In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday morning granted ...

Cambodia’s 2012 budget passed through the National Assembly yesterday unopposed, without a single question asked and no parliamentary debate in a situation the government, opposition and observers all said was unfortunate. It took just over three hours for the law to be passed, 86 to 0, ...

When Reaksmey (not his real name) was in high school two years ago, he and his classmates were urged to attend the supplementary classes taught by their teachers before and after regular school hours. For an hour before school and two to three hours after each ...

The chief executives of the firms behind two large-scale real-estate projects in Cambodia have been sentenced to jail in Seoul for obtaining illegal loans and using the money to finance fictitious companies abroad, according to a South Korean court official. The two executives were among a ...

Cambodians like pork. The average Cambodian consumes almost 9.29 kg of the meat each year, and local farmers supplied about 2 million pigs, more than 90 percent of the domestic demand, in 2008. But the market for small-scale pig farmers has flown. Live pig prices have fallen ...

UK-based BIW automotive company on Friday signed a US$2 billion join venture investment with ACICA Automotive (Cambodia) to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province for a Cambodian-made vehicle within the next three years. The agreement was made between BIW’s director Robin Bowyer and ACICA’s Group ...

Cambodia spent more than $1.6 billion importing fuel oil and petrol last year, a figure 14.3 per cent higher than for 2011, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. The money spent on importing 1.6 million tonnes of petrol and fuel oil – 100,000 tonnes more than ...

A biofuel company is currently under investigation for fraud in the U.K. after millions of dollars of investors’ money was spent on a jatropha plantation in Banteay Meanchey province that never produced even a single drop of biodiesel. The company, London-based Sustainable Agro Energy PLC, had ...

Tek Nim is well versed in dealing with adversity. In year nine, she dropped out of school, began working on the family farm and finally became resigned to the belief that her brightest prospect was to leave Omlaing commune, in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, ...

Cambodians like pork. The average Cambodian consumes 9.29 kilogrammes of the meat a year and local farmers have long supplemented their incomes by selling an average of two pigs a year. In 2008, Cambodian farmers supplied around 2 million pigs, more than 90% of domestic demand. ...

In a move that stunned his supporters and drew ire from rights groups and foreign embassies alike, independent radio station owner Mam Sonando was sentenced to 20 years in prison yesterday on charges of insurrection. Sonando, owner of broadcaster Beehive Radio and president of the rights ...

A company owned by a board member of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce has been accused of illegally destroying more than 80 houses in Kampot province’s Chhouk district, a claim vigorously denied by the firm and local authorities. Chan Pheng, a villager from Chi Bak village ...

Cambodian Petrochemical Company and Sinomach China Perfect Machinery Industry Corp jointly announced on Friday to build the first oil refinery in Cambodia and the construction is expected to be completed at the end of 2015. Zhang Sugang, president of Sinomach China Perfect Machinery Industry Corp, said ...

Nautisco Seafood Manufacturing, once Cambodia’s premier seafood-processing company, will not undergo government-brokered restructuring after a Cambodian appeals court yesterday declared the company solvent. The ruling was a first test for the law on corporate restructuring and insolvency. The decision sounds positive for the company. But now the ...

More than 2,000 workers demonstrated in front of Phnom Penh’s Gladpeer Garment Factory yesterday, demanding a higher minimum wage and several other concessions. The workers decided to strike after the Por Sen Chey district factory did not respond to repeated requests to raise their monthly minimum ...

The owner of the $240 million Gold Tower 42 project in Phnom Penh has entered into arbitration with the project’s builder, in a bid to get work started again after construction halted on the project in September 2010 due to poor unit sales and cost ...

At first glance, the numbers indicate Cambodia’s investment climate has grown a little colder. Conditions appear to be worse than they were a year ago due to a big drop in total fixed assets for approved investment projects. However, economists say the Cambodia outlook is actually ...

Hundreds of indigenous people called on government to pick up the pace in granting them communal land titles at a ceremony marking the U.N.-sponsored International Day of the World’s Indigenous People in Kompong Thom province yesterday. “The gathering today is to mark the 8th anniversary of Indigenous Day ...

The lastest investment data from the government shows that Cambodia’s economy is moving away from the long-trusted staple of the garment sector and into more compplex industries. For more than a decade, garments have accounted for the lion’s share of the country’s export market as investors shied away ...

A lack of trade financing – the loans and guarantees needed to support import and export transactions – for international deals within developing Asian countries such as Cambodia is restricting opportunities for growth, a survey by the Asia Development Bank (ADB) has found. Of 106 banks ...