Agriculture

Two-way trade between Vietnam and Cambodia in the first four months of the year reached nearly US$1.3 billion, a 10 per cent rise over the same period last year. According to the Vietnam Trade Office in Cambodia, Vietnam’s exports to Cambodia fetched over $1 billion while ...

This year’s weather has proven too hot for the Kingdom’s famous Kampot pepper, as yields of the spice dropped for the first time since 2008. Some 22 tonnes of pepper were harvested this year between January and May, short of the 27 tonnes predicted for this ...

Accessing low-interest loans for rice cultivation is a challenge because the industry in Cambodia is dependant upon rainfall and not irrigation and is thus more risky, experts said last week. In a meeting on the private sector development in the rice sector, Lim Heng, vice president ...

A year after a massive military raid here that left a 14-year old girl dead and hundreds of families evicted, there remains little sign of the original land dispute that turned this rural village into a hotbed of agitation. But a new firm and a government-issued ...

The European union’s executive arm has responded to its parliamentarians’ concerns over rights abuses stemming from Cambodia’s economic land concessions, maintaining that, should the need arise, it “will be ready” to withdraw from its preferential trade agreements with the Kingdom. In a joint letter to concerned ...

A well-known community representative who has long battled alleged land-grabbing by economic land concessionaire Pheapimex Group was arrested on fraud accusations and jailed in Pursat province’s Krakor district yesterday.Fellow community representative Lun Sivy, 42, said Kuch Veng, a member of the Cambodian Peace Network, was ...

A local official and four ethnic minority Tompuon villagers appeared in a Ratanakkiri court on Friday to face accusations of land-grabbing and protesting against a private company that purchased their land in 2007, authorities said yesterday. Rocham Pheun, an assistant to the chief of Keh Chung ...

The trade commissioner and foreign affairs representative of the European Union (E.U.) have turned down a request from 13 members of the European Parlia­ment that they immediately investigate Cambodia’s much criticized economic land concessions, but said they were monitoring the issue closely. In a March letter ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he hoped land being registered to rural families as part of the government’s nationwide land-titling program would be used to cultivate rubber trees in order to help the country compete with Vietnam as the world’s third-largest rubber exporter. ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged two staffers of Vietnamese rubber concessionaire Hoang Anh Ratanakkiri (CRD) with causing intentional damage for allegedly setting fire to several homes belonging to a landowner with whom they were embroiled in a land dispute, deputy prosecutor Mom Vanda said. ...

A year to the day since armed soldiers stormed into the remote village of Pro Mar in Kratie province, killing a 14-year-old girl, arresting her husband and evicting hundreds of families, Sreng Pho still has nightmares. “I’m really scared when I think back to that day ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday inaugurated a rubber processing plant here, saying the factory would contribute to developing the country’s fast-growing rubber sector. The 7 million U.S. dollar plant, invested by Cambodia’s Sopheak Nika Investment Agro-Industry Company, was built on the area of 9 ...

Ratanakkiri provincial police on Monday arrested the chief of staff of a Vietnamese rubber concessionaire and his Cambodian translator who are believed to have burned down more than $5,000 worth of property related to a land dispute in O’Chum district, police said. Meas Pov Bora, chief ...

Cambodia’s cassava exports reached 245,438 tonnes in the first quarter this year, a 47 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter, from 465,640 tonnes in the final quarter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce released early this month. While most exports went to Thailand, ...

Provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri have warned ethnic Jarai villagers that they will be arrested if they continue to stop bulldozers belonging to a Vietnamese company from clearing forest in O’Yadav district’s Paknhai commune, community leaders said yesterday. Sav Finh, leader of Lom village’s forestry protection committee, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Three members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) on Monday filed a complaint with police in Kompong Chhnang province, accusing irate villagers of torching a wooden shelter built for them by the well-connected KDC agro-industry firm. The soldiers have accused local residents, who have been ...

Chief Cambodia Holding, a Hong Kong-based brokerage firm, started its operations in Phnom Penh yesterday. The company aims to strengthen Cambodian agricultural products, a company official said. The company reserved $100 million investment capital to connect domestic agricultural producers to the market, Director of Chief Cambodia ...

Around 30 residents from Boeung Kok, Borei Kei and Thmor kol communities gathered and knelt down Monday in front of the Royal Palace to seek intervention from the King to release jailed land activist Yorm Bopha. In the petition, they asked him to intervene the ...

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 ...

Cambodia’s promising animal feed sector will soon see support from a big pharmaceutical manufacturer which is now studying local demand for animal healthcare – a nearly untapped market. “We intend to introduce animal health business in Cambodia for our farm products and feed mills,” Khalid Baig, ...

Satiating the demands of the global sugar industry is big business for Cambodia’s sugarcane plantations. Yet accusations of human rights abuses and land grabs in the Kingdom have left a bitter aftertaste for many on the ground as companies vie for a larger slice of ...