Update on Pov El

Update on Pov El
Entrepreneur: Pov El
Location: Pon-Nhea Leu district, Cambodia
Amount Repaid: $252.00 of $1,000.00
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=14003

This entrepreneur is funded by a Kiva loan administered by Maxima Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. here in Cambodia. Pov lives northwest of Phnom Penh in a village not far from the outflow river of the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest lake. This is the third loan she has taken out with Maxima. Prior to borrowing from Maxima, Pov had taken out loans from a Cambodian bank called ACLEDA. She switched to Maxima because Maxima offered a lower interest rate and better service i.e. Maxima makes house calls to collect payments instead of her having to go to the bank once a month. Her loan is being paid off on schedule.


Pov’s primary moneymaking business is selling firewood. She uses the loan solely to purchase and re-sell wood, something she and her husband have been doing for two years now. During the rainy season in this area, there is a period of about two months where the countryside is flooded by backflow from the Mekong River to the south. Firewood, already difficult to find during the dry season, becomes unavailable. Pov and her husband drive to the neighboring province, Kampong Speu. There, they buy scrap wood from people who make lattices. A round trip to buy wood takes one day and one truck load contains enough wood for about ten days of selling.

An unavoidable hurdle of doing business in Cambodia is greasing the wheels of the omnipresent bureaucracy – the police. Transporting any goods along the national highways requires passing a number of checkpoints. Depending on the value of the goods, the police extract their own version of a tax – in this case something like US$5 a trip. From what we understand, almost no business in Cambodia escapes these levies.

Their main market consists of their village of about 300 families. Some, but very few of the villagers, cook with propane. Some also cook with charcoal. Both of these alternatives are better because they smoke less but they’re also more expensive. Pov sells the wood in small bundles called “baat” (see photo). One of her baat sells for 250 Rial – about 6.25 cents in US currency. She first cuts the wood then ties four to eight small, short sticks into a bundle using a flexible vine. Pov says some of her customers come to her house to buy wood and sometimes she delivers. Currently, there is no one else in the village competing with them.

Pov’s business supports herself, her husband, her six children and a brother-in-law. The children range in age from two to nineteen years old. All of them live at home. Five of them attend school in the commune/village. Her husband also does some construction jobs. She says she will probably take out another loan to buy more wood. In the longer term, she hopes to keep growing the business to support the family and to buy a power saw.

Posted by Darin Greyerbiehl from Pon-Nhea Leu district, Cambodia
Nov 1, 2007