Testing of a new electronic voter registration system is “running smoothly”, with more than 14,000 people registered across 24 provinces since the pilot project began on November 1, the National Election Committee announced yesterday. ...

 Just months ahead of local elections, the Cambodian government has ordered the microfinance industry to cap interest rates on new and refinanced loans at 18 percent a year starting April 1. ...

Labour officials sent off 14 maids to Hong Kong yesterday in celebration of a pilot program that hopes to funnel up to 1,000 maids to the Asian financial hub despite concerns from rights groups. ...

Three and a half years after signing a memorandum of understanding on the project, the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Cambodia handed over a $10.1 million aviation training center to the government yesterday. ...

Nearly 1,000 workers from the Collective Union of Movement of Workers on Saturday kicked off a campaign to demand government intervention to end short-term contracts being peddled to a majority of garment workers. ...

The National Assembly’s permanent committee on Monday approved further study of amendments to Cambodia’s election law that would allow more than 1 million migrant workers to vote from outside the country’s borders. ...

Cambodia’s Soma Group yesterday signed a US$3-million deal with Indian company Ankur Scientific, the largest biomass-to-energy company in India, to construct a 1.5-megawatt rice husk power plant in Kampong Cham province. ...

Days after a Phnom Penh garment factory refused to abide by an Arbitration Council decision in favour of its employees, more than 1,000 workers are expected to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Labour today. ...

The Cambodian Mine Action Authority said yesterday that the country needs more than $400 million to clear mines and explosive remnants of war from 2018 to 2025, on an area larger than 1,970 square kilometres. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen announced yesterday that all people can ride the public bus for free in Phnom Penh, and from the capital to the provinces along National Roads 1 and 5, for Khmer New Year. ...

During the past five years the government approved close to $6.83 billion worth of investments in 1,183 construction projects, according to a senior official from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. ...

Three people were provisionally charged by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Sunday for smuggling 1 kg of heroin, police said, as officers continued searching for a Vietnamese couple they believe to be the ringleaders of the operation. ...

Cambodia’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) earned $1.9 billion in revenue last year from the tourism sector, and could increase this amount further by reducing imports, an industry spokesman said yesterday.   ...

The National Election Committee yesterday released a monthly meeting schedule with the European and Japanese embassies in a bid to ensure the voter-registration process, due to begin September 1, will go smoothly.   ...

Thai paint manufacturer TOA Paint (Thailand) plans to invest at least 1 billion baht (about $28.2 million) in three new factories in Cambodia, Myanmar and Indonesia, according to a report in Thai newspaper The Nation. ...

There will soon be direct flights to Cambodia from X’ian city in China’s Shaanxi province to meet the growing demand of Chinese tourists, said Tourism Minister Thong Khon yesterday. ...

As Cambodians went to vote yesterday, more than 1,000 ethnic Vietnamese families living in floating houses in Kampong Chhnang province found themselves shunned by election officials on both sides of the border.   ...

Cambodia’s milled rice production is expected to increase to around 6 million tons (about 9.34 million tons, basis paddy) in 2013, up about 1% from the previous year, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). ...

More than 1,000 workers at the Manhattan (Cambodia) Co Ltd garment factory in Kampong Cham province are striking in the wake of factory management’s reaction to their last strike action. ...

In a bid to ramp up rice exports to 1 million tonnes in 2015, the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port announced yesterday that rice stored in its warehouses would not be charge any fees for up to 18 days.​ ...