Crop products and commodities

An ethanol plant planned for Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province would push local production of the crop, as well as decreased reliance on foreign markets, officials and cassava farmers said yesterday. Construction on the joint venture between a Chinese firm and Cambodia’s National Company for Development will ...

Exports from Cambodia increased 32.9 percent to $3.7 billion during the first ten months of this year compared to the same period in 2010, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce yesterday. Milled rice exports saw the biggest increase with a 161.5 percent jump ...

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) launched its first branch in Cambodia yesterday, bringing the total number of commercial banks in the country to 30. Speaking at the inauguration of the branch in Phnom Penh, Finance Minister Keat Chhon made an appeal to ICBC ...

Cambodia aimed to become one of the region’s main rubber producers over the next few years despite the industry’s low international recognition, officials said during the second Global Rubber Conference, held in Phnom Penh on Friday. To that end, the Kingdom had encouraged companies and investors ...

As the harvest of the wet season rice crop gets under way in many parts of the country, rice prices have started to increase, rice millers said yesterday. They said prices were now up about 15 percent compared to the same time last year, but ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen Mnounced yesterday that the government would create a one-stop service office for rice millers and exporters in order to reduce red tape and help the country reach its lofty export target of a million tons of milled rice by 2015. “We cannot ...

A Japan energy company yesterday said it planned to build a rice mill fuelled by rice husks in Cambodia’s Takeo province. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kingdom’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) confirming cooperation ...

Two Cambodian banks have set aside US$200 million for loans to bolster the Kingdom’s struggling rice-milling industry, officials said yesterday. The move comes as the Cambodian government has called on the private sector to boost loans to rice millers during the harvest season as a way ...

Devastating floods as well as the economic slowdown in Europe and the US have prompted the World Bank to lower its outlook for Cambodia’s economic growth this year to 6 percent, down from a previous projection of 6.8 percent. In its economic update for the region ...

All families evacuated during the worst floods Cambodia has seen in more than a decade have now returned home, the floodwaters have receded and relief efforts are coming to a close, officials said yesterday. Two hundred and fifty people, at least half of them children, died ...

Cambodia’s milled rice exports increased by more than seven per cent year-on-year during the first 10 months of 2011, while international demand for the grain drove up rice prices by nearly 200 per cent, commerce officials said. The Kingdom exported more than 136,000 tonnes of milled ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and South Korea jumped more than 40 per cent year-on-year through September, according to the Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency. Total trade between January and September reached $387 million, according to KOTRA, up 45 per cent from $267 million during the year-ago ...

Cambodian rice trader TTY Corporation has said the Kingdom cannot meet a new 200,000-tonne export quota for shipping high-quality rice to China. State-owned Sinograin’s order for three varieties of milled fragrant rice was a deviation from an agreement struck with TTY in August, TTY deputy director-general ...

Angered by the clearing of parts of Prey Long forest, several hundred indigenous minority villagers marched on a rubber plantation here in northern Kompong Thom province yesterday night and breached its gate in order to demand that the company stop cutting down trees in the ...

As part of a continuing push to bolster rice exports, the government has agreed to waive all export tariffs on milled rice and will also eliminate value-added tax (VAT) on paddy rice purchased domestically. According to a promulgation signed last month by Finance Minister Keat Chhon, ...

The Center for Study and Development of Agriculture (Cedac) is calling on the government and microfinance firms to issue low-interest loans for flood-stricken farmers in order to save this year’s dry season rice harvest. Floods have destroyed 10 percent of the rainy season rice crop and ...

Rubber growers and exporters in Cambodia stalled exports as rubber prices continued a sharp decline that companies attributed to flooding in Thailand and economic turmoil in Europe. Heng Sreng, general director of Long Sreng International Co Ltd and owner of Boeung Keth Rubber Plantation in Kampong ...

While the World Trade Organisation yesterday lauded Cambodia’s economic achievements since joining in 2004, officials pointed to the lack of much-needed financing for the Kingdom’s burgeoning trade sector. Cambodia lacks the capacity to finance the manufacturing and agriculture exports that would allow the country’s industries to ...

Cambodia plans to expand its exports of milled rice and other agricultural products to the United Arab Emirates, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said yesterday. The UAE seeks a replacement for the milled rice it would otherwise import from Thailand, where the worst flooding in decades ...

Total exports during the first nine months of the year rose 41 percent to $3.5 billion compared to the same period in 2010, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce. Of the total amount, $3.1 billion was in garments, $10 million in paddy rice, ...

The Kingdom’s cassava exports soared 94 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2011, despite the recent flood devastation the agriculture sector has experienced, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of dry and fresh cassava hit about 22,652 ...

A Malaysian firm on Saturday signed a joint agricultural agreement with property development company Paragon Corporation Cambodia worth a potential US$2 billion in exports of corn, rubber, coffee and other cash crops. Penned by Paragon Corporation Cambodia and Markmore Group Malaysia, the joint development project will ...

Rubber production in Cambodia is expected to increase by 245,500 tons per year by 2020, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). MAFF Minister Chan Sarun said on Aug 30 that Cambodia will have 365,000 hectares for rubber production as the amount ...

The Kampot Pepper Association said yesterday that the price of pepper would increase in January to $8 per kg, up from $7 currently. Nguon Lay, president of the association, said that the price hike was due to strong demand from abroad and high production costs ...