International relations

Cambodia’s exports to China, the second largest economy in the world, rose sharply during the first 11 months of 2017, by as much as 18 percent compared with the same period in 2016, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Commerce. ...

Chinese Premier Le Keqiang – the No. 2 politician in the Chinese government – will visit Phnom Penh for an official visit next week. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Chum Sounry confirmed the leader will attend the second Mekong Lancang Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting next Wednesday and ...

Backed by China, Prime Minister Hun Sen has entered 2018 triumphant from his decades-long struggle with the West – and set the stage for his succession. ...

China will donate more than 30 different kinds of equipment – including 60,000 polling booths and 15,000 ballot boxes – to the National Election Committee (NEC) ahead of next year’s general elections. ...

The royalist Funcinpec Party has asked the Communist Party of China for assistance in the upcoming 2018 national election.   ...

Electricite du Cambodge has signed an agreement with Laos to import 115 kilowatts of electricity from Laos to Preah Vihear province, and on to Kampong Thom and Oddar Meanchey provinces. ...

With Prime Minister Hun Sen publicly daring Western countries to impose sanctions in response to the recent dissolution of the country’s main opposition, the minister of commerce has quietly expressed concern at the staggering customs bill Cambodia would incur should the EU suspend its preferential ...

The European parliament has voted to consider suspending Cambodia’s preferential “Everything But Arms” trade access to the European Union in response to the country’s authoritarian backslide. ...

More than 50 Cambodians who were set to be removed from the US today can temporarily remain in the country to fight their deportation orders due to a last-minute decision from a US judge that immigration advocates celebrated as a “Hail Mary”. ...

The European Parliament passed a resolution yesterday calling on the European Commission and European External Action Service to impose visa restrictions on Cambodian officials and freeze their assets, and to review the human rights clauses of the Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement for a potential ...

The EU’s decision came in response to the government’s crackdown on the Kingdom’s largest opposition party – the Cambodia National Rescue Party – which was summarily dissolved last month, a development that the EU said rendered credible elections impossible. But in a speech to garment workers ...

The National Election Committee’s newly minted press reaction team responded late on Wednesday to the European Union’s decision to cut funding for the 2018 election, claiming it was unfair to judge the elections before they took place. ...

Visiting US State Department official W Patrick Murphy yesterday warned that further punitive action could be forthcoming in response to the government’s recent crackdown on the main opposition, while repeatedly pointing to the US’s warm relationship with the people of Cambodia – if not their ...

Cambodia has not yet attained full water security, the water resources minister said yesterday at an Asia-Pacific summit. ...

The Apsara Authority announced yesterday that it will begin sharing preservation knowledge and collaborating in restorations with the city officials behind Beijing’s ancient Imperial City. Officials from Cambodia’s heritage preservation authority met with Du Jingxin, an official from Beijing’s Xicheng district, to discuss ways the ...

A total of 17 Cambodia-Vietnam friendship monuments across Cambodia will be renovated by March next year with nearly $8 million provided by Vietnam’s Defence Ministry. ...

The US State Department will issue visa restrictions on individuals “involved in undermining democracy in Cambodia”, the Trump administration announced overnight yesterday, following the dissolution of the main opposition party last month and the arrest in September of former opposition leader Kem Sokha. ...

Japan has provided more than $300,000 to aid the government in its construction of a road and three hospitals in four provinces. The $329,736 grant was signed at the Japanese embassy yesterday by the Japanese ambassador, the director of the Preah Vihear provincial department of public ...

With Cambodia’s former opposition leader Kem Sokha languishing in a remote jail for more than three months now, international organisations and parliamentarians have renewed their calls for his immediate release and for the reversal of the controversial dissolution of his Cambodia National Rescue Party. ...

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday appealed to the Cambodian government to “support” her country in handling the refugee crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of Rohingya pour over its border fleeing violence and persecution in neighbouring Myanmar. ...

Cambodian maids who work in Malaysia will be given smartphones, bank accounts and counselling under a new agreement signed by the two countries yesterday, an employment agency representative said – measures intended to prevent the kind of widespread abuses that resulted in a ban on ...

The Communist Party of China has again publicly announced its strong support for the ruling CPP. The comments were made at a dinner on Wednesday night in Beijing, attended by Prime Minister Hun Sen and Song Tao, head of the International Liaison Department of the CPC. ...

In an unusually candid interview yesterday, United States Ambassador to Cambodia William Heidt questioned whether the Cambodian government ever had “an honest desire” to form a relationship with the US, as Prime Minister Hun Sen continues to claim the superpower backed a purported “revolution”. ...

Cambodia has asked the United States to delay the deportation of some of its citizens convicted of crimes in the US due to serious sicknesses and to wait until they get treatment. ...