The global economic recovery this year continues to benefit Cambodian banks, although insiders said yesterday macro-economic press-ures were still weighing on the industry. Some of Cambodia’s biggest banks had enjoyed a strong 2011 thanks to a rebound in lending, deposits and profits, officials said. Economists, ...

Dozens of human-rights activists are staging flash “faint-ins” at high-street retailers across Europe to illustrate the high incidence of mass fainting in Cambodia’s apparel factories. Protestors from the Clean Clothes Campaign, an alliance of organizations in 15 European countries dedicated to improving working conditions in ...

The number of licensed pawnshops in the country has surged since the government began registering them in 2010, leaving some pawnbrokers claiming revenue losses of 30 to 50 percent due to oversaturation in the market. Ly Seng Cheng, a pawnbroker at the Khlaing Rum Sev pawnshop ...

The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, or Cedac, has built a $500,000 rice mill in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district in the hope of exporting more milled rice overseas, an official said yesterday. “We expect that in 2013, we would export between 200 tons and ...

Strikes staged by garment and footwear factory workers more than tripled in 2012 compared to 2011, with more than 100,000 workers participating in at least one strike, an official of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) said yesterday. “Historically, prior to any elections, we will see a ...

A Lao government delegation visiting the Kingdom’s capital last week anticipates that a joint visa scheme that would allow entry to both countries on a single visa will take at least two to three years to implement. Manoxay Vilayhane, second secretary at the Lao embassy in ...

Four Preah Vihear villagers filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday, requesting help in gaining permission to farm 93 hectares of land the Provincial Forestry Administration barred them from last year. The four complainants represent 65 families who have farmed the area in Kolen district ...

Shouting their demands and trying to force their way through the gate, thousands of striking garment workers rallied in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs to no avail yesterday. The strikes came the morning after management posted a notice saying some 6,000 striking workers ...

Provincial military police confiscated three tractors transporting three metres of luxury wood and two circular saws travelling out of Kampong Speu’s protected Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday. Chea Hean, director of Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organisation (NRWPO), arrived to investigate illegal logging in the sanctuary ...

Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh has categorically denied a report that Cambodian troops have been sent into Thailand to stir trouble in areas where the People’s Democratic Reform Committee is staging anti-government protests. Defence spokesman Col Paphathip Sawangsaeng said Gen Tea Banh made the denial to ...

Cambodia’s exports of protected rosewood and other high-value timber to China more than tripled last year, according to U.N. figures cited in a new report that blames lax law enforcement across the Mekong region and skyrocketing demand in China for pushing some species to the ...

Cambodians staged a protest Thursday to share the concerns of more than a quarter of a million people who are calling on Laos to suspend construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project on the Mekong River. At the protest Chhith Sam Ath, country director of the ...

Cambodian authorities have held two rounds of talks with garment factory owners and unions under a new mechanism to help break a deadlock over increasing the workers’ monthly minimum wage but to no avail. But Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said that he expected the Garment ...

Total Japanese investment in Cambodia under the Kingdom’s qualified investment project (QIP) scheme surged tenfold during the first half of the year, driven by Japan’s improved economy and a hefty capital injection by one of its biggest retail giants. ...

The Federation of Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises of Cambodia (FASMEC) is expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) today to strengthen the co-operation on human resource training and quality control, an insider said. The Sokha, deputy director ...

The International Trade Centre (ITC) yesterday rejected criticisms over the misuse of expenses and funds for a sector-wide Cambodian silk project, saying its approach was appropriate and well managed. Mao Thora, secretary of state for the Ministry of Commerce, publicly criticised the ITC during a seminar ...

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 ...

The government proposed doubling the minimum wage for garment workers—from $80 to $160—within five years during a meeting with labor unions and garment manufacturers on Monday at the Ministry of Labor. “We have a plan to raise the minimum wage up to $160 for garment workers, ...

A monitoring group backed by the United Nations said it would begin to publicize garment factories’ compliance with worker rights and safety standards in Cambodia, a controversial program that its organizers say will be the world’s most extensive initiative to improve working conditions at plants. The ...

With civil society, the opposition and even the ruling party talking more and more about the subject of electoral and judicial reforms in the wake of July’s contested national elections, some groups yesterday gathered to call for reforms in a more modest sector – parking ...