family businesses are encouraged to increase consumer goods. Some Smuggling Tolerated

The Deputy Minister acknowledged that a certain amount of smuggling was tolerated by the Government because it also met consumer demands and until recently kept the inflation rate low. Cambodia's currency, the riel, is much stronger than its Vietnamese counterpart, the dong. The two currencies were at parity in 1986, but the riel is now worth eight dong.

The city's largest free-trade market is full of Thai and Western goods, many of which enter the country through Koh Kong, an offshore island in the Gulf of Thailand, or through the port of Kompong Som. Reporters who paid a rare visit to the southwestern port town recently saw large new houses rising everywhere.

But luxury consumer goods are not distributed widely. Children in the countryside want to look at and touch a visitor's watch. Aid workers say there are few radios.

Economic figures here are nearly impossible to obtain, apart from those enshrined in the national plan; the Planning Ministry has no statistics on Cambodia's foreign debt, for example. So it is hard to find out exactly how large some shortfalls are, or the reasons for them.

''The needs of Cambodia cannot be calculated,'' Mr. Nhim Vanda said. Parallel Economy Develops

With more and more of its functioning businesses controlled by black-marketeers, many of them Thai and Vietnamese, the country is developing a powerful private or ''parallel'' economy, Phnom Penh residents say. Almost anything in the capital can be had for a price, including a ''ticket'' to Bangkok on a Thai fishing boat for $400.

A foreigner based here summarized it starkly, saying:

''The merchants from Cholon control the black market; they finance exports and imports; they dominate and manipulate the exchange rate.'' Cholon is the Chinese section of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

The number of Vietnamese who have moved here since Hanoi's forces overthrew Pol Pot in 1979 is a matter of controversy in Cambodia.

The Government insists that the Vietnamese, numbering no more than 60,000, are returning families who had been expelled in the early 1970's in a wave of Cambodian nationalism. Officials say the newcomers, many born here, represent only one-tenth of the population of clerks and bureaucrats imported by the French colonial government before World War II.

Some resident foreigners disagree. One described the Vietnamese now arriving as a ''new tribe'' coming to settle the land, fish the waters and profit from the markets. #100,000 New Vietnamese Foreigners say that while the presence of the Vietnamese Army has been much reduced in Phnom Penh, there are probably more than 100,000 new Vietnamese civilians concentrated here, in the eastern provinces and in Kompong Som.

A stroll along Phnom Penh's Monivong Boulevard and nearby streets confirms this impression. In a newly opened beauty salon, the manicurist and hairstylist were recent migrants from Ho Chi Minh City. The shop manager said she had hired them because they were ''very mod,'' with talents she could not find locally.

Around the corner at a well-equipped dental clinic, the family in charge was Vietnamese, and in other shops the story was the same.

Most foreigners questioned in Phnom Penh rejected the assertions of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and other insurgent leaders that Hanoi is introducing hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese as a matter of policy to change the demographic and cultural character of Cambodia through settlement and intermarriage. Nationalist Feeling Emerges

But some diplomats in this secretive and isolated country said their impression was that the growth of Vietnamese businesses at the expense of Cambodians did exist and was fueling some nationalist strains in the Government. Many Cambodians seem to believe that ethnic Vietnamese or Chinese-Vietnamese get preferences in renting shops or in other dealings with officials.

It is an open question how much Cambodian produce is being bought cheaply or commandeered by Hanoi.

Vietnamese are reported to be buying seafood at Kompong Som and transporting it across to Ho Chi Minh City, where it is processed and exported for profit.

Rice may also be leaving the country in significant amounts, becoming a hidden contributor to shortages here, refugees reaching Thailand say. Vietnam has chronic rice shortages. Empty Trucks From Vietnam

Travelers along the highway from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, recently saw large trucks, bullock carts and even bicycles loaded with rice near the border crossing at Bavat, all headed toward Vietnam. Empty trucks were coming back.

For Cambodians, international aid workers say, the daily struggle for survival may have intensified, not lessened, over the last few years.

''Most Cambodians eat only a bowl of rice with a little fish for lunch and dinner,'' a resident of Phnom Penh said. The average government worker's salary has dropped to less than $2 a month at the unofficial exchange rate most often used. A good bicycle, the standard mode of transportation, costs more than $100.

''We realize that the purchasing power of people on fixed salaries is not quite up to the mark,'' Mr. Nhim Vanda said. But he ruled out pay increases, saying what the country needed to do was to get more consumer goods into circulation to reduce prices.

The Government's inability to restart the Cambodian economy in nine years is thought to have several causes. The Government says the Pol Pot regime so decimated the country and its people that development can begin only slowly. Public Services Deteriorate

Residents of Phnom Penh say, however, that the Government, preoccuppied with political orthodoxy, allowed the already minimal public services to deteriorate. Garbage rots on sidewalks uncollected, prompting a recent cholera scare that led to sanitation assistance from an international agency.

Electrical services continue to degenerate, while corrupt officials tap supplies to sell privately. Others just steal power. Elevators have ceased to function in hotels. The water supply is unreliable.

At the small Psar Depot soap factory, a model technology project being assisted by the Mennonite Central Committee of Akron, Pa., plant managers say they have frequent power cuts, amounting on average to three days' work loss a week. Those who can afford it turn to private generators, giving the city a misleading look of improvement at night.

Cambodian officials say the country's isolation - outside the Soviet bloc, only India recognizes the Government Hanoi installed - is causing its people to suffer. But some development experts question whether the country could absorb much aid, given its low level of managerial skills and poor services.

In addition, some experts say, the thinking of development planners is possibly a decade out of date, still rooted in the age of big projects that are not appropriate to Cambodia's smaller-scale needs and skills.

Photo of Cambodian farmers loading a cart during rice harvest (The New York Times/Fred R. Conrad); map of Cambodia and Southeast Asia