Transport and shipping

PHNOM PENH — Cambodia’s low-rise capital city is reaching for the sky—again. Long known as one of the last major Asian cities without a skyline, Phnom Penh embarked on a high-rise building boom in the middle of the last decade, only to see it derailed ...

Cambodia has met 70 per cent of the basic requirements needed to join the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday, referring to a recently updated report issued by the economic block. The Kingdom ranked third in preparedness among the 10 ASEAN member ...

Japanese technology companies Toshiba Corp and Kyosan Electric have met with Phnom Penh Municipality to discuss investing in a light rail system and new traffic light network. According to an announcement on the municipality’s website yesterday, Kazutoshi Fukuda, managing director of Kyosan Electric, and Yasuyoshi Mugiya, ...

Representatives from Cambodia and Thailand yesterday agreed to a 2013 completion date for a railway link from Phnom Penh across the Cambodia-Thailand border crossing at Poipet. Outdated agreements had delayed the project, Thai officials said. Insiders have also said disagreements over cross-border trade have kept the ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has not made public the last two quarterly reports on the impact of resettling families who are being evicted for a $142 million railway rehabilitation project. The reports, which are required under an ADM loan agreement with the government, haven’t been ...

Shipment through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by more than 28 per cent in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing a government target for 2011. About 73,760 shipping containers passed through the port between January and November, data shows, up from 62,256 containers ...

A Chinese railway company may conduct a feasibility study on a 700-kilometre rail line in northern Cambodia, officials and local media reported yesterday. Officials from Nanning Survey and Design Institute Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China Railway Siyuan Group, discussed the study with the Ministry of ...

The Australian government is committing $1 million to help families being forced out of their homes to make way for a railway rehabilitation project it is co-funding with the government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Australian Embassy said in a statement Friday. The embassy ...

The Kingdom needs US$270 million to expand its three airports if the country is to meet its growing demand as a tourist destination, Cambodia Airport CEO Emmanuel Menanteau said yesterday. The total number of visitors passing through the Kingdom’s airports will approximately double every 10 years, ...

Representatives of 503 former railway workers protested outside the Ministry of Transportation in Phnom Penh yesterday, demanding the government pay them outstanding salaries ranging from US$2,500 to $5,000 per person. Railway workers from Battambang, Kampot, Pursat and Takeo who were formerly employed by the government, but ...

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 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Industrial pollution ‘hot-spots’ have been identified in waterways in Phnom Penh, Kandal and Kompong Cham provinces following a five-month period of research as part of a UN-backed effort to encourage companies to adopt cleaner practices. The hot spots – defined as a source of pollution where ...

Freight shipments through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port saw year-on-year growth of 30 per cent in the first nine months of the year, according to official PPAP figures. The total number of twenty-foot equivalent units that passed through the port hit 60,810 between January and August, up from ...

Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon has failed to respond to a request made almost two months ago about the authenticity of a letter in which he allegedly urged Prime Minister Hun Sen to ban foreign NGOs from doing advocacy work in Cambodia, the Asian Development ...

The Asian Development Bank yesterday said it had never authenticated a June 17 letter from Finance Minister Keat Chhon that claimed an ADB consultant urged the government to target advocacy groups critical of an ADB-funded railway project. In a copy of the letter obtained earlier this ...

Gliding through the water almost soundlessly, the MS AmaLotus docked for only its second time in Phnom Penh last week At 92 meters in length and capable of holding 124 passengers, the AmaLotus is the latest cruise ship to start transporting tourists between Siem Reap and ...

Top government officials yesterday either declined to comment or said they had no knowledge of a letter from Finance Minister Keat Chhon to Prime Minister Hun Sen proposing to bar all foreign NGOs from “advocacy” work in the country, as well as stopping foreigners from ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen received a proposal from Finance Minister Keat Chhon in June seeking to bar “foreign NGOs” from advocacy work in Cambodia, as well as preventing foreigners from working with local advocacy groups because of activism around the rehabilitation of the nation’s railway, ...

Shanghai Construction Group has announced it will complete US$700 million in projects in Cambodia over the next five years, highlighting China’s dominant and still-growing presence in the Kingdom. The company presently oversees nine bridge and road construction projects in the Kingdom, according to government relations officer ...

Hours after arriving for his latest visit to the country, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Saturday urged Cambodia to increase state spending in infrastructure and education and to modernize the country’s financial system, according to media reports. Local reporters were quickly ushered out of ...