Hattha Kaksekar Limited, one of the country’s largest microfinance institutions (MFIs), is in talks to become a commercial bank by 2014, an official at the micro-lender said yesterday. The move, if successful, will be in line with the Central Bank’s policy to support MFIs in diversifying ss='cambodia-color'>...

The dismissal of a worker allegedly fired by Xin Lan (Cambodia) garment factory in Kandal province’s Ang snuol district for frequently relieving himself on the factory’s perimeter fence has sparked a mass strike of about 1,000 fellow workers – almost all of the factory’s staff. Nov ss='cambodia-color'>...

Prime Minister Hun sen yesterday told senior officials to stop investors from using land concessions as a pretext for logging and to discuss the possibility of reducing the amount of time such concessions can last. The government placed a moratorium on logging concessions in 2002 to ss='cambodia-color'>...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the hearing of a controversial case against a Thai-owned sugar company that more than 200 families alleged had taken their land for the company’s sugar plantations, lawyers and village representatives said yesterday. Ny sorphornneary, the lawyer for the families, ss='cambodia-color'>...

Bankers have raised no concerns over the National Bank of Cambodia’s increase to the reserve requirement rate in order to maintain the stabilization of cash flow and inflation during a time of global financial difficulty. The increase, from 12 to 12.5 per cent, issued late last month, was ss='cambodia-color'>...

Human rights groups yesterday decried the result of the government’s investigation into the murder of forestry activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana, saying that there were many holes in the official finding. On saturday, the government committee charged with investigating the killings in ss='cambodia-color'>...

Officials and experts yesterday questioned the likelihood of Cambodia and Vietnam’s proposal to hike bilateral trade by more than Us$2.5 billion by 2015. The pledge of $5 billion in total trade, made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun sen and his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung, last ss='cambodia-color'>...

Plans are in place for a new $10 million international airport on Koh Rong island, but questions remain as to when construction would commence and when funding would be available. Designs for the roughly 7,200-square-metre airport terminal, which will consist of Khmer- and resort-style architecture, were ss='cambodia-color'>...

Group Lease has decided to raise the capital of its wholly owned singaporean subsidiary Group Lease Holdings to serve as the main funding source for its Cambodian motorcycle leasing operations after six months of satisfactory trial operations there. Cambodia, which is managed by Group Lease’s ss='cambodia-color'>...

Prior to 2013, Dom Dorn, a farmer in Phnom Sruoch diStrict of Kampong Speu province, uSed oxen to farm hiS white-rice paddieS; now, after juSt hiS Second harveSt of Sowing phkarmaliS (alSo known aS jaSmine or fragrant rice), he iS uSing a kor yun, or SS='cambodia-color'>...

Employees reportedly working for the controversial Company 72 have allegedly been illegally felling timber in a community forest in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district and shipping it across the Vietnamese border, community members and Adhoc said yesterday. Romas svat, a community representative in Paknhai commune’s Lom village, ss='cambodia-color'>...

Minister of Posts and Telecommunications so Khun said Wednesday that the government’s decision last week to order all mobile phone firms to stop offering generous top-up bonuses came after one of the market’s competitors complained to the ministry. Ian Watson, CEO of Mobitel, denied complaining ss='cambodia-color'>...

King Norodom Sihamoni flew to Beijing on Monday, accompanied by Queen Mother Norodom Monineath for a routine medical checkup, but will return to Cambodia to preSide over the opening SeSSion of the fifth mandate of the National ASSembly, according to a Statement releaSed by the SS='cambodia-color'>...

Thailand’s PTT Cambodia, a subsidiary of the kingdom’s state-owned oil and gas conglomerate PTT Public Company Limited, expects to more than double the amount of petrol stations it manages in Cambodia by the end of 2017, a senior executive in the company said this week. ss='cambodia-color'>...

Cambodia had exported 288,300 tons of fresh and dry cassava in the first eight months of the year, down 56 percent compared with same period last year, the figures of the Commerce Ministry said sunday. The country generated total revenue of 15.2 million U.s. dollars from ss='cambodia-color'>...

Following the announcement of recent reforms to Cambodia’s customs department and Commerce Ministry, a revision of the country’s investment law is planned for next year, according to the secretary-general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). speaking to reporters at a workshop at the ss='cambodia-color'>...

More than 40 fresh land rows have emerged across the country – and many more could be going unreported, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) said yesterday. A study CCHR conducted into land conflicts between 2011 and 2013 has resulted in the rights group publishing ss='cambodia-color'>...

UN special rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly Maina Kiai, who visited Cambodia two weeks ago, has called on the Kingdom to embrace regular changes in leadership and to take lessons from Africa’s strongman-riddled history, in a column published in Kenya’s Daily Union newspaper on ss='cambodia-color'>...

The ruling party wants “biased” election watchdogs to be on a tight leash by the next election and wants the opposition to agree to it, senior Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker Cheam Yeap said yesterday ahead of the third meeting of a bipartisan election reform committee ss='cambodia-color'>...

Human Rights Watch says three draft laws on the verge of approval by the National Assembly, intended to assure the independence of Cambodia’s courts, would do just the opposite, and has called on the government to withdraw them. The Council of Ministers approved the trio of ss='cambodia-color'>...