Economic policy and administration

A human rights group on Thursday urged authorities in Cambodia to end the prosecution of six trade unionists accused of stoking violent clashes between protesting workers and security forces, calling the case against them “politically motivated.” New York-based Human Rights Watch said prominent activists Pav Sina, ...

More than a dozen of American company representatives are visiting Cambodia to look into investment opportunities, a Cambodian spokesman said Thursday. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday defended his government, saying its reputation for corruption is undeserved, laying blame on the private sector for initiating the bribe process and calling out international development partners for applying double standards. Speaking at the Eighth Regional Conference of Anti-Corruption Intiative for ...

One of six union leaders charged and summonsed for questioning over a strike that ended in government forces shooting dead at least five people in January has sent a message to authorities to hurry up and get his hearing over with. ...

Cambodia needs to develop a trade logistics plan to align the Kingdom with the regional production network and increase its competitiveness as an investment destination, a senior World Bank economist said yesterday. ...

Cambodia has granted operating licenses to 2,424 new companies in the first seven months of 2014, up 44 percent compared with 1,688 firms over the same period last year, according to the latest report of the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday. ...

More than 5,000 workers from a footwear factory in Kompong Cham province went on strike Monday, calling on factory management to increase their benefits. The lively crowd rallied outside the Taiwanese-owned Juhui Footwear factory in Choeung Prey district, dancing to music pumped out of loudspeakers as ...

Developing Cambodia as a diverse travel destination and establishing direct flights will help attract more travelers from China, the country’s second largest source market. Cambodian Ministry of Tourism director of marketing and promotion, Visothy So, emphasized that Cambodia needs to brand itself as a destination with ...

Preah Sihanouk provincial governor Chhit Sokhon ordered three construction sites near Sihanoukville’s O’Tres Beach to scale back their projects on Friday after the owners overstepped building limitations, officials said Sunday. Mr. Sokhon ordered three construction sites along the O’Tres stream, an inlet that stretches about 2 ...

Russia is set to approve duty- and quota-free imports for up to 3,000 Cambodian agricultural products, according to local government officials. A statement issued by Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce on Friday states that Russia’s Minister for Economic Development, Alexey Ulyukaev, agreed in principal to increase the ...

Cambodia is the third most at-risk country to money laundering and terrorist financing in the world, according to a global index released last month, trailing only Iran and Afghanistan. The Anti-Money Laundering Index, first published by the Swiss-based Basel Institute on Governance in 2012, assigns the ...

Airlines are taking a wait and see attitude about the proposed air route between Hanoi and HCM City that will fly over Cambodia and Laos airspace, cutting flight time compared to the current route.  Experts have said that this will be the most economical air route ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and Vietnam fell marginally by 6 per cent in the first half of this year largely due to a slump in Vietnamese exports, according to data from the Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia. ...

The Singapore-based Phillip Capital Group has purchased a Malaysian-owned Hwang-DBS Commercial Bank in Cambodia for 40 million U.S. dollars and rebranded it as Phillip Bank on Thursday, a bank’s chief said. Phillip Bank’s chairman Lim Hua Min said the Phillip Capital Group, which is an Asian ...

The Phnom Penh government is planning to take action against illegal petrol stations around the city, and has counted 205 of them so far. Chreang Sophan, Phnom Penh deputy governor, said at the opening of a Total station in Tuol Kork district on Monday that the ...

Cambodia’s $5.5 billion garment industry is nearing a crossroads amid uncertain prospects for outsourcing, an industry source says, citing participants at a recent trade show in Phnom Penh. “Many industry suppliers believe that while Cambodia remains a growing market for their textile and garment products, there ...

The Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia (TRC) has issued a warning to 15 companies that offer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services for allegedly failing to pay their annual fees. In a statement published on a local media website on August 22, the TRC demanded the companies ...

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to intensify self-regulatory efforts against corrupt practices to help foster a stronger business environment, NGO Transparency International (TI) Cambodia said yesterday. At a seminar in Phnom Penh, TI Cambodia executive director Preap Kol told business representatives that while government corruption ...

Hundreds of garment workers traveled from a Kompong Chhnang factory to Phnom Penh on Monday to petition the Ministry of Labor to intervene in their dispute with factory management. About 3,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory have been striking since August 18, accusing ...

Experts say that Cambodia’s economic growth remains fragile and unsustainable, bringing environmental degradation, social inequality and, at times, unrest to the country. Cambodia has maintained a high economic growth rate in recent years, up to 8 percent, “but that high growth comes with high costs,” said ...

A Hanoi-HCM City direct air route, which was once described as “impractical” by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), has come closer to reality as the Cambodian and Lao governments have pledged to create favorable conditions for Vietnam to use Cambodian airspace on the ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) over the weekend released a statement condemning an ongoing strike at a Kompong Chhnang garment factory and urging authorities to “punish the perpetrators.” About 3,000 employees of the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory have been on strike since August ...

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, ...

Amid reports of increased mass-fainting incidents in Cambodia’s garment sector, workers, employers and government officials gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday for a roundtable discussion on the issue. The conference, which was organised by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, identified issues such as workday lengths and ...