Democracy is in retreat since July’s national election as the ruling CPP has increasingly used armed forces to protect its grip on power and stubbornly refused to reform state institutions, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) said in a new report ...

At the site where security forces shot dead at least four people during a nationwide strike on January 3, union leaders yesterday passed out fliers encouraging workers to join a stay-at-home strike after Khmer New Year. When workers filed out of Canadia Industrial Park’s gates for ...

Phnom Penh has earned one of the top spots in a new report tracking prices of residential and commercial real estate across the region. The Knight Frank Asia Pacific Prime Asia Development Land Index, which the global real estate consultancy has hailed as a market first, ...

With authorities in Kratie province beginning to hand out plots of land on a social concession to 301 families involved in a high-profile dispute resolved last week, villagers at the center of the dispute said Tuesday that opportunists are joining the queue. Since Sunday, authorities have ...

Cambodia and the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Thursday launched a new project to expand job services and improve labor market information with funding from China, according to an ILO media statement. The ILO/China South-South Cooperation Project to Expand Employment Services and Enhance Labor Market Information ...

Surya Subedi, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, added his voice yesterday to the growing chorus of criticism aimed at three draft laws on Cambodia’s judiciary that sailed through the National Assembly last week. Subedi – who had previously championed the laws as ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a new five-year National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) – the guiding policy document used by the government – requiring an estimated $26.58 billion in spending and investment, or more than $5.3 billion a year, until 2018. The plan ...

Trade unions at either end of the political divide Wednesday said they were eager to renew their agreement with garment factories to abide by the rulings of the country’s Arbitration Council, with some changes, despite a new report showing that both unions and employers often ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday applauded the recent creation of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), saying it could ease Cambodia’s dependence on institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). BRICS member nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa announced ...

Japanese regional bank Shiga Bank said that it will join hands with major Cambodian bank Canadia Bank Plc by the end of the month to gain access to economic information in the Southeast Asian country to provide to Japanese companies. It will be the first partnership ...

Gender equality is “humanity’s biggest project,” Lakshmi Puri told the U.N. this past week. Puri, the deputy executive director of U.N. Women, wants to achieve “Planet 50-50” by 2030. When it comes to the workplace, equal employment opportunities aren’t just a benefit to women. Several new ...

More than 1 million hectares of forest terrain and land leased by private companies has been put under government control since Prime Minister Hun Sen initiated a moratorium on new economic land concessions (ELCs) in May 2012, the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and ...

The Ministry of Information yesterday announced a three-year public consultation period on a new access to information draft law that has been in the works since 2007. But freedom of information advocates greeted the news with scepticism, citing a lack of representation from civil society on ...

Cambodia’s minister of commerce has announced that the country will step up efforts to export rice to Africa, Middle East and the European Union. In his three-day visit to Kuwait in December 2014, Chanthol aimed at opening new avenues for Cambodian-made agricultural goods to enter ...

Garment workers continue to die in traffic accidents on their way to and from the factory, a new report highlighting the deadly commute in Cambodia’s largest industry shows. In the report, titled The Dangerous Journey of Garment Workers in 2014, the Ministry of Labour’s National Social ...

Cambodia is expected to welcome hundreds of Chinese tourists during the Chinese New Year which starts late next week, Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon said. According to the minister, Cambodia received some 560,000 Chinese tourists in the whole year of 2014, up 20 percent year-on- ...

A new study is advocating a bottom-up approach to the Kingdom’s NGO scene, calling on international donors to alter their support strategies and foster the independence of grassroots initiatives taking off at the local level. The draft report, which was published last week by the Stanford ...

RTB Technology, an IT-gadget distributor, is gearing up to cash in on the emerging market for connected devices as it aims to grow revenue this year by 10 per cent to Bt450 million. However, apart from expanding its line of products to cover the two ...

Most media in Cambodia focus on the achievements of the government. That’s because most stations are owned by members of the government or its supporters. But the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party is now preparing its own channel, after it was offered a license during political ...

In search of Cambodia’s next economic growth driver, the government yesterday laid out the Cambodia Industrial Development Policy 2015-2025, which aims to expand the Kingdom’s narrow industrial base beyond garments and rice.The new policy, launched by Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace in ...