Ministries and other national bodies

Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol said yesterday that his ministry was initiating reforms that would see Cambodia’s ease of starting a business ranking leap from the current 184 to 21. He said the government would also need to make changes to the Company Registration Law, reduce ...

The number of children in the country who are stunted—leaving them physically smaller and mentally weaker than their properly nourished peers—dropped by 7 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to a nationwide survey released Tuesday. ...

Despite Cambodia’s unofficial freeze on inter-country adoptions, the Ministry of Social Affairs recently urged partner countries to reforge, in principle, their adoption partnerships with the Kingdom. In a statement issued on Monday, the ministry opened the application process for international adoption agencies, as only adoption agencies ...

Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol called on business owners to clean up their activities in the Kingdom, in order to remain competitive, especially in light of the ASEAN Economic Community integration due to be realised at the end of the year. Private sector companies have traditionally raised ...

Defense Minister Tea Banh joked Tuesday that the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) are “biased to the right people” in protecting the government from destabilizing political agitators. Speaking at the annual review of the military’s activities at the Defense Ministry, General Banh said the armed forces ...

Planning for the Stung Bot checkpoint on the Thai border is almost finalised, with the construction of new infrastructure to support trade facilitation to be completed by the end of 2018, officials said yesterday. Vasim Sorya, the director general of administration at the Ministry of Public ...

After heaping criticism on rights group Licadho for allegedly exaggerating the seriousness of Cambodia’s land rights crisis last month, the government has released its own annual report on land disputes. In a letter the following day, the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction ...

The government will set up a $5 million fund to allow Cambodia’s 26 provinces and municipalities to take responsibility for waste management in their cities, it was announced recently. With a focus on garbage management, the decentralisation initiative, revealed at a two-day workshop in Phnom Penh ...

Thousands of kilograms of rice donated by the Cambodian Red Cross to impoverished families in Battambang province, including residents of HIV-hit Roka commune, had to be replaced Monday after villagers complained it was rotten, officials said. ...

Local rights group Licadho yesterday praised the government’s plan to release a number of incarcerated women who are pregnant or have their children with them in prison within the next week, but said deeper reforms are needed. In a statement, the NGO said it welcomed an ...

UNESCO and the Ministry of Education on Monday launched a two-month joint campaign to raise the adult literacy rate to 84.4 percent by the end of the year by airing television and radio spots to encourage enrollment in after-school literacy classes. ...

More than 400 teachers who took part in an eight-month teaching course at the National Institute of Education (NIE) are demanding the government pay them scholarship funds that were initially promised only to be later axed over cost concerns. In a petition sent yesterday to the ...

The Cambodian government will provide legal representation to three citizens who were shot at and arrested by Thai soldiers last week while allegedly smuggling drugs across the border. ...

Cambodian Defense Minister Gen. Tea Banh said, on Monday, that he met with his visiting Laos counterpart Lt. Gen. Sengnuan Saiyalath, and they agreed to further enhance bilateral ties and cooperation for mutual benefits. ...

Thirty-one thousand new households, with 150,000 people, across three western provinces will soon have access to reliable and affordable electricity, after a $23.9 million investment project, launched Thursday, will connect them to the national grid. ...

A Cambodian national was shot and two others arrested in Thailand last week while allegedly smuggling drugs across the border, officials said yesterday. ...

Cambodia’s lowest paid high-school and primary-school teachers will receive a $25 increase to their base monthly salary by the end of May, the government revealed on Monday. Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the raise at the opening of the National Literacy Campaign on Monday and reiterated ...

An inter-governmental anti-money laundering group has stopped monitoring Cambodia after it said the Kingdom had made “significant progress” toward fighting financial crimes. ...

Vocational skills are due to be added to the state curriculum next year in an attempt to improve graduates’ job prospects, Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron has said. ...

A Turkish man who survived a drive-by shooting in Sihanoukville only to be arrested less than 24 hours later over an earlier stabbing incident was charged by the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court on Sunday—after which he attempted to flee while still in handcuffs. ...

Villagers in Stung Treng province displeased local authorities on Saturday by holding a traditional ceremony calling upon a powerful local spirit to curse those behind the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam. ...

After the government deported Spanish environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson on Monday, the opposition CNRP has called on the Interior Ministry to turn its attention to thousands of Vietnamese immigrants living in the country illegally. ...

Reviving one of his most frequent complaints against the Khmer Rouge tribunal, Prime Minister Hun Sen warned again Thursday that war and chaos could ensue if the court continued to pursue additional cases. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said that the government decided to provide additional 40,000 Riel (about $10) to civil servants and armed forces in April. ...