Agriculture and fishing

Cambodia had granted operating licenses to 606 new companies in the first quarter of this year, a 33 percent decrease compared with the 904 firms at the same period last year, the Commerce Ministry’s report showed Tuesday. Yim Rom, an official at the ministry’s statistics ...

In order to boost the Kingdom’s trade performance and improve the quality of lives of farmers along the Thai-Cambodia border, Thailand has agreed to remove import restrictions on Cambodian cassava and maize. Speaking to reporters after the forth meeting of the Joint Trade Committee between Cambodia ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. [Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood ...

Hundreds of indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province are being made worse off by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme which, rather than securing their property rights, is contributing to the loss of their ancestral lands, according to a new report. The report supports complaints aired since ...

Officials in Ratanakkiri province are investigating the provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc for incitement after he helped villagers organize a demonstration, ultimately canceled, against a Vietnamese rubber company in O’Yadaw district. Mr. [Chhay] Thy, [Adhoc’s Provincial Investigator] said yesterday that he met with about ...

Thailand will forge closer ties with Cambodia and other neighbouring countries to increase competency in rice trading and boost the bargaining power of Asean countries by setting up a rice-trading zone soon. Also, Thailand will expand crop cooperation to cassava to raise farm incomes in the ...

Despite steady economic growth in recent years, Cambodia remains one of the least-developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region and faces the challenge of diversifying its economy and moving up the production value chain, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) ...

As rising economic growth spurred demand for personal loans, Prasac, Cambodia’s biggest microfinance institution (MFI), provided $106 million in loans between March, 2012 and March, 2013, an increase of 66 per cent compared with the corresponding period a year earlier.  “Loans [were] mainly used for service ...

The Kep-Kompot Salt Producers Community says salt production fell nearly 50 per cent below forecasts because of early rainfall, which is assumed to end salt harvesting for the year. Prime Minister Hun Sen, however, has stepped in to ensure that price remains stable. Hun Sen ...

As this year’s pepper harvest gets under way, farmers in Kompong Cham province are expecting lower yields due to severe hot weather in recent months. Yin Sopha, executive director of the Dar Memot Development Agriculture Pepper Cooperative, said the hot weather and lack of rain ...

A U.K. firm being sued by 200 Cambodian farmers over the loss of their land to two sugar plantations has defended its business dealings, claiming that the affected families were dealt with legally and were properly compensated for the loss of their properties. Local farmers ...

A U.S.-based energy company has announced that it is planning a biomass project using genetically modified rice in Cambodia, in a purportedly massive deal about which little information has been made public. In a statement posted online Thursday, Sino Bioenergy Corp. said it had signed a ...

The Thai owners of a pair of sugar plantations in Koh Kong province accused of forcing hundreds of farmers off their land will give the land back if it can be proved that those evicted legally own the land, rights workers and a village representative ...

The World Bank is under pressure to review some of its policies around the world to ensure that in countries like Cambodia it is not funding the wrong projects. In a discussion at George Washington University this week, panelists said the World Bank is needed for ...

Hundreds of Cambodian families are suing the British sugar firm Tate & Lyle in one of the U.K’s highest courts over a pair of plantations in Koh Kong province they accuse of violently forcing them off their land and out of their homes. The British law ...

The price of meat will be higher during Khmer New Year, with prices rising between 2,000 riel and 3,000 riel ($0.50 and $0.75) per kilogram, according to vendors. Som Sreymom, a pork vendor at Kandal market, said the price of pork would hit as much as ...

Families in Ratanakiri province yesterday logged a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing a trio of economic land concession (ELC) owners of illegally logging outside of their concession areas and felling their vital resin and palm oil trees. Chan Naroun said she was among 29 families ...

Cambodia’s exports to the European Union (E.U.) grew to $2.32 billion in 2012, a 23 percent increase compared to the previous year, according to the E.U.’s latest trade figures. The figures, released this week by the European Commission’s trade office, testify to the region’s growing role ...

Rising water temperatures are affecting fisheries and marine life, said several representatives of Cambodia’s aquaculture industry, and the effect is decreasing seed production and lowering aquaculture farmers’ productivity. Say Sorn, president of aquaculture seed production in Siem Reap province, told the Post yesterday that water temperature ...

Cambodia’s first-ever agricultural census is under way, tasked with addressing the lack of reliable statistical information on one of  the Kingdom’s most crucial economic sectors. The census is being taken by the government with assistance from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in two ...

Betagro (Cambodia) readies for the construction of its new feed mill in Phnom Penh SEZ. The feed mill is to be constructed in the capital’s Special Economic Zone, located 12km from the city center. The company is investing USD$17.2 million in the new project. The plant construction ...

The European Union (E.U.) last year continued to import millions of dollars worth of duty-free sugar from Cambodian plantations that have forced hundreds of families off their land despite calls from European lawmakers for the trade benefits to end, according to the latest E.U. data. Thailand’s ...

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 ...

Two anti-logging activists who went into hiding yesterday have alleged that they received death threats from police because they set fire to logs cut from a protected area in Kratie province. The activists have been leading an increasingly confrontational campaign against Vietnamese firm Binh Phuoc Kratie ...