What does Friday’s affirmation of Cambodia’s ‘B’ long and short-term sovereign credit ratings actually mean? In short, it signals that the Kingdom of Cambodia — unlike Greece, for example — “currently has the capacity to meet its financial commitments,” according to definitions used by Standard and ...

A Vietnamese rubber company in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district yesterday agreed to pay $4,000 in compensation to an ethnic Jarai community whose traditional graveyard was bulldozed by the firm last week, local officials said. During a meeting at the Paknhai commune police station, representatives of the ...

The Kirirom III Hydropower Station in Kompong Speu province started operating last month, providing 18 megawatts of electricity to both Kompong Speu and Phnom Penh, an official at state-owned Electricite du Cambodge said yesterday. The additional power from the $47 million dam will help alleviate Phnom ...

The real growth rate of the service sector has been revised upwardly by half a percentage point against our previous prediction to 5.4 percent year-on-year in 2012, on the back of higher growth expected in the local trade and transport subsectors. The growth outlook of this sector in 2013 is quite ...

Cambodia had granted operating licenses to 2,606 new companies in the first nine months of this year, a 11 percent rise from 2,336 new firms at the same period a year ago, the report of the Commerce Ministry showed Wednesday. Those companies are dealing in the ...

Five people were arrested early Sunday morning for allegedly stealing more than 8,000 articles of clothing from shipping container on its way to Phnom Penh for export to the U.S., police said. The five suspects are accused of removing the garments from the cargo container as ...

Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group will be the first authorized importer and dealer of BMW automobiles in the country, and has begun construction on a showroom and service center in Phnom Penh. Premium Auto Import Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Royal Group, aims to import roughly 200 ...

Energy Minister Suy Sem yesterday defended a draft law on the financing of a massive dam project in Stung Treng province which is slated for debate at the National Assembly on Friday. Environmental groups have called debate of the law premature, as no consultation with local ...

The father of three youths allegedly beaten by DM Group workers earlier this month said court officers yesterday threatened to imprison him if he did not agree to compromise with the company and drop the case. Ry Sarun appeared at Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday to answer ...

About 300 former employees of bankrupt mobile phone operator Mfone continued to protest yesterday outside the company’s closed Phnom Penh offices, demanding severance payments totaling $4.4 million for 1,092 workers. But Vong Savan, deputy secretary-general of the Labor Dissolution Commission at the Ministry of Social ...

CAMBODIA’S economy can “leapfrog” by developing its information and communications technology (ICT) industry, but the government is not spending enough on ICT infrastructure to attract private investments, business leaders said at a seminar in Phnom Penh yesterday. “What has been seen over the last 20 years ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a draft law amending three articles in the law on anti-money laundering and the financing of terrorism in order to make Cambodia more investment-friendly. Last month, the National Bank of Cambodia’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), law enforcement officials ...

Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday. The move comes after a number of ...

Amid concerns the Pchum Ben holiday will lead to a spike in bird flu cases, health officials have begun to roll out a widespread education campaign aimed at stanching the spread of H5N1. The highly fatal flu has seen 20 cases and 11 deaths this ...

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) — Landmines have killed at least 19 people in Cambodia in the first eight months of the year, down from 26 deaths over the same period last year, the figures of the Cambodia Mine Action Center (CMAC) showed Thursday. The latest ...

Three staff members of a local NGO that campaigns against resource exploitation were charged yesterday with extorting money from loggers in Stung Treng province. The three staffers from the Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) stand accused of extorting groups of loggers out of at ...

The government must act now in order to avoid a “tsunami” of tobacco-related deaths in the coming years, according to the co-author of a new report on smoking that appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Wednesday. Research for the study, Smoking prevalence ...

The Australian National University has posted a map of the results of last month’s elections on its website showing the different levels of popular support for the ruling and opposition parties in all provinces. Colum Graham, a PhD candidate at the ANU College of Asia and ...

An environmental group has hit out at the Lao government for organising a tour of the proposed Don Sahong hydropower dam site, saying it should not be trying to “sell” a project that has not been regionally approved. Other NGOs have also warned of the ...

The amount of money to be allocated to commune-, district- and province-level governments is slated to rise next year in accordance with the government’s long-gestating attempts at decentralising its power. Provincial- and capital-level funding will rise to about 640.8 billion riel, with 237.2 billion riel ...