Cambodia is backsliding in efforts to improve working conditions in its garment industry, the International Labour Organisation said yesterday, following a series of strikes at factories producing western-brand clothing. The kingdom is failing to make progress in key areas such as worker and fire safety and ...

The Department of Foreign Trade plans to set up a “rice trade zone” project in the East to process Cambodian rice for export to other countries. Tikhumporn Natvaratat, deputy director-general of the department, said his organisation plans to implement the project in Chanthaburi, Trat, Sa Kaeo ...

Two anti-logging activists who went into hiding yesterday have alleged that they received death threats from police because they set fire to logs cut from a protected area in Kratie province. The activists have been leading an increasingly confrontational campaign against Vietnamese firm Binh Phuoc Kratie ...

Families in Ratanakiri province yesterday logged a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing a trio of economic land concession (ELC) owners of illegally logging outside of their concession areas and felling their vital resin and palm oil trees. Chan Naroun said she was among 29 families ...

Cambodia observed the Forest Day on Tuesday, urging people to plant trees in order to ensure the sustainability of forest and environment. The celebration was presided over by King Norodom Sihamoni and attended by Prime Minister Hun Sen and senior officials of the government, the parliament, ...

Government officials began inspecting markets across the country yesterday in search of baby formula containing an ingredient from New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra that could cause botulism, quality control representatives at the Ministry of Commerce said. “We informed all our officials directly to collect nationwide some ...

Australia’s Renaissance Minerals (Cambodia) Ltd. unveiled Thursday that it estimated that gold resource[s] at O’kvau area in Cambodia’s Mondolkiri province could be as much as 1.2 million ounces, the firm’s Managing Director Justin Tremain said. Speaking during a meeting with Cambodian Minister of Industry, Mines and ...

Hundreds of families in Koh Kong province’s Khmara Phoumint City are suffering from a shortage of water, which is provided by a reservoir that dried up during the hot season, local officials said yesterday. Smach Meanchey and Dang Tong communes typically receive water from the Cham ...

A delegation from China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are currently seeking possibilities to broaden bilateral trade and investment ties in Cambodia. The delegation comprising of business executives from 24 different firms in the financial and professional services, infrastructure and real estate, garments and textiles, telecommunications, ...

Kuala Lumpur-based Felda Global Ventures Holdings Berhad (FGV), the third-largest palm oil operator in the world, said it plans to cultivate rubber inside Cambodia. “We are . . . consolidating by expanding into countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos – planting other crops such as rubber,” ...

Floods from Mekong River and heavy rainfall have killed at least 104 people and affected about 1.5 million people in Cambodia in the last three weeks, a senior disaster control official said Wednesday. “The latest figures showed that the floods have killed 104 people and ...

Acting Prime Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday said that opposition leader Sam Rainsy, now doesn’t want the parliament chairmanship chair post, but equal committee posts within the parliament. Speaking to reporters after delivering certificates to 3,000 police officers, he said Sam Rainsy phoned him and told ...

As two volunteers guided a man unsteady on his feet into a medical tent on the second day of a three-day pro-opposition demonstration at Freedom Park yesterday, Chan Bun Han instructed another to get the patient a bottle of water after they laid him on ...

The Council of Ministers has approved a draft law aimed at protecting the patent rights of traditional Cambodian products, which if violated could be met with a fine of up to $5,000 and a five-year jail term. The law on geographical indication (G.I.), a status given ...

Government representatives and union leaders will soon hold meetings to discuss garment worker’s salary increase for 2014, according to a union leader Friday. “Negotiations with factory employers to increase the salary for workers in the garment sector is scheduled to take place some time this August,” ...

About 1,000 members of the Cambodian Grassroots People’s Assembly—a network of communities throughout the country that includes farmers as well as land and labor activists—will rally at Freedom Park on Monday to demand an end to the current political impasse. The ruling CPP and opposition CNRP ...

About 300 cubic metres of luxury timber is being felled every day and transported on boats to Vietnam and Thailand from four districts in Koh Kong province, according to an investigation by a local rights group. Chea Hean, director of the Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation ...

About 30 truck drivers transporting fruit blocked National Road 5 in Banteay Meanchey province’s O’Chrou district for an hour yesterday after customs of­ficials arrested six of their fellow drivers for refusing to pay fees they thought were unreasonable, drivers said. Nou Sal, 35, who transports ...

ACLEDA officially launched its first credit card on Friday as Cambodia’s largest bank eyes the country’s rising middle income bracket, president and CEO In Channy said yesterday. “This is the right time for us to start this Visa credit card product. By 2020, Cambodia will change ...

As the cost of imports rise, local producers could see an opportunity to increase their market share, but for most a lack of output and quality means potential is limited, industry observers said yesterday. Customs officers who had often undercut the official rate are now ...