Ministries and other national bodies

More than 1,200 houses and buildings were affected and more than 70 people died or were injured by rainstorms and lightning in the first four months of 2016, according to Keo Vy, Cabinet director and a spokesman for the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM). ...

Cambodia’s garment and footwear exports grew by 13 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2016, Chinese news agency Xinhua said on Monday, citing a report by the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft. ...

With the country grappling with drought and soaring temperatures, the Ministry of Education issued a directive on Monday cutting the amount of time students sit in sweltering classrooms for the remainder of the hot season. ...

The government revoked the offshore oil exploration license of CPHL (Cambodia) Co Ltd after the project failed to meet the terms of its petroleum agreement, a state official said yesterday. ...

The government has given final approval for a planned $3 billion, 133-story twin-tower skyscraper that developers claim will be completed by 2018, a spokesman for the Ministry of Land Management said on Monday. ...

The government has lifted a decade-old ban on snakehead fish farming following a request from the Ministry of Agriculture last month to once again allow farmers to breed the voracious fish, according to a statement dated Thursday.   ...

“The Microfinance Sector in Cambodia: Opportunities and Risks” is an attempt to get a wider view and deeper insight from various researchers on fostering a robust, stable and sustainable microfinance sector, the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) said in a statement yesterday.   ...

A team of Interior Ministry officials traveled to Koh Kong province on Thursday to help local authorities investigate the death of a border police official who investigators suspect may have been murdered, according to officials.   ...

Several hundred protesters representing some 4,000 families from Tbong Khmum’s Memot and Dambe districts arrived in the capital yesterday to petition against powerful private interests they say are encroaching on their land. ...

Cambodia’s young, tech-enthusiastic population is a gateway to accessing the global market digitally, according to the ICT Federation of Cambodia, with its president – Steven Path – estimating that the information and communication technology sector is already nearing about $1 billion in sales. ...

The Ministry of Health expects a dangerous year for diseases and heat trauma as a result of the extreme weather that the Kingdom is experiencing, according to a series of public statements this week.   ...

Members of civil society have called on the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport to increase the budget for development in schools by at least five percent to fix country-wide educational issues. ...

A hundred military trucks have been readied to transport water to drought-hit provinces, where hundreds of livestock deaths have been reported this month amid scorching heat. ...

The Ministry of Justice has received far fewer official requests for this year’s stricter round of pardons and sentence reductions, scheduled to coincide with the Visak Bochea Buddhist holiday, a spokesman said yesterday.   ...

The ICT Federation of Cambodia (ICTF) is aims to promote young entrepreneurs and bring Cambodia into the digital world by connecting domestic and international IT businesses to the Kingdom. ...

Newly appointed Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak issued a shot across the bow yesterday at individuals and companies that infringe on the intellectual property of other firms, warning his ministry was ready to take action against violators. ...

Transport Minister Sun Chanthol said yesterday his ministry would work with the private sector to draw up a formula to rein in and cut transport costs. ...

The Ministry of Environment conducted a workshop yesterday to discuss the government’s plan to designate five forest areas, totaling about one million hectares of land, as protected. ...

After plans to screen a documentary about slain environmental activist Chut Wutty at Phnom Penh’s Meta House were canceled at the behest of the Ministry of Culture last week, a ministry official said over the weekend that the film could not be publicly screened anywhere ...

Tons of dead fish were found in the protected Tonle Chhmar Lake on Saturday, according to Ministry of Agriculture officials. The lake is a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Tonle Sap river in Kampong Thom’s Peam Bang commune. ...

Foreign construction companies were warned not to violate Cambodia’s building laws during a meeting yesterday to review a number of projects that had been approved by the government. ...

The Ministry of Environment has given two NGOs the go-ahead to implement their proposed management plans for five protected community forest areas in Battambang and Pursat provinces, projected to cover 1,064 families and 2,761 hectares.   ...

Dwindling donor funding for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis could have a critical impact on low-income countries like Cambodia, a new study has found, with some health workers in the Kingdom saying that the squeeze is already being felt.   ...

The Ministry of Agriculture will ask Prime Minister Hun Sen to lift a ban on snakehead fish farms to reduce reliance on foreign food sources and raise the income of farmers, officials said on Thursday. ...