Cambodia spent more than $1.6 billion importing fuel oil and petrol last year, a figure 14.3 per cent higher than for 2011, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. The money spent on importing 1.6 million tonnes of petrol and fuel oil – 100,000 tonnes more than ...

Hundreds of Kompong Cham villagers protested yesterday and Sunday against high electricity prices in another example of energy-price demonstrations that are becoming increasingly frequent across the country. In Kompong Cham province’s Batheay district, more than 500 villagers yesterday continued a protest over electricity prices that began ...

Officials at a recent energy conference in Phnom Penh stressed that Cambodia needed to use energy more efficiently to meet regional goals, boost economic development and lower overall harm to the environment. More than 150 energy officials from the public and private sectors came together for ...

Sketchy details that fail to specify when construction of the Lower Sesan 2 hydro dam will begin, or name the Chinese company involved, have villagers fearing for their future, representatives and environmental groups say. Since the Council of Ministers announced on Friday it had signed off ...

The Taiwanese-owned garment company Grand Twins International (Cambodia) Plc says it intends to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) next month, in a boost for the Kingdom’s nascent stock market. Phnom Penh Securities (PPS), an underwriter for Grand Twins International (GTI), said yesterday the company ...

More than 100 Cham fishing families who moor their boat homes on the banks of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva peninsula have been ordered to relocate, with one official saying the fishing boats were spoiling the beauty of the riverbank and the area around the new hotel. “We already ...

Workers in Stung Treng province have begun clearing forested land with chainsaws in order to make way for the reservoir of a massive hydropower dam that has drawn ire from local villagers who say they have not been informed about the dam’s construction plans. The National ...

The wizened cyclo driver, cigarette in mouth, muscles taut from pedalling up and down French-style boulevards, is one of Indochina’s enduring romantic images. But cyclos on the streets of Phnom Penh are now outnumbered by another means of transport: the luxury car. But with the urban ...

More than 100 police and security guards, including  riot squad members, were deployed to the capital’s Boeung Kak lake community yesterday to block a protest that, at times, involved only three shouting women. About 50 members of the Boeung Kak community tried to march from Village ...

The private sector has called on the government to review Cambodia’s taxation law, a statute that business leaders say is outdated and needs to change if Cambodia wants to continue to attract foreign investment. Led by Cambodia Chamber of Commerce (CCC) president Kith Meng, a delegation ...

Flooding is a perennial pain in Cambodia, the low-lying, deeply impoverished nation squeezed between Thailand and Vietnam. About this time each year, rivers swell, lakes expand and villages sink beneath soupy brown waters. But this year’s flooding woes are proving particularly miserable. More than 100 are dead, ...

Thousands of opposition supporters at Freedom Park cheered in a near-ecstatic frenzy yesterday as Cambodia National Rescue Party president Sam Rainsy compared the demonstration to those held by the ruling party with an eye to the bottom line. “The [Cambodian People’s Party] uses money to pay ...

A garment factory’s alleged efforts to wipe workers’ contract histories clean could be a “test case” for how much international buyers tolerate factories negotiating outside of legal requirements, a labour-rights advocate has said. After effectively being bought out of their contracts, about 300 employees of USA ...

Local communities that lost their land via economic land concessions to private companies are now being paid by those same firms to illegally fell the trees that once sustained their livelihoods, a group of five advocacy groups contended yesterday. At a press conference, the NGOs singled ...

Hung Hiep (Cambodia) Co., the only company in Cambodia licensed to import Mercedes-Benz luxury vehicles, said Monday it would no longer make repairs to new lines of Mercedes vehicles that are smuggled into the country. Company officials said the move is to reduce scams and repair ...

Supporters of the opposition CNRP and relatives of the 16 men, women and children killed in a grenade attack during a protest rally in 1997, will hold a Buddhist ceremony today at the scene of the blasts in front of the old National Assembly in ...

A pilot scheme sending 400 Cambodian maids to Singapore has made a spluttering start, according to local media reports, with agencies in Singapore reportedly growing frustrated at the slow pace of maid arrivals and “sceptical” about the reliability of Cambodia as a source. Only about 100 ...

The National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC) will launch a website this month aimed at encouraging more people to donate blood as stocks at the center are still critically low and hundreds of units short of meeting demand, the center’s director said Monday. Dr. Hok Kim Cheng ...

Taxi drivers staged a large protest Wednesday at a customs checkpoint in Poipet City over customs officials’ demands for what the protesters said was an exorbitant tax on a small load of goods. At the checkpoint Wednesday, more than 50 taxi drivers blocked the road for ...

The Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training released its 2013 annual report Monday, trumpeting a list of nine achievements it had reached in line with its five-year plan for the fourth government mandate, which ended last year. Speaking to a crowd of about 100 officials ...