As the first day of the Water Festival rolled over Phnom Penh, the city was quiet.The riverside streets, once filled with teeming crowds from the provinces, were sparsely populated. If not for the workers setting up fireworks tubes on a repurposed river barge, there would ...

A small group of human rights advocates and other Cambodian-Americans met recently in Virginia to discuss Cambodia’s ongoing problems with human rights abuse.Participants discussed the difficulty in promoting human rights and democracy in Cambodia, where political pressure and powerful individuals often intervene. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has warned opposition leaders they will face ruling party rallies at home if he is met with anti-government demonstrations during his high-profile trip to the US next month, a threat that raised the spectre of pro-government protests in October that ended ...

The European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT) on Wednesday awarded the Kingdom the title of the world’s best tourism destination for 2016. Cambodia outperformed some 30 contestants, including last year’s winner Ethiopia, an African country, thanks to her innumerable attractions, rich cultural history, civilization, ancient ...

Cambodian farmers are eager to cultivate organic vegetables rather than rice, as not only do vegetables command higher prices, but they are also quicker to grow. According to the World Bank, vegetables fetch an income of $1575 per hectare while it is $544 per hectare ...

Factories in Cambodia’s garment industry say they need more productivity out of workers if they are to survive a new wage hike.Earlier this month, the government agreed to raise minimum wage to $140 per month, a figure managers said would damage the industry. ...

Political tensions increased in Cambodia this week, with opposition lawmakers boycotting a session of the country’s National Assembly on Monday and ASEAN parliamentarians voicing concerns over the country’s “deteriorating political climate” as the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) asserts ever-tighter control over the Southeast Asian ...

The first graduates of a special training program for elite forest rangers began work this month in Preah Vihear’s protected forest.The 29 newly-minted rangers will be responsible for leading efforts to stop illegal logging, land clearance, and poaching in a forest that is home to ...

The illegal timber trade to Vietnam, a key nexus in a shadow industry worth billions of dollars, has been all but eliminated, an official said yesterday in summarising a new report from the government’s anti-logging commission, a claim met with disbelief by more than one ...

Freight rail shipments have gained traction since commercial rail traffic resumed on the Kingdom’s sole operational railway line in 2013, but Royal Railway, the private company with a 30-year concession to operate the Kingdom’s railway network, is pressing for more growth as it seeks to ...

More border checkpoints will be opened between Cambodia and Laos after both countries agreed to increase bilateral trade yesterday. The decision came after a meeting in Phnom Penh between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Lao counterpart Thongloung Sisoulith after a series of talks related ...

In December, South Korea announced that it planned to import dried mangos from Cambodia and the news was heralded as a sign that the country’s lackluster mango export sector was improving. However, a lack of machinery in the Kingdom has meant that the South Korean ...

‘Third wave’ of Thai investment now under way with businesses planning for the long term as the economy matures and Thai-Cambodian relations improve. Today Thai investors are flocking back to the country, lured by strong growth, a stable political environment and open policies. ...

In Cambodia, as credit becomes increasingly available, more people are taking loans from microfinance institutions to help with migration.As of June 2015, microfinance institutions lent more than $2 billion, compared to $1.6 billion dollars in 2014, according to the Cambodia Microfinance Association. ...

The newly legal Khmer Power Party is delaying the construction of its headquarters, instead using the money to build houses near the Vietnamese border, its leader said yesterday. Serey Ratha said houses will only be constructed on Cambodian land, but added that the KPP would ...

Cambodia’s electricity generation reached 2.714 billion kilowatt hours last year, of which 1.851 million KWh was generated by hydro dams and 863.02 million KWh by coal-powered plants. Household access to electricity rose 18.8 percent, compared to 2013, according a report from Cambodia’s Electricity Authority.    ...

After setting up the National Anti-Deforestation Committee (NADC) in an attempt to show that the government was trying to stop illegal logging, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called on all citizens to join the battle, saying people even had the right to make citizen arrests ...

The World Bank’s board of directors could vote today to renew a project for landless families in Cambodia that has run into major problems, a move that would effectively lift a five-year freeze on lending its own money to the country in protest over forced ...

A $20 million resort being developed on Krabey Island off the coast from Sihanoukville is about 70 percent complete and will open on schedule in mid-2017, according the Ministry of Tourism. Tourism Minister Thong Khon told Khmer Times that the island development was progressing as planned, ...

Dozens of activist monks rallied on Sunday at Wat Stung Meanchey to protest the pagoda’s decision to defrock a fellow monk for allegedly throwing Buddha statues into a dirty pond, claiming that he was framed because he is Khmer Krom and is known for supporting ...