News
IFC helps promote competitiveness and sustainable growth in Cambodia’s garment sector
Despite the challenges of COVID-19, local apparel and textile suppliers have cut energy and water consumption through a range of sustainable solutions under an IFC programme which aims to increase resource efficiency and reduce operating costs. ...
Khmer Times Staff
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/1054211/ifc-helps-promote-competitiveness-and-sustainable-growth-in-cambodias-garment-sector/
Rubber giant to hear villagers’ complaints
More than 15 months after a Global Witness report revealed that Vietnam’s state-owned rubber giant had illegally cleared land and displaced communities in Cambodia, the company has announced that it will accept and respond to complaints from those whose lives it has damaged. Vietnam Rubber Group, ...
Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-giant-to-hear-villagers-complaints-67074/
IFC sells stake in Cambodia's commercial bank to Japanese bank
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has sold its 12.25 percent stake in Acleda bank to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in an undisclosed amount after having supported Acleda for over 15 years, said an IFC news statement ...
Shanghai Daily News Staff
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=235929
Online registration option to be rolled out to SMEs
The Ministry of Industry and Handicraft will introduce an online registration platform for Cambodia’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) this year, a ministry official confirmed yesterday. Heng Sok Kong, secretary of state at the ministry, said the new software for web registration was built in partnership ...
Annie Lee
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/online-registration-option-be-rolled-out-smes
HAGL filled in lakes: villagers
More than 100 families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have filed a complaint with authorities, claiming a rubber giant – already accused of illegal logging – filled in two natural lakes, provincial officials said yesterday. Villagers, along with government officials, say Vietnamese company Hong Anh Gai ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hagl-filled-lakes-villagers
HAGL called out at the UN
A Cambodian delegation to the United Nations last week used the stage to shame the World Bank’s financial arm for failing to adequately monitor investments in a Vietnamese rubber giant accused of illegal logging, forced evictions and sexual harassment. Representing 17 indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri that ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hagl-called-out-un
Sexual abuse among claims against HAGL
Sexual assault and the annihilation of sacred graveyards are among the many claims levelled at Vietnamese Rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) by villagers in Ratanakkiri province, a report by the World Bank’s investment arm reveals. In February, 17 indigenous communities that accused HAGL of ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sexual-abuse-among-claims-against-hagl
Rubber firm accused of illegal logging puts Work on Hold
A Vietnamese firm behind several Cambodian rubber plantations accused of rampant land grabbing and illegal logging has bowed to a request from the International Finance Corporation (IFC)—which helps fund its operations—to temporarily suspend forest clearing at some of its local subsidiaries. In an April 28 decision, ...
Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-firm-accused-of-illegal-logging-puts-work-on-hold-58287/
Rubber company suspends projects as World Bank investigates
A World Bank-supported rubber company accused of land grabs has suspended some of its projects, as an investigation by the bank continues. The Hoang Anh Gia Lai company, which received support from the bank’s International Finance Corporation, said in a decision following an April 2 ...
Sok Khemara
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/rubber-company-suspends-projects-as-world-bank-investigates/1908775.html
IFC investigates over ‘land-grabbing link’
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has launched an internal investigation into a complaint lodged against the institution for investing in a Vietnamese rubber firm accused of illegal logging and land grabbing in Ratanakkiri, an NGO and villager said yesterday. Earlier this month, representatives of the IFC’s ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ifc-investigates-over-%E2%80%98land-grabbing-link%E2%80%99
Palm oil plantation accused of withholding workers’ pay
More than 20 families working on a controversial palm oil plantation in Ratanakkiri province owned by the Hoang Anh Lumphat company have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing the owners of improperly withholding one month’s pay. Lor Sophal said he and another 22 families, ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/palm-oil-plantation-accused-of-withholding-workers-pay-53520/
IFC accepts complaint over Ratanakkiri rubber plantations
The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ifc-accepts-complaint-over-ratanakkiri-rubber-plantations-53251/
IFC Ombudsman to help settle Phnom Penh airport land dispute
Representatives for the hundreds of families facing eviction from homes around Phnom Penh International Airport have agreed to let the compliance ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, mediate a solution to the land dispute with the ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ifc-ombudsman-to-help-settle-phnom-penh-airport-land-dispute-53146/
World Bank To Review Environmental Complaints Against Company
The World Bank says it will investigate reports from indigenous groups in Cambodia that a company funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation is involved in deforestation and land grabs. The bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman, or CAO, will first examine the credibility of ...
Sok Khemara
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/world-bank-to-review-environmental-complaints-against-company/1853122.html
Minorities complain to IFC over rubber farm funding
More than a dozen ethnic minority communities from Cambodia’s northeast filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Monday, accusing it of breaking its own safeguard policies by investing in rubber plantations they say are stealing their land and illegally logging their forests. The ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/minorities-complain-to-ifc-over-rubber-farm-funding-51868/
Families to file complaint with IFC over rubber plantations
Some of the hundreds of families losing land and community forest to Vietnamese-owned rubber plantations in Cambodia’s northeast will this week file a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) over the investment it has made in the plantations’ parent company. Eang Vuthy, executive director of ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-to-file-complaint-with-ifc-over-rubber-plantations-51765/
Banks Urged to Divest From Ratanakkiri-Based Rubber Firm
Environmental campaign group Global Witness on Thursday called on the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank to divest immediately from a Vietnamese firm whose rubber plantations in Cambodia are accused of rampant illegal logging and forced evictions of indigenous communities. The call came exactly six ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/banks-urged-to-divest-from-ratanakkiri-based-rubber-firm-47045/
IFC, Deutsche Bank respond to Global Witness report
On May 13, we ran an interview with London-based NGO Global Witness accusing the Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation of financing two Vietnamese rubber companies that are allegedly involved in land grabs in Cambodia and Laos. We asked both banks for a response ...
Vietnam rubber tycoon rejects land grabbing accusations
A Vietnamese rubber tycoon has rejected accusations by Global Witness, a group that campaigns on resource issues, that it was involved in a land grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia. Doan Nguyen Duc, the chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group, told Vietnamese media the information ...
Cambodia Plantations Not IFC’s First Controversy
In the wake of a new report from environmental rights group Global Witness rebuking the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank for investing in rubber plantations accused of illegal logging and forced evictions, both institutions have denied responsibility and deflected the blame ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-plantations-not-ifcs-first-controversy-23793/
Deutsche Bank, IFC Rubber Investments Questioned
Deutsche Bank and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) have poured millions of dollars into Vietnamese rubber companies operating in Cambodia that have engaged in illegal logging and forced evictions of local farmers, the environmental rights group Global Witness says in a new report ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/deutsche-bank-ifc-rubber-investments-questioned-23598/
Local cashew nut exports increasing
Cambodia’s cashew-nut exports increased sharply from 443 tonnes in 2011 to 4,453 tonnes last year, according to the Ministry of Commerce. But observers say these figures do not reflect reality, as a large percentage of exports had not been recorded. An expert in cashew nut production, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013020661205/Business/local-cashew-nut-exports-increasing.html
Weaving woes -Cambodia’s silk sector faces possible extinction as economic realities force artisans to abandon the craft
In the not-so-distant past, visitors to Koh Dach, an island in the Mekong River about 15 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh, were often struck by the sound as well as the sights that met them there. Among the many crafts on display by local artisans, ...
IFC seeks more Australian partnerships in emerging markets
INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the Washington-based World Bank, has invested $US805 million ($770m) in Australian projects around the world These projects are in 24 countries and in sectors ranging from financial services to infrastructure. IFC is an investor in three Macquarie Group-sponsored infrastructure ...