Ministries and other national bodies

About a dozen Tuol Kok district security guards in Phnom Penh on Tuesday blocked three families involved in a long-running land dispute from building a fence around the disputed property in Boeng Kak I commune, an official said. Deputy district governor Saing Sopheak Vichet said the ...

Cambodia’s highly secretive draft law on cybercrime, which has never been released publicly, seeks to criminalise online content that “slanders or undermines” government agencies, ministries or officials or affects “political cohesiveness”, a copy obtained by the Post reveals. The law, which was first announced in May ...

The National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said Tuesday that it needs an additional $217 million from donors and NGOs to help recovery efforts from the floods of September and October 2013. A document accompanying the Post-Flood Early Recovery Needs Assessment Report, prepared by the ...

City Hall has taken over the recently launched public bus route in Phnom Penh pending a review of the Chinese-owned firm that is contracted to run the fledgling service, a company official said yesterday. Lim Andre, Global (Cambodia) Trade Development’s manager in Phnom Penh, said yesterday ...

Cambodia’s 11-year-old investment law may be the most liberal in the region, according to the World Bank, but in practice, day-to-day business operations are far from simple, economists and business operators say. Mey Kalyan, senior adviser to the Supreme National Economic Council, said that despite a ...

The Ministry of Commerce is undergoing an internal shake-up to better position itself for the opening up of trade across the region. Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol told the Post yesterday that ahead of Asean Economic Community (AEC) integration in 2015, new divisions were being established and others realigned ...

Like mob deals and black market trades, the Cambodian school budget is dealt in suitcases of cash. Four times a year, the school operating budget is dispersed in stacks of cash transferred from the central bank to the Ministry of Education, eventually ending up with the ...

As hundreds of thousands participate in the annual mass migration from Phnom Penh to their home provinces for Khmer New Year next week, military police will remain at their posts. National Military Police in the capital and provincial outlets will be working at full capacity 24 ...

Union leaders planning a stay-at-home strike to demand a higher minimum wage for the country’s garment workers say they will press on with the strike after the Khmer New Year, despite the threat of arrest for anyone handing out leaflets promoting their plans. On Sunday, a ...

The government-backed Rural Development Bank (RDB) will lend $64 million to Cambodia’s agriculture sector in 2014, the bank’s top official said yesterday. Sun Kunthor, president of RDB, said most of the funding would be used to support growth in Cambodia’s rice sector as it strives to ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday urged Cambodians to keep safe as they celebrate Khmer New Year this weekend and instructed law enforcement officers to be vigilant during a period renowned for causing an annual spike in traffic accidents. Speaking at a graduation ceremony on Koh ...

Education Ministry officials on Monday confirmed that the ministry would no longer organize or oversee the junior high school exam, delegating the process to individual schools. As part of Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron’s reform of the graft-riddled education system, his ministry will forgo coordination of ...

The Royal Palace yesterday said the letter sent by opposition leader Sam Rainsy to King Norodom Sihamoni last week that elicited a furious response from the government for “insulting” the King, did not, in fact, disrespect the monarch’s “honour and name”. A statement signed by the ...

The sole retailer of Mercedes-Benz cars into the country, Hung Hiep (Cambodia) Co., has suspended imports since January over what it claims is a new import duty on luxury cars coming into the country. Other luxury car importers including Porsche, Audi, BMW and Jaguar Land Rover, ...

Following the mass fainting of hundreds of workers at garment factories last week, an official at the Ministry of Labour has raised concerns over the control of toxic chemicals. Leng Tong, director of the Labour Ministry’s occupational health and safety department, said factories should be providing ...

Seventy prisoners are to be released during Khmer New Year next week in an amnesty that will also see hundreds of prison sentences reduced by up to a year. The Ministry of Justice approved 555 applications for sentence reductions and pardons following a request by its ...

In a rare moment of honesty a Cambodian official has admitted his doubts about his country’s ability to meet regional expectations in time for the launch of the much vaunted ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of 2015. “If you talk about short-term: Yes, we ...

Siem Reap hotel operators are preparing for a deluge of tourists this Khmer New Year season the likes of which is not often seen, tourism officials say. Chheuy Chhorn, deputy director of Siem Reap’s tourism department, said after attracting 170,000 visitors to the first annual Angkor ...

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Friday confirmed that Cambodia was in talks with his government to take in some of the refugees trying to reach his country’s shores, according to Australian media. Mr. Abbott’s statement was the first official admission from his administration that Australia ...

Cambodia asked Thailand Friday to compensate the families of five Cambodians killed when a World War II bomb exploded in a scrap metal shop in Bangkok. The explosion on Wednesday killed a total of seven people, injured 20 others and destroyed or damaged 10 buildings. “Our ...

Cambodian paddy rice production fell only slightly during the first half of this year’s dry season, despite 12,000 hectares of usually productive land deemed unusable due to last year’s floods. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, dry season paddy rice production between December ...

Facing public pressure from major garment brands and labor unions, the Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization (ILO) will cooperate in the coming months to reform the current system of setting the minimum wage in the garment sector. The reform process will begin with ...

A weekend storm surge that saw torrential downpours hit the capital had far more dire consequences outside of Phnom Penh, where hundreds of families were affected and at least one man was killed. At least 675 homes in eight provinces were damaged in sudden thunderstorms that ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen flew Friday to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to attend the second Summit of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), which will be held on Saturday. The premier was accompanied by Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor, Environment Minister ...