Economy and commerce

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, must force British clothing companies to investigate whether garments sourced from Cambodia are made at factories with fair labour practices, the unions have warned. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, has written to Mr Cable warning that ...

Cambodia is projected to receive 4.6 million international visitors this year, an expected rise of 10 percent from 4.2 million last year, Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said Saturday. “In the first six months of this year, more than 2.2 million foreigners visited Cambodia, up 5.2 ...

Fish and rice are staple foods for all Cambodians. Historical records show that Cambodia’s fisheries have been of major importance for centuries. Fish is a major source of nutritious food in the daily diet, a primary source of employment and income and has strong cultural ...

The number of Chinese visitors to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple, one of the World Heritage Sites, has reached 161,700 in the first six months of this year, a 17 percent rise over the same period last year, an official data showed Friday. The data from the ...

A lingering odour in a Sixplus Industry garment factory is aggravating the already-fragile health of its workers, 100 of whom fainted last weekend, and has forced the factory to send many of them back to health centres. ...

Microfinance deposits are on the rise, a positive trend that the industry says is moving the country towards a reduced dependency on foreign funding and that will eventually lead to greater control over interest rates. The seven microfinance institutions licensed to take deposits collected $209 million ...

Bus operator Nakhonchai Air plans to open three new services linking Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.  Kruewan Wongrakmit, managing director of Nakhonchai Air Co, said she hoped to launch new services. ...

Sihanouk Ville International Airport received its first international flight this week, a landing the industry hopes will open up the coastal resort destination to more foreign tourists. A flight by South Korea-based Skywings Asia Airlines, an international charter carrier, arrived from Seoul on Tuesday. One hundred ...

Cambodian cashew nut exports are on the rise, yet export figures are still well below production numbers, with thousands of tonnes unaccounted for. Unshelled cashew nut exports totalled close to $2.5 million in the first six months of the year, with 2,800 tonnes exported, a rise ...

The National Bank of Cambodia on Wednesday hosted its first annual macroeconomic conference, outlining the need to ensure Cambodia’s rapidly growing financial sector supports sustainable and inclusive economic growth while managing greater risks. Cambodia’s banking and microfinance sectors have seen enormous growth in recent years with ...

Trade unions at either end of the political divide Wednesday said they were eager to renew their agreement with garment factories to abide by the rulings of the country’s Arbitration Council, with some changes, despite a new report showing that both unions and employers often ...

About 150 ethnic Kuoy villagers gathered outside Preah Vihear Provincial Court yesterday to protest the questioning of eight villagers and an NGO staff member for allegedly inciting villagers in Tbeng Meanchey district to destroy 36 tonnes of sugarcane. ...

Discussion about hydroelectric power plants in Cambodia tends to focus on two aspects, both negative. One is an overdependence on Chinese investment, and the other is a relatively disproportionate focus on the environmental impacts of hydroelectric power. Chinese Influence Most hydroelectric power plants in Cambodia are associated ...

Skywings Asia Airlines completed its maiden voyage from Seoul to Sihanouk International Airport on Tuesday, marking the launch of seasonal direct charter flights between Sihanoukville and South Korea. The new service, which will run from July through August, will connect the beach resort to the large ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) is planning new measures for trading on the local stock exchange that it says will encourage investors to trade more actively. Investors currently need to wait for six intervals – occurring every half-hour between 8.30am and 11.30am – ...

For as long as Cambodian rice farmers can remember, their product has had an unsavory reputation. Tough, dirty and unmilled, it was impossible to cook evenly, and even farmers traded it as pig feed in exchange for cash or better-quality rice from Vietnam or Thailand. Even ...

Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are intra-state legal mechanisms which encourage foreign investment. This is particularly so as they provide foreign investors with Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms to enforce investment protections through international arbitration against the host state before a neutral tribunal. Cambodia has signed over ...

Cambodia has seen a 91 percent rise in dry rubber exports in the first half of 2014 as revenue from the exports increased only 3 percent due to global decline of rubber prices. During the January-June period this year, the country exported 42,190 tons of dry ...

US-listed firm Nord Anglia Education has taken over the management of Northbridge International School, the education provider announced earlier this month. Nord Anglia, which currently operates 29 schools stretching from the US to the Middle East, to China, on July 10 took over the day-to-day operations ...

Rights groups have called on the government to increase tax rates for logging companies amid the latest domestic revenue figures. According to the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, timber exports produced $9.4 million in government tax revenue during the first half of the year, up ...

Cambodia’s world heritage Preah Vihear temple greeted 63,610 local and foreign visitors in the first half of 2014, up 53 percent over the same period last year, a report from the Preah Vihear provincial tourism department showed Tuesday. The temple welcomed about 56,870 local visitors and ...

The ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPTC) has postponed a two-day meeting with telecom firms to discuss a controversial draft law leaked to the Post last week, which details the government’s plan to assert control over the industry. A representative from one telecommunications provider who wished ...

Svay Pak is an internationally known district for child sex in Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh, where foreign men come to seek sex with young girls. According to a 2011 study by ECPAT Cambodia, around 75 percent of the victims of sex trafficking within Cambodia were children. The study also ...

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear ...