Aid and development

Thailand and Cambodian signed an agreement for the formation of a joint business council to promote bilateral trade and investment. The memorandum of understanding was officially endorsed on Tuesday evening by Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen on the sidelines of ...

The European Union in efforts to reduce the poverty rate and secure a free society has awarded $4.5 mln to four projects. These projects will work to improve justice, natural resources, land rights, and build the capabilities of local authorities. Four projects were selected among ...

The government has announced plans for a landmark project to create a system for diverting and then stocking waste water, in a bid to prevent run-off into the streets of Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap river. Moeung Sophan, a consultant to the Phnom Penh Department ...

The Ministry of Commerce and bank officials announced yesterday that they will hold a meeting next month aimed at better facilitating rice millers’ access to credit. The move is part of the Asian Development Bank’s Climate Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development program to address food security ...

The U.N.’s expert on housing rights has cited the World Bank’s failure to help thousands of families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood as a prime example of why the bank needs to make human rights a focus of its land sector programs worldwide. At ...

The government announced new plans for developing both transportation and rural sanitation at the annual meeting of the Ministry of Rural Development at the Chaktomuk Conference Hall in Phnom Penh yesterday. According to officials at the event, the ministry will be completing by year’s end a ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday broke ground for the construction and enlargement of a 248-kilometer stretch of national road No. 6A, saying that the road is vital for the development of the economy and tourism. The road will be widened from the current 7 ...

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) announced yesterday that it will provide technical support for Cambodian small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), strengthening their capacities through the establishment of a national policy, officials said. Meng Saktheara, director-general of the General Department of Industry at the Ministry of ...

Cambodia will earn about $50 million a year from exports of dried cassava to China through Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly said Thursday. Cambodia’s agricultural exports previously went through Vietnam and Thailand, amounting to between 7,000 and 8,000 tons a year. ...

Chinese-owned Avic International plans to export 8,000 tonnes of dried cassava from Cambodia to the Chinese market this year. According to Chan Saron, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, there are currently 31 companies listed as exporting cassava to China from Cambodia, but only 17 ...

A CPP lawmaker said yesterday the government has signed 13 payment guarantees to companies constructing coal-fired power plants and hydropower dams in the country, a move that an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official reiterated was risky for the country’s fiscal future. CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap said ...

The government’s guaranteed bailout of major infrastructure projects, such as the future 400-megawatt hydropower dam in Stung Treng province, requires a thorough assessment of forecasted risks – a capacity which the government currently does not possess, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official said yesterday. Speaking on ...

The European Union’s ambassador to Cambodia raised issues of judicial reform, land reform and the upcoming national elections in a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday morning. The European Commission’s directorate-general for trade is currently reviewing a report by the U.N.’s human rights envoy ...

Ethnic minority villagers expecting to be displaced by a proposed Chinese-built hydroelectric dam in northeastern Cambodia are asking the country’s parliament not to approve a law providing financial guarantees for the project. Villagers living along three rivers that will be affected by the dam spoke ...

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the provision of technical support for Cambodia’s banking and financial supervision, according to a press release after the signing ceremony. “The MoU will ...

Import duties and limits, as well as rising wages in neighbouring countries, made Cambodia the second largest exporter of bicycles to the European Union after Taiwan, an industry newsletter reports. According to Bike-EU.com, which quoted data from Eurostat, Cambodia exported 519,389 units to EU countries between ...

Cambodia has asked India to provide more assistance in the development of human resources to promote economic growth and enhance bilateral co-operation. Deputy Prime Minister Sok An made the request during a meeting with Indian human resource development minister Mangapati Pallam Raju in Phnom Penh on ...

The government has asked Australia to provide more funding to help complete the rehabilitation of the dilapidated railway line between Phnom Penh and the Thai border, a spokesman said yesterday. Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong met with Lieutenant General John Sanderson, former chief of the Australian ...

Hong Kong has banned egg imports from Cambodia due to the country’s recent avian influenza outbreak, which claimed four lives last month. “Hong Kong does not import live poultry or poultry meat from Cambodia, but 170,000 poultry eggs were imported from there last year,” the ...

Experts are recommending that a proposed dam on the Sesan River in northeast Cambodia be equipped with earthquake protection measures, after discovering a quake occurred in the area some 30 years ago. The proposed Lower Sesan II dam would be situated on a site in Stung ...

The government yesterday asked the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to continue to help Cambodia’s troubled railway rehabilitation project, which is in desperate need of more funding in order to complete the network’s northern line. Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong met with the ADB’s recently appointed country ...

Despite the inaugural train traveling between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville by a new rail link a month ago, no goods have yet been transported between the capital and the country’s largest port. Toll Royal Railways, a joint venture between Australia’s Toll Group and local conglomerate Royal ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered officials to take action against unnamed companies he said were using the cover of night to illegally dredge sand from the Mekong River. Calling on Water Resources and Meteorology Minister Lim Kean Hor to lead the crackdown, Hun Sen also ...

European companies contributed less to total foreign direct investment (FDI) in Cambodia in 2011 than in 2012 as Chinese investment rose, Eurocham chairman Dominique Catry said yesterday. According to data from the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC), 1.9 per cent of the total registered FDIs ...