Update on Meth Hun

Update on Meth Hun
Entrepreneur: Meth Hun
Location: Khsach Kandal district, Cambodia
Amount Repaid: $168.00 of $1,000.00
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=16527

This entrepreneur is funded by a Kiva loan administered by Maxima Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. here in Cambodia. This is her third loan with Maxima. Meth lives in a village on the Mekong River east of Phnom Penh. With the funds from the loan she and her husband purchased pigs, animal feed and construction equipment and supplies. On the day we visited, they were paying off their loan on schedule.

In addition to weaving, Meth weaves as well, but has not been doing so lately. She said of the thirteen pigs purchased with this loan, only nine have lived. Even so, she will still make an acceptable profit (she plans to request another loan for the same purpose). A small pig costs about US $40. It will grow to eighty or ninety kilograms and the sales price (live) is $1.00-$1.25 per kilo.

The main income generating activity of the family is construction and sales and rental of construction materials. Meth’s husband manages this. He learned about building from his father. While we talked, two employees mixed cement and poured it into reusable forms to make fence posts. These forms were purchased with funds loaned by Maxima.

Meth’s husband also rents the forms – $25 for six forms. The typical rental period is three to five days. To buy tools or equipment, he crosses the Mekong in a rented Tuk Tuk (cost - $10). There, he buys the materials for making cement. Occasionally, they build houses but most of their business is building fences. When he’s busy, he employs as many as ten local men each of whom earns between two and four dollars a day. They don’t travel any further than about five kilometers for projects.

He hopes to save enough to buy a cement mixer which he will also rent out as well as use for his own jobs. Till this point, he’s had no problem staying busy. However, he says there are perhaps as many as ten other people/businesses in the area doing similar work and the number continues to grow.

Before taking out a loan with Maxima, Meth and her husband had never taken on debt. As this is their third loan, they have been able to grow their businesses which support their family of nine. Five of their children attend school in the commune (village).

Posted by Darin Greyerbiehl from Khsach Kandal district, Cambodia
Nov 1, 2007