Trade
Exports
Cambodia receives $3m grant
Cambodia will receive a grant of US$3.3 million from the World Trade Organisation to support rice milling, silk production and development of the Department of International Cooperation, according to Heng Sovannarith, communication officer for Trade Wide Sector Approach. Sovannarith said the Ministry of Commerce would receive the grant from ...
First certified organic rice heads for Europe
Five metric tonnes of certified organic rice — the first such shipment from Cambodia — will depart for the European Union this Friday. The shipment, exported from Cambodia by an entity called Green Trade, comprises three tonnes of brown rice and two tonnes of white jasmine ...
Protests call for workers to be rehired
Nearly 100 workers held a strike inside Phnom Penh’s Conpress Holdings jeans factory yesterday to demand the company allow four fired workers to return to work. The Seak Meanchey district factory, which employs more than 1,000 workers, fired the four in August because they attempted to ...
The Bottom Line
Clashes between garment workers and the local manufacturing industry came to a head in February when three women were shot while protesting for increased bonuses outside their workplace. It was almost five more months before manufacturers and governing bodies agreed to raise the earning potential ...
Rubber up $100 a tonne in a week
The price of rubber jumped to $2,500 per tonne last week after months of the commodity steadily dropping, industry analysts reported. The jump of $100 a tonne, or 4.2 per cent, comes after the price for rubber dropped in June from above $3,000 per tonne, according ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012092558889/Business/rubber-up-100-a-tonne-in-a-week.html
Protesters Stage EU faint-ins
In a year in which more than a thousand Cambodian garment factory workers have fainted on the job, activists across Europe are demonstrating for higher wages and better working conditions in the Kingdom’s factories. Throughout the past week, demonstrators mimicked faintings by collapsing on the floors ...
Thailand's Khon Kaen sees double-digit revenue growth next year
Khon Kaen Sugar Industry KSL.BK, Thailand’s fourth largest sugar producer, expects revenue could grow as much as a fifth next year, fuelled by expansion and a bumper sugarcane crop in 2012/13, the company’s chief executive said on Monday Chalush said sugar production from factories in Laos ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/24/us-thailand-sugar-idUSBRE88N05S20120924
Phnom Penh sees rise in shipments in 2012
Container traffic through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by 7.5 percent in the first eight months of this year compared to the sme period last year, according to port figures. In the January through August period, the port received 57,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, or TEUs, up ...
Tobacco lost to smuggling, survey shows
Government data show that significant amounts of tobacco are being smuggled out of the country each year, health and economics experts said yesterday. A national tobacco survey from 2011, the exact numbers of which remain confidential, shows that more tobacco is produced in Cambodia than is ...
Brown rice standards are being promoted
Cambodian officials have begun to raise awareness on the forthcoming government issued standards for Cambodian milled brown rice, in an effort to guage reactions ahead of the official approval by the National Standards Board, according to officials. The official approval, aimed at promoting brown rice in ...
Cambodia records US$1.51-B trade deficit in 7 months
Cambodia reported a trade deficit of 34% in equivalent to US$1.51-B in the 1st 7 months of this year, the report of the Commerce Ministry showed Thursday. During January-July period this year, the country’s total import and export value was US$7.45-B, up 15% from US$6.47-B at ...
http://www.livetradingnews.com/cambodia-records-us1-51-b-trade-deficit-in-7-months-85827.htm
500 Garment Workers Protest Over Unpaid Wages
About 500 garment workers gathered in front of their factory in Kompong Speu province yesterday to protest that the factory had not paid their full salary for August, a worker representative said yesterday. The protest started on Tuesday at Sien-Atree Co. Ltd. in Samraong Tong district ...
Cambodia's 2nd largest port records 7.5 pct rise in shipments in 8 months
Container traffic through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by 7.5 percent in the first eight months of this year versus the same period last year, hitting the port’s record on Tuesday. During the January-August period this year, the port had received 57,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, or TEUs, ...
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2012-09/12/c_131845571.htm
Speculators pounce on rice market as prices rise
Speculators have been selling rice to Thailand via Cambodia for over a month despite domestic prices rising VND1,000/kg. At the meeting of Vietnam Food Association (VFA) on September 7 in HCM City, Director of An Giang Export Company Nguyen Van Tien said the amount of rice ...
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/43907/business-in-brief-12-9.html
Union President calls for inspectors
The president of the Free Trade Union yesterday sent a letter to the Ministry of Labour’s inspection department to monitor working conditions at M&V factories in Kampong Chhnang province, alleging excessive overtime is causing workers to faint. “They have to work both in day and night ...
Rat meat on the menu at the Vietnamese border
Eating rat is a common phenomenon over the border in Vietnam, but increasing numbers of Cambodians in nearby villages are adopting rodent cuisine with relish. As many as three tonnes of rats are caught every day in Cambodia and exported to Vietnam to feed a ...
Official Urges Students to Take Technical Studies to Find Work
A preference for NGO and government jobs among young Cambodians was contributing to a critical labor shortage in the industrial manufacturing sector, a Labor Ministry official said yesterday. Speaking to 3,000 prospective university students on Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island, Labor Ministry Secretary of State Pich Sophoan ...
Cambodia's Trade Grows By 15 Percent
Cambodia’s total trade volume grew 15.41 percent to reach$7.46 billion in the first seven months compared to the same period last year, according to data released yesterday by the Ministry of Commerce. Revenues earned through exports reached $2.9 billion, an increase of 11.82 percent compared to ...
Food Prices Remain High
Global food prices remained high in August according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index, maintaining the high level achieved last month as corn prices jumped in the US and rice prices increased in Cambodia. With 213 points in August the food ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091158634/Business/food-prices-remain-high.html
Consumer price index climbs on food and fuel
Cambodia’s consumer price index (CPI) increased slightly year-on-year in July by 1.3 per cent, which was driven by increased food and fuel prices, according official data from the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). “The increase for all index groups was 1.3 per cent of inflation in July 2012 ...
Pharmaceutical plant announces expansion
PharmaProduct Manufacturing, Cambodia’s self-described first pharmaceutical plant, announced last week plans to expand into other ASEAN markets once the ASEAN Community frame-work is adopted in 2015. According to its online materials, the producer of the painkiller KINAL – among other medicines – opened its doors in 1996, and has ...
Tide changes at Ocean as factory pays strikers
Ocean Garment, the Phnom Penh-based clothing manufacturer at the centre of sexual harassment claims and an illegal strike that lasted more than two weeks, has agreed to compensate more than 2,500 workers for wages lost during the protests, a move union advocates have highlighted as ...
New Mekong Port to Ease Overloaded Phnom Penh Terminal
With cargo traffic at the Phnom Penh Autonomus Port growing rapidly, a nearly completed container terminal just south of the city on the Mekon River should help ease the congestion. The 30-hectare port, in Kandal province’s Kein Svay district, was completed late last month, though cranes ...
Garment Workers Continue Tax Deductions Protest
About 600 garment workers of the Top Form factory in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district continued protesting yesterday against new income tax deductions from their pay outside the factory after police blocked them from marching on National Road 5. Workers have been protesting since Friday against ...