Economy and commerce

Food and beverage imports in the Kingdom fell more than 70 per cent in the third quarter, as high international prices and the growth of domestic production dragged on demand. About 192,580 tonnes of food and beverage products entered Cambodia between July and September, down 72 ...

Tong Yang Securities (Cambodia) and ACLEDA Securities yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to partner the services they offer to the Kingdom’s budding financial markets. To expand their footprint in the market,  the companies aimed to provide a combination of advisory and underwriting services for companies ...

A ninth telecoms operator would enter the Cambodian market next year, officials said yesterday, surprising insiders who claimed the sector was already overcrowded. Camintel, a joint Cambodian state- and Korean-owned company, would offer mobile services in 2012, CEO Kang Namkook said yesterday at a telecommunications conference ...

Total outstanding loans in the microfinance sector reached $815.47 million in the third quarter, a 25.8 percent rise compared to beginning of the year, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) Despite growth in the sector, microfinance institutions said nonperforming loans were ...

Total exports during the first nine months of the year rose 41 percent to $3.5 billion compared to the same period in 2010, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce. Of the total amount, $3.1 billion was in garments, $10 million in paddy rice, ...

October marks the start of the main rice harvest in Thailand, the world’s largest exporter of the grain. Traders are waiting to see the full impact of flooding on the crop, but it’s already clear that output across Southeast Asia will fall substantially. The U.N.’s ...

The worst floods in a decade may boost the number of nonperforming loans in the Kingdom’s microfinance industry in the fourth quarter, insiders said yesterday. However, those insiders said the damage done to Cambodia’s agriculture sector would not have a significant impact given the MFIs’ diversified ...

The Kingdom’s latest brewery is set to launch on November 1, introducing a new player into the growing Cambodian beer market, insiders said yesterday. The Khmer Brewery plant, a US$60 million joint venture between locally based Chip Mong Group and major international brewery manufacturer Ziemann Group, ...

The Minister for Agriculture yesterday appealed to buyers to address the shortage of pigs in Phnom Penh by applying for licenses that would allow them to import more livestock from neighbouring countries. An industry representative and a market expert, however, warned of the potential fallout that ...

Cambodian debt to China now stands at $4 billion, 35 percent of last year’s gross domestic product and more than half of the country’s total outstanding debt to foreign donors, according to a senior government official. The amount of money Cambodia owes China has been growing ...

Premium revenues across Cambodia’s insurance industry are expected to increase 20 per cent year-on-year in 2011, Mey Vann, director of the Department of Industry and Finance at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, predicted yesterday. The Kingdom’s six insurance firms are set to accrue a total ...

Heightened global food and fuel prices continued to inflate Cambodia’s market in September, and experts said flood damages would elevate costs further toward the end of the year. Year-on-year inflation hit 6.7 per cent in last month, up 1 per cent from August, according to data ...

PHNOM PENH — Hundreds of workers were hospitalised after falling ill on Monday at a Cambodian garment factory — the latest in a string of such incidents in the industry, police and union officials said. Nearly one thousand employees at the Anful Garments Factory (Cambodia) Ltd ...

Rice futures jumped the most permitted by the Chicago Board of Trade, advancing to a one- month high, as flood damage to crops in Southeast Asia boosted prospects for U.S. exports. Storms since September damaged 12.5 percent of paddies in Thailand, the world’s largest exporter, and ...

French engineering firm Systra is underway with a feasibility study to build a tramway from Phnom Penh International Airport to the Royal Railway Station, Governor Kep Chuktema said on Friday. The agreement to study a tramway was first made between Systra and City Hall in July ...

The Kingdom’s fish exports declined 48 per cent in the first nine months of 2011, as a result of growing local demand, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of fish totalled 1,099 tonnes from January to September, compared to 2,123 ...

Sonatra Microfinance Institution, a joint investment between local and foreign investors, officially started operations in Cambodia yesterday. A US$50 million loan package was signed during the ceremony on Thursday, providing Singapore-based EastWing Group and Japanese firm Grand Cooperation with a 30 per cent stake of the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday led a delegation of businessmen and top government officials to join the eighth China-ASEAN expo and investment summit to be held in Nanning, China, from October 21 to October 26. The Cambodian prime minister planned to meet his Chinese counterpart Premier ...

With few reforms made in the past year, Cambodia ranked 138th out of 181 countries for the second consecutive year in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report released yesterday, a ranking that put it behind countries such as Syria and Sudan. The report ranks countries based ...

Ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat has kept a promise to stop his company’s dredging operations on Koh Kong province’s Tatai river, relieved business owners and residents living along the waterway said yesterday. But provincial officials confirmed that as the senator’s dredging boats moved on to ...

Scores of crying women who said they had been forcibly detained and girls who claimed to have received fake documents to conceal the fact that they were as young as 16-years-old were discovered at a centre owned by the SKMM Investment Group labour recruitment firm ...

While sovereign debt crises in Europe and a lagging US economy have yet to curtail cheap Cambodian exports, industry watchers said domestic producers should diversify their target markets to avoid a future slow down. Exports saw a more than 40 per cent increase year-on-year between January ...

The Kingdom’s cassava exports soared 94 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2011, despite the recent flood devastation the agriculture sector has experienced, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of dry and fresh cassava hit about 22,652 ...

Cambodia’s banks should be largely spared the heavy damages already seen in many parts of the Kingdom’s economy, officials said yesterday, though microfinance lenders will feel some impact. Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon last week revised downward the government’s gross domestic products for 2011 ...