Electricity infrastructure

About 200 people from Siem Reap’s Angkor Chum district protested outside the district governor’s office on Friday, calling for private electricity company Duong Narin to lower its prices and asking the state electricity authority to connect to their area, protesters said yesterday. The residents of ...

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 ...

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 ...

Milled-rice exporters have called on the government to continue its efforts in reducing electricity and transportation costs, two of the main obstacles facing the government’s goal of exporting 1 million tonnes of milled rice by 2015. At a working group on rice exports on Friday, 40 ...

The garment industry could be close to renewing an industrial relations memorandum of understanding, but an independent union believes it is being edged out of negotiations because it opposes the use of short-term and fixed-duration contracts. Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, said yesterday ...

Dr. Tim Killeen, author of The Cardamom Conundrum, Reconciling Development and Conservation in the Kingdom of Cambodia, discusses his recently released book, which argues that Cambodia is well positioned to reap the benefits of ‘green development’. Why did you select the Cardamom Mountains as the area ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to the world to harmonize energy prices to food prices as food production shouldn’t outstrip the consumption of volatile fuels while food price remains stable, at the 4th workshop on food security and nutrition. Calling it “The Phnom Penh Initiative,” Prime Minister Hun Sen requested that the issue be ...

Despite facing criminal charges, 70 villagers from Kompong Chhnang province embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the KDC Development Company have moved back onto the contested land, court officials and villagers said yesterday. KDC, which is owned by Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday blamed soaring food prices on fuel prices set by oil cartels like OPEC, appealing to oil-producing countries to pay attention to the connection between food security and energy. Cambodia imports 100 per cent of its oil, and the majority of agriculture ...

Authorities in Battambang province’s Phnom Proek district shut down eight unlicensed gold mines Saturday and Sunday after a study revealed they were producing toxic runoff blamed for the deaths of three cattle last week, officials said. Deputy governor Pech Choun said four mines in the area ...

A study the Lao government has used to claim the Xayaburi dam would be harmless if redesigned has been criticised for not addressing concerns about the project’s effect on fish in the Lower Mekong river. Lao Vice Minister of Energy and Mines Viraponh Viravong was reported ...

The Kirirom III Hydropower Station in Kompong Speu province started operating last month, providing 18 megawatts of electricity to both Kompong Speu and Phnom Penh, an official at state-owned Electricite du Cambodge said yesterday. The additional power from the $47 million dam will help alleviate Phnom ...

Garment factory workers on Saturday blocked Street 371 in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district for the second day and said they will continue their strike today unless factory managers give in to their demands. During Saturday’s strike action, more than 3,000 workers from the S.L. Garment Factory ...

Kampong Thom provincial authorities blocked Sam Rainsy Party officials’ plans to hold a non-violent demonstration today to call attention to frequent power outages, according to an official letter from deputy governor Sorm Sophath obtained by the Post. ...

Kompong Thom provincial authorities have denied a request by the SRP to hold a peaceful demonstration to draw attention to severe power outages that have plagued the province for almost two months. Men Sothavarin, SRP senator for Kompong Thom province, said that his party had received ...

The Laos government has said that all the necessary environmental assessments for the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River have been completed and that no damage will be inflicted on the fisheries in countries further downstream when built, an official at the Cambodia National Mekong Committee said yesterday. Watt Botkosal, ...

Cambodia has urged Laos to halt construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in the country’s north, a letter obtained by the Post yesterday reveals. “Preliminary construction on Xayaburi dam has continued despite the lack of regional agreement,” Minister of Water Resources and Cambodia National Mekong Committeechairman Lim ...

Criticism of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos is mounting in Thailand – the country set to enjoy most of the electricity if the project is completed. Representatives from 130 Thai civil-society organisations yesterday published a statement backing a report that outlines an ...

Protests over construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos could spread from Thailand to Cambodia as communities along the Mekong River begin to feel its negative effects, an International Rivers programme director said yesterday. About 70 Thai villagers who rely on the ...

A dam project set to flood thousands of hectares of protected forest and displace about 1,500 indigenous minority villagers in one of Koh Kong province’s most precious ecosystems should be scrapped, opposition Sam Rainsy Party MP Son Chhay said yesterday. The 109-megawatt dam project in the ...

An environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the controversial Stung Chheay Araeng hydropower dam in Koh Kong province has been completed, representing a major step forward towards construction, officials said yesterday. Koh Kong deputy governor Sun Dara said he had yet to see a hard copy of ...

The controversial Xayaburi hydro-electric dam project in northern Laos may have already begun, despite countries, including Cambodia, requesting further studies to assess possible negative effects on Lower Mekong communities.Thai development firm Ch.Karnchang said it was due to begin building the dam on March 15 after finalising a ...

About 100 tuk-tuk drivers, motorcycle taxi drivers, vendors and other informal transportation workers protested against the high price of gasoline yesterday at the National Assembly, claiming the high petrol prices are cutting into their small profits. Vorn Pao, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy ...

An across-the-board trade and investment deal signed with China’s Yunnan province on Friday was a jump-start to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s pledge a week earlier to double bilateral trade with the Kingdom to US$5 billion by 2017. The package signing, which brought a delegation of 45 ...