Multilateral development assistance

Almost every aspect of starting or operating a business in Cambodia is becoming more difficult, according to a World Bank report released Wednesday. “Starting a business in Cambodia requires 11 procedures, takes 101.0 days, costs 139.5 percent of income per capita and requires paid-in minimum ...

The French Development Agency (AFD) confirmed Wednesday that it will sign $6 million worth of loan agreements with three microfinance institutions (MFIs) to help rural households purchase solar panels and electricity. ...

The World Bank and Asian Development Bank issued a report on Tuesday, urging Cambodia to improve its electricity supply and workforce in order to be competitive. Intermittent electricity, informal payments and a low-skill labor force are all major constraints to doing business in Cambodia, the ...

Cambodia must do more than open its borders for trade and investment if it hopes to benefit from regional economic integration and reduce the glaring economic inequality wrought by entrenched patronage networks and corrupt institutions, according to a new report by the Asian Development Bank ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday signed to provide grant and loan agreements worth nearly 99 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia for three development projects, the bank said in a press statement.​ The agreements cover a rural roads improvement project, a technical and vocational ...

Cambodia has reached out to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for help with resettling refugees it has agreed to take from Australia under a controversial deal signed last month, according to an IOM spokesman. ...

The World Bank has not yet reached a decision on whether to lift a ban on loans to Cambodia, a Bank official has said, contradicting local media reports that the international financing institution would resume loans suspended three years ago over allegations of violent land ...

Officials delayed the bidding process for three projects funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday after heated arguments between bidders broke out in Kompong Cham province’s Choeung Prey district, local officials said on Thursday. ...

People living along the railroads in Phnom Penh city has made another demonstration in front of ADB’s office in Cambodia for the third time. However, there was not any better response from ADB than the previous times. People affected by the railroad development project which ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday promised to help pry answers out of the government for residents of Phnom Penh who fear losing all or some of their land to a bank-funded project to rehabilitate the country’s railway network. ...

Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova has denounced the killing of journalist Taing Try in Cambodia on Oct. 12 and urged the authorities to ensure that those responsible are punished for their crime. Taing Try, 49, a freelance journalist for several local newspapers and a member ...

A study by the International Labor Organization, the U.N.’s labor body, shows most Cambodian garment workers do not eat enough nutritious food and that, as a result, many are anemic and even underweight. Now, a pilot project will feed workers at five factories a free ...

As the World Bank considers supplying fresh loans to Cambodia, a new study uses the country as exhibit A for how the financier effectively sponsors corporate land grabs at the expense of the rural poor it purportedly helps. Three years ago, the bank’s own inspectors found ...

Cambodia’s economic growth is forecasted to reach 7.2 percent in 2014, and 7.5 percent next year according to a report by World Bank on Monday. The report said Cambodia’s garments continue to be the key engine of growth, followed by construction. The poverty rate continued to ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong addressed the UN’s General Assembly on Monday, in a speech that focused more on the threat of the Islamic State and international conflicts than it did on Cambodian issues. Hor Namhong told the Assembly that Cambodia supports joint international efforts to ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced last week a $30 million loan aimed at overhauling Cambodia’s technical and vocational education system (TVET). According to a September 26 statement issued by the ADB, the new funding will go towards launching a “competency-based” assessment and certification process, and ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has maintained its growth projections for Cambodia in 2014. The ADB’s midyear outlook for Cambodia, released yesterday, states that Cambodia’s economy still stands to achieve 7 per cent growth by the end of the year, and potentially 7.3 per cent in ...

Cambodia may be on the verge of a new era in human rights protection, an independent United Nations human rights expert declared today, adding that while the political momentum in the country was headed in a “positive direction,” a strong human rights infrastructure was still ...

About 100 anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Lor Peang communities held their latest joint protest outside the World Bank office on Thursday over a recent announcement that it is considering the resumption of loan to the government after a three-year freeze. ...

The World Bank is contemplating a $25-million project to build up 15 social land concessions (SLCs) across Cambodia and could approve the scheme as soon as December, according to a proposal posted to the Bank’s website late last month, a move that would end its ...

A proposed project hopes to channel the widespread use of mobile phones among factory workers to bring the voice of the 600,000 Cambodians employed in the crucial garment sector into future wage negotiations. The project, which would collect information about working hours, conditions, wages and expenses ...

Weak logistics have stood in the way of Cambodia’s trade progress for years with its export costs at least 30 percent higher than those of Southeast Asian neighbours Thailand and Vietnam. Getting the goods from farmers to markets remains difficult, and exporters struggle to supply overseas ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday defended his government, saying its reputation for corruption is undeserved, laying blame on the private sector for initiating the bribe process and calling out international development partners for applying double standards. Speaking at the Eighth Regional Conference of Anti-Corruption Intiative for ...

The government has finished calculating the additional compensation it will pay out to some of the families forced to move for a $143 million railway rehabilitation project being funded mostly by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), according to a new report. The report, released this week ...