Defender of Cambodia's dwindling forests wins goldman prize
The latest crackdown on illegal logging in Cambodia is “just a game” and big timber traders are winning, says Ouch Leng, a former government official who has spent two decades helping poor villagers fight poaching of precious tropical forests. Leng’s tenacious and perilous crusade to stop ...
Elaine Kurtenbach
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/defender-cambodias-dwindling-forests-wins-goldman-prize-38473467
Up to $85M earmarked to develop agro sectors
Representatives of Cambodia’s rice sector and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) met yesterday with the international Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to discuss the implementation of a five-year program to promote the Kingdom’s agricultural products. ...
Cheng Sokhorng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/85m-earmarked-develop-agro-sectors
As Climate Changes, Farmers Need More Help
The government is not doing enough to help farmers weather the destructive effects of drought and flooding brought on by climate change, leaving NGOs to provide aid and emergency relief in cases of natural disaster, agriculture industry leaders said at a forum yesterday. ...
PTT to conduct feasibility study in Cambodia: report
PTT, Thailand’s largest oil and gas conglomerate said it plans to conduct a feasibility study on petrochemical and oil refinery projects in three ASEAN countries – Cambodia, indonesia and Myanmar, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Pailin Chuchottaworn, PTT chief executive said, however, that indonesia and Myanmar ...
Timbergreen official questioned in Chut Wutty shooting
The “company” that military police have declined to identify but said sent staff to confront activist Chut Wutty shortly before he was shot last Thursday is Timbergreen, a firm the slain activist had attempted to expose for illegal logging. Documents obtained by the Post yesterday and sources have ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012050355957/National-news/company-man-arrested.html
Myanmar Airways flights to Cambodia to take off again
Myanmar Airways International (MAI) will resume its regular flights between Yangon and Cambodia’s two maIn International airports In early December after they were suspended for about three months. MAI started a twice-weekly schedule to Siem Reap In late February, but suspended the route over the last ...
Companies Urged to Respect Labor Standards
Respecting labor standards in Cambodian factories will benefit the garment manufacturing industry in the long-run as more international brands will be tempted to source from the country, labor experts said yesterday at a round-table discussion in Phnom Penh. ...
World Bank Report Predicts 6.6 Percent Growth
Cambodia’s economy will grow by an average of 7 percent in each of the next five years, the World Bank said yesterday in a report on the country’s economic outlook. in its periodic update on economies in the region, the World Bank predicted gross domestic product ...
National Bank of Cambodia Reports Lending Surge in 2012
Lending by commercial banks in Cambodia grew by more than one-third last year, according to figures provided by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) yesterday. Banks lent out a total of $5.89 billion in 2012, compared with $4.39 billion in 2011, NBC figures show, meaning ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/national-bank-of-cambodia-reports-lending-surge-in-2012-11368/
U.S. imports large volume of organic rice
An unusual report shows that organic rice buyers in the U.S. are getting a large percentage of their rice from Cambodia. The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) exported 114 tonnes of organic jasmine rice to the U.S. in the first quarter of ...
http://www.agprofessional.com/news/US-imports-large-volume-of-organic-rice-201976661.html
Gov’t suspends freedom of association for unions
Following a complaint from the Free Trade Union (FTU) over the Ministry of Labor’s refusal to register 10 local branches of its organization, a ministry official said Wednesday that the constitutional right to freedom of association has been suspended until a new trade union law ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt-suspends-freedom-of-association-for-unions-53271/
Unions, opposition ‘hindering wage talks’
Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng and ministry spokesman Heng Sour yesterday accused unions and the opposition of derailing the government’s efforts at minimum wage reform by striking and stirring up violence for their own political gain. “The government has set up a committee to study the ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/unions-opposition-%E2%80%98hindering-wage-talks%E2%80%99
Release quickly follows deal
A jubilant crowd of opposition supporters burst into cheers yesterday afternoon as seven Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers-elect and one party activist were released on bail just hours after an announced rapprochement between the CNRP and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. They walked free through exits ...
Joe Freeman
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/release-quickly-follows-deal
Better worker food needed: Survey
A new study has determined that cost and space are the biggest constraints to setting up canteens in Cambodia’s garment factories. The findings were presented on Monday night at a cocktail party attended by Cambodia’s former ambassador to the US, Roland Eng, the Swedish Ambassador Anne ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012060656611/Business/better-worker-food-needed.html
Hun Sen vows to live past 93
Responding to rumours swirling on social media that he had suffered a massive stroke and died, Prime Minister Hun Sen proved to be very much alive during an animated speech in Kampot province yesterday. Addressing a crowd in Chhuok district, the 63-year-old premier assured listeners that ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hun-sen-vows-live-past-93
Banking sector grows
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, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011070550175/Business/banking-sector-grows.html
Activists Stage Flash “Faint-Ins” at H&M, Gap to Protest Sweatshop Conditions
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 ...
http://www.ecouterre.com/activists-stage-flash-faint-ins-at-hm-gap-to-protest-sweatshop-conditions/
Cambodian Pawnshop Revenues Drop as Industry Expands
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 ...
Cedac buys rice miller to boost imports
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 ...
Garment factory worker strikes increased threefold in 2012
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 ...