Economy and commerce

The growth prospects of the Cambodian economy in 2012 remain moderate, as has been expected. Cambodia’s real Gross Domestic Product (GOP) is estimated to grow at a rate of 6.2 percent year-on-year, which is unchanged from our estimation at the beginning of this year. Persistently weaker demand in the European and US markets remain the ...

Cathay United Bank, the banking arm of Cathay Financial Holding Co., has agreed to acquire a 70 percent stake in a Cambodia bank, the financial holding company said Thursday. With the acquisition, Cathay United Bank will become the largest shareholder in Singapore Banking Corp. Ltd. (SBC Bank), while the original Singaporean investors will retain the remaining ...

While the Kingdom’s biggest industrial pig farming company is seeing steady growth as the nation’s population and hunger for pork grows, small pig farmers are having a hard time of it in the face of fluctuating prices and lower cost imports from Thailand, according to experts and insiders who came to a recent ...

More than 200 people in Cambodia’s eastern Svay Rieng province were hospitalized after eating imported vegetables from Vietnam that were not properly washed or cooked, the French-based Pasteur Institute of Cambodia has confirmed after running tests. The case has highlighted an already acknowledged need for more domestic vegetable production and less dependency on imported produce. The ...

Cambodian women have fewer opportunities than men, and less access to economic and political positions of power, a World Bank report says. Women in Cambodiado have more economic access and business ownership than in some Western countries, but they have less power in family ...

Cambodia so far has not feared for creating ASEAN economic community 2015 and deeper ASEAN and East Asia regional integration as the region will have free flow of goods, worker mobilization, finance and investment,” trade minister Cham Prasidh said on June 12. His announcement was made during the workshop of ASEAN economic community 2015. “We ...

Cambodia recorded a trade deficit in equivalent to 1.1 billion US dollars in the first five months of this year, according to a report of the Commerce Ministry on Saturday. During January-May period this year, the report showed that the country’s total import and export value ...

The government on Friday denied it had violated a moratorium on granting new land concessions when Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on more than 20,000 hectares of land to three rubber companies 11 days after the ban was announced on May 7. According to documents ...

Nautisco Seafood Manufacturing, once Cambodia’s premier seafood-processing company, will not undergo government-brokered restructuring after a Cambodian appeals court yesterday declared the company solvent. The ruling was a first test for the law on corporate restructuring and insolvency. The decision sounds positive for the company. But now the ...

When Dr. Tith Hongyoeu opened Roomchang Dental and Aesthetic Hospital in a new 10-storey building on Street 184 just off Norodom Boulevard six months ago, it was the realisation of a dream come true for a poor boy from Kampong Thom province who grew up ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen, in his capacity as Asean chairman, will lead a delegation to Mexico on Monday and Tuesday to attend the Group of 20 summit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Foreign Minister Hor Namhong will join Mr. Hun Sen at the summit, which ...

The Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed a complaint by the Canadian-Cambodian shrimp manufacturer Nautisco Seafood Manufacturing Inc. alleging that the private equity firm Leopard Capital had purposely indebted the company for its own personal gain. According to the Sihanoukville-based shrimp company’s complaint, Leopard Capital, a partner ...

Cambodia yesterday signed deals for about US$430 million in loans from China, the latest in a number of high-profile borrowing deals with its northern neighbour. The bulk of the loans, from Export-Import Bank of China, would go towards two national road projects and a multipurpose dam ...

Revenues generated from rubber exports dropped 25 percent to $41 million in the first four months of the year compared to the same period in 2011, as rubber prices on the international market plummeted, according to data released yesterday by the Ministry of Commerce. While rubber ...

A biofuel company is currently under investigation for fraud in the U.K. after millions of dollars of investors’ money was spent on a jatropha plantation in Banteay Meanchey province that never produced even a single drop of biodiesel. The company, London-based Sustainable Agro Energy PLC, had ...

Starting today, 22 Cambodian buses and a truck will be allowed to transport passengers and goods directly between Phnom Penh and Bangkok, an official said yesterday. “We will officially open the Poipet International Checkpoint [to buses and trucks] on the Thai border,” said Suon Vanhong, deputy ...

The Svay Rieng Provincial Court is scheduled to question two witnesses today over the shooting of three workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) on Feb. 20, investigating Judge Pech Chhoeut said yesterday. “We will question two more witnesses on Thursday,” Judge Chhoeut said. ...

A delegation of Chinese officials yesterday donated two airplanes and signed an agreement to provide Cambodia with loans for a new hydropower dam in Battambang and the renovation of two national roads. The deals were made during a meeting in Phnom Penh between He Guoqiang, a ...

The number of licensed pawnshops in the country has surged since the government began registering them in 2010, leaving some pawnbrokers claiming revenue losses of 30 to 50 percent due to oversaturation in the market. Ly Seng Cheng, a pawnbroker at the Khlaing Rum Sev pawnshop ...

Large quantities of cheap green bean exports from Thailand are driving down prices of the product in Kompong Cham province by as much as 40 percent compared to the same period last year and forcing farmers to grow other crops, officials and farmers said yesterday. The ...

Her Excellency Dr Ing Kantha Phavi, minister of women’s affairs said: “Economic empowerment of women is a key strategy to promote gender equality and poverty alleviation and it is clearly articulated in specific targets under CMDG3 as one important goal among nine goals to be achieved by 2015.” Her announcement was made during the forum on ...

Working out of the back of her home in Russei Keo district, Sothearith Neou and a half dozen of her friends and family roast, caramelize and add herbs to gourmet peanuts from 7 a.m. until late at night—trying to fill a seemingly endless number of ...

U.S. Ambassador to Asean David Carden met with judges and Justice Ministry representatives from all 10 Asean countries in Phnom Penh yesterday to discuss the importance of fighting against corruption and upholding the rule of law for foreign investors. “Cambodia will prosper if outside investment comes ...

Cambodia was in discussions with the Chinese government on funding for a 250-kilometre stretch of rail line between Phnom Penh and Vietnam, in what Cambodian officials yesterday called a move away from a “complicated” Asian Development Bank loan. Va Sim Sorya, director general at the Ministry ...