Economy and commerce

Cambodia’s Minister of Economy and Finance Cham Prasidh yesterday said the Kingdom would push forward with efforts to eliminate development gaps among ASEAN member states during its chairmanship this year. ...

Sorn Sokna, chief executive of Sonatra Securities in Phnom Penh, has been made chairman of the ASEAN Business Advisory Council’s ASEAN Business Awards. ...

Cambodia, the current ASEAN chair, has called for stronger financial cooperation among its member countries to promote economic growth. The main agenda is to ensure that Southeast Asia is on track to meet an ambitious goal of transforming in three years into a European Union-like ...

The Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) sent a letter to the Ministry of Labor yesterday requesting that all of the country’s factory owners pay workers their salary earlier than usual ahead of Khmer New Year. Workers are normally paid on the fifth to the ...

As Europe continues to navigate its way through a two-year debt crisis, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht yesterday sought to put Europe at the center of Southeast Asia’s future at the EU-Asean Business Summit in Phnom Penh, and urged EU investors to take advantage ...

CAVFOOD, a joint venture between Cambodian and Vietnamese companies, launched the first phase of its US$8 million rice mill in Phnom Penh on Friday. The venture is an investment by Cambodian state-owned rice exporter Green Trade and Vietnam’s VNA Food 2 and Bank for Investment and ...

Cambodia’s exports to the European Union increased by 40 per cent to a total value of US$1.3 billion in 2011, according to European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, who is in Phnom Penh for the ASEAN-EU Business Summit. “I think it is fair to say ...

About half of the land concessions granted since 1994 are in the hands of Chinese companies, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. Ouch Leng, CCHR land reform project coordinator, said that from 1994 to 2012, the Cambodian government granted 4,615,745 ...

Members of the Asean People’s Forum, a coalition of NGOs that convened in Phnom Penh last week, declared yesterday that their rights had been violated after four workshops on sensitive issues were canceled by the venue where they met. In a statement representing more than 1,200 ...

The region’s finance ministers on Friday set a May launch date for the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund (AIF), a financing project expected to lend as much as US$4 billion to member countries through 2020. Speaking at the opening the ministers’ meeting, Prime Minister Hun Sen called ...

Investors should be cautious when pursuing the opportunities for growth present in Myanmar and Cambodia, Southeast Asia’s frontier markets, Templeton Asset Management Ltd. said. In Cambodia, state-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority will have its initial public offering this month, making it the first to ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday urged the economic leaders of the Asean bloc to go through with a plan to double a bailout pool, funded largely by China, Japan and South Korea, to prevent future financial crises in the region. Opening the Asean Finance ...

Just hours before Chinese President Hu Jintao landed in Phnom Penh on Friday, a group of dismayed Koh Kong province villagers whose land is under threat from a sprawling Chinese tourism project were escorted onto a bus and sent back home before they were able ...

Four workshops at the Asean Peoples’ Forum concerning pressing issues such as land rights and events in Burma were blocked by the owner of the venue where the forum was being held on Friday, as they were considered too politically sensitive, the organizer said. Out of ...

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed here Saturday to advance the comprehensive relations of strategic cooperation and partnership between their two countries. In a meeting, the two leaders pledged to expand mutually beneficial cooperation in all fields and to double the ...

Net profits at Acleda Bank increased by 86% to $49.4 million in 2011 as the company grew both its deposits and loan portfolio. In a statement released on Friday, Acleda said that loans grew by 35.4 percent to $989.4 million, while deposits at the bank ...

Chinese President Hu Jintao asked close economically Cambodia on Saturday not to push talks on the vexed issue of the South China Sea “too fast” as he pledged to double bilateral trade to $5 billion and announced fresh aid to the impoverished country. Cambodia holds the ...

The Svay Rieng Provincial Court yesterday questioned two of the three female garment factory workers who were shot during a protest at a special economic zone (SEZ) in Bavet City in February, the provincial prosecutor said yesterday. Keo Nea, 18; Bun Chenda, 21; and Nuth Sokhorn, ...

Cambodia is close to a deal that would ship as much as 20,000 tonnes of milled rice to Indonesia, according to sources familiar with the matter. Thon Virak, director of state-owned rice exporter Green Trade and chairman of Federation of Milled Rice Exporters Association, said Green ...

Government officials did not, and Lao students could not, attend yesterday’s Asean Peoples’ Forum in Phnom Penh, where more than 1,500 members of civil society groups discussed the region’s most pressing issues, including human rights, poverty, land usurping and domestic violence. The three-day forum, which is not ...

In an effort to stop their homes from being swallowed up by a Chinese mega-tourism project, Koh Kong villagers said they will submit a petition to the Chinese Embassy today, calling for intervention from visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. Villager representative Tith Ten, 54, from Kiri ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court yesterday once again declined to receive a joint complaint from villagers in Kompong Tralach district embroiled in a land dispute with the wife of Industry Minister Suy Sem. Chhuon Siven, provincial clerk director, said that the court could not take the ...

The National Bank of Cambodia this week signed a Memorandum of Under-standing with the State Bank of Vietnam that would allow for the exchange of information to fight money laundering and terrorism financing. The MoU, signed by NBC Governor Chea Chanto and SBV Governor Nguyen Van ...

Myanmar’s moves toward economic and political reform would not subtract from Cambodia’s regular stream of foreign investment, experts and insiders said – at least not in the short run. Word of an investor-friendly Myanmar has spread quickly with the US’s partial waiver on trade sanctions in ...