Over the past half year, the military has established dozens of bases in protected community forests in Oddar Meanchey province and used them as an inroad for rampant illegal logging, villagers and forestry administration officials said yesterday. Nearly 2,000 villagers from local forest communities have thumbprinted ...

Cambodia needs to improve the skills of its workforce if it is to compete and benefit from Asean’s plan for greater integration and the free flow of skilled labor within the region by 2015, Minister of Labor Vong Sauth said on Friday at the Asean ...

In 2011, the actual amount of domestic revenue collected during the year did not reach the set target, while actual budget expenditure exceeded the planned amount. As a result, the overall budget deficit grew to 7-3 percent of GDP in 2011. For 2012 and 2013, while the execution of ...

Jeremy Browne, UK foreign office minister, told officials in Cambodia during a two-day visit that despite the current problems the European Union is having with its currency union and economies, ASEAN should not be discouraged from pursuing closer economic and even political coordination within the 1.0-member bloc. Speaking at the Council of Ministers in Phnom ...

About 10 workers were beaten by police and military police during a protest over severance payments yesterday in Kandal province, workers and union representatives said. Protests at Tai Yang Enterprises—which supplies clothing to U.S. brands Levi Strauss and Old Navy—in Ang Snuol district have been ongoing ...

Local police in Ratanakkiri province’s Veun Sai district yesterday tried to shut down a community meeting in which villagers were being educated about land rights, because it was being held without permission, rights workers said. According to Pen Bonnar, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, two ...

Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), a Cambodian agricultural organisation, will collect US$20 million from the Kingdom’s farmers through 2022 in an attempt to accumulate capital for organic rice production. Oun Sophal, president of CEDAC’s Farmer Network from Kampot province’s Dang Tong ...

Amret, one of the largest micro-finance institutions (MFIs) in the country, has announced that it is making plans to raise the capital required to become a full commercial bank by 2015, an official at the institution said yesterday. Chea Phalarin, CEO of Amret, said the decision to expand ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday said: Cambodia has permitted the construction and opening of casinos at the border areas with neighboring countries for “secret strategy” to protect the country’s territory. He replied to opposition party who said gambling dens were harmful to the ...

The sole provider of water and electricity in Koh Kong province’s Khemerak Phumin town, LYP group, was demanding that all rental buildings install water meters at exorbitant rates for the region, residents said yesterday. Building managers sent intervention papers to provincial governor Bun Leut on July ...

The new list of reforms approved by the government at a high-level meeting with its foreign donors on Wednesday offer a mixed bag of targets, with some sectors, such as education, given more ambitious goals than before, while others had their ambitions scaled back and old goals ...

Cambodia is being considered as a site for halal food production and rice milling by the United Arab Emirates, according to the UAE’s Foreign Trade Minister Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi yesterday. Speaking during an official meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that the government would intervene to stem the riel’s sharp rise against the US dollar in recent days. “The Cambodian riel has been rising for several days,” he told a land-distribution ceremony in Oral district in Kampong Speu province, ...

Cambodia’s nascent life insurance market grew slightly after Manulife Cambodia launched the Manulife Savings Protector yesterday. Combining savings and protection, it will provide life protection for 10 or 15 years to create an estate for relatives in case of untimely death and offer benefits from ...

Though the mood was congratulatory yesterday at the inauguration of ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat’s sugar company – a gleaming, new facility nestled in between two hills in Kampong Speu province’s Omlaing commune – the mood just a few kilometres away bordered on desperation. Sitting ...

Loans and deposits at Cambodia’s 32 micro-finance institutions and four NGOs, as well as small loans from Acleda Bank, rose sharply last year compared with a year earlier. Industry players say this is a result of the Kingdom’s rapid economic improvement and political stability. Official data from ...

Kampong Speu palm sugar production is projected to decrease slightly this year due to a late start, though prices are expected to rise thanks to the sugar’s growing popularity following its geographical indication certification. Despite the drop in production, Hong Hoeung, director of Kampong Speu Palm ...

Acleda Bank will break ground on a 20-story tower directly behind its current headquarters on Monivong Boulevard in September to become the third bank in the country to push ahead with a high-rise property in the capital, officials at the bank said yesterday. John Brinsden, Acleda’s ...

The Free Trade Union (FTU) is unhappy with the size of the raise agreed to this week by manufacturers for garment workers and said it would meet next week to decide whether to hold a nationwide strike in August for a larger increase, said FTU ...

About 100 villagers in Kompong Thom province set out yesterday on a three-day patrol of Prey Long forest in search of illegal logging, their second since the April 26 shooting death of conservationist Chut Wutty. who was the organizer of the first patrols. Soem Sean, a ...