No Investigation of OZ Minerals Deal, Police Say
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have decided not to investigate the Australian mining company OZ Minerals, saying information that the firm paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to family members of officials in the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (Mime) when buying out its ...
South China Sea outlook
The disputes over sovereignty in the South China Sea are approaching a tipping point. As former ASEAN secretary-general Rodolfo Severino said last month: “The disputes cannot be resolved anytime soon, if at all. The most that can be done is to prevent them developing into armed ...
Laos makes moves on building Mekong dams
Even as its controversial Xayaburi Dam project is still drawing protest from Mekong river downstream countries such as Cambodia, Laos has inked a deal with South Korean firms to build and operate another large hydropower plant on the Mekong River network. According to the Phnom Penh ...
We Will Not Be Moved
They’re known as the BK13 and they’re not prepared to let greedy developers take the very, very little they have. They’re 13 women – mothers, grandmothers – who live around what used to be Boeung Kak Lake – not far from the centre of Cambodia’s ...
Chinese Arrivals To Cambodia Continue To Grow
Cambodia’s Tourism Ministry said about 231,000 Chinese visited Cambodia in the first six months of the year, up 55 percent over the previous year. Cambodia received 334,000 Chinese visitors in 2012, up 35 percent year-on-year, Xinhua news agency quoted the ministry saying in a report. Kong Sopheareak, ...
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=970883
Villagers prepare for storm
Cambodians in the northern provinces are preparing for the remnants of super-storm Typhoon Haiyan, though forecasts now predict it will only mildly affect the Kingdom. In a warning issued on Friday, the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology said high winds and heavy rainfall would likely ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-prepare-storm
Hun Sen returns from fruitful week in China
Prime Minster Hun Sen arrived back in Phnom Penh on Sunday after a weeklong visit to China for an international summit during which Chinese Premier Xi Jinping pledged $145 million in aid and soft loans to Cambodia. On Monday, AKP reported that China promised to ...
Phorn Bopha and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-returns-from-fruitful-week-in-china-59560/
Capital clash sees 10 injured
At least 10 people, one a 4-year-old child, were injured in a clash in the capital yesterday when security forces used electric batons to disperse about 300 villagers from Kratie province embroiled in a land dispute with a South Korean agribusiness. The villagers, from Kratie’s Snuol ...
Pech Sotheary
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/capital-clash-sees-10-injured
Keeping Land Local: Briefing Papers on Land Struggles, No. 3
Announcing “Keeping Land Local,” the third issue of the Briefing Paper Series on Land Struggles by Focus on the Global South, the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform, and Land Research Action Network. ...
Focus on the Global South
Koh Pich Awash With Development, but Don’t Ask for Details
Business is booming on Koh Pich. Since development began in 2006—and about 300 families were pushed off what was then farmland—the island has slowly grown into the symbol of commercial modernity in Phnom Penh. The developer, Overseas Cambodia Investment Corp., is also extending the island by ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/koh-pich-awash-with-development-but-dont-ask-for-details-36411/
Varying Degrees of Progress Shown in Development Report
The government has made “remarkable development progress” in successfully guiding the country through the global financial crash of 2008, ensuring economic stability and enabling the government to meet the Cambodian Millennium Development Goal on poverty reduction, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. Speaking at the launch ...
World Bank Says Credit Growth Still a Risk
The World Bank has warned that the rapid growth of lending by Cambodia’s Banks is still a concern, despite a recent slow-down in credit disbursals. “Credit growth, which has been driven largely by wholesale and retail financing, and starting in 2011 agriculture financing, has eased to ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/world-bank-says-credit-growth-still-a-risk-20690/
E-Commerce Law goes ahead with WB funding
A draft law on e-commerce that would regulate electronic trade in Cambodia will arrive at the Council of Ministers in August, following revision by two other state institutions, officials at the Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday. Orm Dararith, director of the Ministry of Commerce’s legal department, ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/e-commerce-law-goes-ahead-with-wb-funding-60518/
Social Enterprises in Cabodia
Cambodia’s economic growth has been on the rise following the global downturn on 2008-2009 and experts say that the private sector is largely responsible for that growth. However, those same experts also acknowledge that the profits generated by companies operating in Cambodia aren’t trickling down ...
Microfinance Deposits and Loans Grow
Outstanding loans among micro-credit institutions increased by 6.7 percent to $505.46 million in the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter, figures from the Cambodia Microfinance Association show. According to the data, deposits held by Cambodia’s 27 microlenders grew by 33.2 percent ...
Anco report flawed: auditor
The auditor who submitted a report used to convict a husband and wife of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from a company owned by the wife of a tycoon senator admitted yesterday that the quality of his audit was “poor”. The report was used ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012030954952/National-news/anco-report-flawed-auditor.html
Moody's says debt is stable, open to risk
Ratings agency Moody’s kept the outlook on Cambodia’s government debt at stable, though the firm said that the risk of default was still high and had raised concerns over the country’s ability to manage its finances. In a report released on Sunday, Moody’s said that Cambodia’s ...
$100m fund to target Kingdom’s growth
Vietnam-based Dragon Capital is raising up to US$100 million for a new Indochina fund, some of which the private equity firm would invest in Cambodian agriculture and infra-structure, Dragon’s chief information officer Bill Stoops said yesterday. Dragon Capital has a 20 per cent stake ...
MFI survey claims debtor success
A survey by Cambodian microfinancers showed debtors were better off in several respects than those who didn’t borrow from the institutions, MFI officials claimed. Responding to recent concerns over the role of microfinance institutions in creating poverty and loss of property in the Kingdom, the Cambodia ...
Maybank Cambodia aims to be in top 5 by 2015
Maybank launched yesterday its locally incorporated company in Cambodia, Maybank (Cambodia) Plc, and will also build a 10-storey corporate office with the aim of becoming one of the top five banks there by 2015. Currently ranked seventh in terms of assets among 33 banks operating ...