Economy and commerce

The Kampong Thom provincial governor issued a letter on Tuesday to villagers living in Santuk district, ordering them to provide documentation confirming their ownership of land they reportedly “purchased” from brokers after it had already been assigned to relocated families, officials said yesterday. Deputy district governor ...

Just months before Sihanoukville Autonomous Port is supposed to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange, officials said yesterday that the state-owned enterprise is still more expensive and slower at processing goods than other ports in the region. An investor said that the problems confronting the port ...

Bridges Across Borders Cambodia yesterday accused the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid) of white-washing conditions at relocation sites for families being evicted by a $142 million railway rehabilitation project being funded largely with their money ...

The drafting of a law on e-commerce that would regulate electronic transfers in Cambodia has been postponed because the World Bank has suspended funds over the government’s handling of land evictions in Phnom Penh. In September, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said that the government should aim ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) met yesterday with the representatives of families evicted or facing eviction to make way for an ADB-funded railway project, and defended itself against complaints that the project was pushing some of them deeper into poverty. The ADB has billed the $142 ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and South Korea jumped more than 40 per cent year-on-year through September, according to the Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency. Total trade between January and September reached $387 million, according to KOTRA, up 45 per cent from $267 million during the year-ago ...

The National Bank of Cambodia yesterday granted Industrial and Commercial Bank of China a financial business licence, according to a report on aastocks, a Chinese stocks news service ...

Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment told a Japanese oil company yesterday to better define the location of its initial onshore operations given the potential impact on the local population and environment. The Ministry of Environment has required Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation to specify where ...

More than 45,000 hectares of land in Preah Vihear province were granted to five companies for rubber plantations on July 6 after the government reclassified the land from state public to state private land on the same day, according to the five sub-decrees signed by ...

Families evicted or still facing eviction to make way for an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded project to rehabilitate the country’s railway system plan to petition the ADB today for help securing better compensation from the government. The ADB is putting up more than half the money ...

South Korea has loaned Cambodia $52.54 million to renovate the 63.5km-long National Road 21, which connects the provinces of Kandal and Svay Rieng, according to a statement yesterday by the Ministry of Finance ...

Cambodian rice trader TTY Corporation has said the Kingdom cannot meet a new 200,000-tonne export quota for shipping high-quality rice to China. State-owned Sinograin’s order for three varieties of milled fragrant rice was a deviation from an agreement struck with TTY in August, TTY deputy director-general ...

Despite the recent downgrading of two of Cambodia’s major banks by ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, bankers said yesterday that profits are up, loan portfolios are growing at a fast tick and non-performing loans are shrinking. In Channy, president and CEO of Acleda Bank, ...

Cambodia and Australia are one step closer to getting daily direct flights between the two countries, an aviation official confirmed yesterday. State Secretariat of Civil Aviation deputy cabinet director Long Chheng said his department had passed the proposal submitted by a “state-owned” Australian airline and sent ...

The US firm marketing what will likely be the first forest-based carbon trading scheme in Cambodia has bought $900,000 worth of political risk insurance to back the project, according to a media report. ...

Thailand’s worst floods in decades have not slowed trade with Cambodia, a Thai official in Phnom Penh said yesterday, claiming many products sought by Cambodia came from areas free of flooding. Bilateral trade between the two countries rose nine per cent year-on-year in the first nine ...

As part of a continuing push to bolster rice exports, the government has agreed to waive all export tariffs on milled rice and will also eliminate value-added tax (VAT) on paddy rice purchased domestically. According to a promulgation signed last month by Finance Minister Keat Chhon, ...

The Center for Study and Development of Agriculture (Cedac) is calling on the government and microfinance firms to issue low-interest loans for flood-stricken farmers in order to save this year’s dry season rice harvest. Floods have destroyed 10 percent of the rainy season rice crop and ...

Rubber growers and exporters in Cambodia stalled exports as rubber prices continued a sharp decline that companies attributed to flooding in Thailand and economic turmoil in Europe. Heng Sreng, general director of Long Sreng International Co Ltd and owner of Boeung Keth Rubber Plantation in Kampong ...

The Kingdom’s first centralised credit bureau was on track to launch in February, officials said yesterday, although it had originally been slated to start by the end of this year. Credit Bureau Cambodia will collect and provide consumer and institutions’ financial information, which they can use ...

Both Cambodia and the World Trade Organisation this week called on the United States to follow China’s lead in promising zero-tariff treatment to Least Developed Countries. Chinese President Hu Jintao, in a speech at the G20 summit in Cannes, France, on Friday, announced China would grant ...

While the World Trade Organisation yesterday lauded Cambodia’s economic achievements since joining in 2004, officials pointed to the lack of much-needed financing for the Kingdom’s burgeoning trade sector. Cambodia lacks the capacity to finance the manufacturing and agriculture exports that would allow the country’s industries to ...

Cambodia plans to expand its exports of milled rice and other agricultural products to the United Arab Emirates, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said yesterday. The UAE seeks a replacement for the milled rice it would otherwise import from Thailand, where the worst flooding in decades ...

The number of flood-related insurance claims has been fewer than expected despite the Kingdom’s worst flooding in a decade, industry insiders say. Although the floods, which began in late August, had affected large sections of the country, few claims had been made, Infinity Insurance chief executive ...