City profiles

With the help of a Federation of Canadian Municipalities partnership with the County of Kings, Battambang has won a clean city award from the Government of Cambodia. Battambang was ranked number-one in this year’s Clean City Award Competition. Federation of Canadian Municipalities program manager Pascal Lavoie ...

City Hall is turning its focus to Phnom Penh’s “anarchic parking” situation. Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong yesterday said the municipality plans to cancel old contracts awarding private companies the right to charge for parking in certain parts of the city, and introduce new restrictions on ...

Vattanac Capital Tower, a long-anticipated gleaming tower that dominates the city’s skyline from Monivong Boulevard, continues to attract tenants to its commercial office space. The most recent tenants to occupy the building are Qatar Airways and investment company One Asia Capital, with Qatar occupying 180 square ...

About 80 activists from Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila and Boeng Kak communities protested outside City Hall on Monday morning, but were confronted by municipal security guards who prevented them from delivering a petition to the governor. Sar Soun, a representative of families from the Borei Keila ...

Dozens of villagers in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district are facing eviction after the National Cadastral Commission announced last week that a number of areas in Tuol Sangke commune are earmarked for future redevelopment. The commission’s plans for new projects, including a road widening, were posted ...

Singaporean investors will invest $300 million to erect a twin-towered commercial building called The Bridge, in downtown Phnom Penh. The Bridge, which is a joint venture between Singapore Oxley Holdings and Cambodia World Bridge Land, aims to make its mark on the city landscape by constructing ...

Construction began yesterday on the Sokha Hotel Group’s 600-room luxury resort in Siem Reap – right next door to Angkor Wat. Named the Sokha Siem Reap Resort, both company and government officials were out in force at yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony, talking up the perks of the ...

The Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) and Phnom Penh municipality are cooperating to undertake a study on major new projects for the city – two flyovers and a subway, each of which it is hoped would ease the city’s ever worsening traffic congestion. Touch Samnang, project ...

The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) revealed its plans Monday for a Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City expressway that will halve travel time between the two cities. At an estimated cost of $2.2 billion, the initial target date for completion of the expressway is ...

The government is refusing to compensate up to 1,000 families forced to wait for income restoration measures after being relocated from their homes for an Asian Development Bank-funded railway rehabilitation project, a previously unreleased action plan from the ADB reveals. The ADB Management Action Plan, released ...

About 50 residents evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in 2008 and 2009 to make way for a senator’s real estate project once again protested in front of City Hall Monday to demand better compensation. They are among some 3,000 families who were forced ...

Despite expecting 27,000 visitors per day, little planning has gone into tackling traffic congestion at Cambodia’s long-awaited AEON Mall when it opens June 30, City Hall said yesterday. There are 1,400 vehicle parking spaces allotted at AEON and 1,600 bikes spaces accessed via both Sothearos ...

An ice-skating rink, bowling alley, seven-screen cinema and a proverbial catwalk of high-end European and US labels will start vying for a slice of Cambodia’s rising middle class inside the soon-to-open AEON Mall, management with the firm overseeing it confirmed on Saturday. The Japanese-owned shopping centre’s ...

A familiar figure has popped up atop a building that authorities in Phnom Penh ordered demolished in October for violating height restrictions around the Royal Palace: a statue of late King Father Norodom Sihanouk. “I have built a King statue on the top of my building ...

The China Railway Group’s planned $7.5 billion Cambodian north-south railway line has been delayed due to funding shortages, according to the company’s top official. Originally slated to begin construction last year, China Railway’s chairman, Li Changjin, told the South China Morning Post that work on the 400-kilometre railway ...

In its latest Market View report, CBRE Cambodia Research concludes that Phnom Penh has well and truly put the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis – which saw many condominium developments in the city put on hold or even fail – behind it, and the ...

Phnom Penh has earned one of the top spots in a new report tracking prices of residential and commercial real estate across the region. The Knight Frank Asia Pacific Prime Asia Development Land Index, which the global real estate consultancy has hailed as a market first, ...

Keeping ahead of Phnom Penh’s mounting piles of garbage has proved tough for Cintri since it was awarded sole rights in 2002 to keep the city clean. But a new plan harnessing global satellite positioning and digital mapping is offering the company a high-tech helping ...

The company responsible for collecting Phnom Penh’s trash has defended its erratic pricing structure in response to an inquiry from the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), which says that numerous complaints have been filed by small business owners. The ACU sent a letter to Cintri (Cambodia) Ltd. on ...

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 ...

In 2011, Oeun Phirun took out a $450 loan from the Asian Development Bank, using half to buy a used motorbike and spending the rest on a small flock of ducks and chickens he hoped to raise. His family and about 1,000 others have been evicted ...

Less than a year after all refurbishments were completed on Hongkong Land’s Central Mansions – formerly Colonial Mansions – the classic residential units in the heart of Phnom Penh’s burgeoning financial, government and office-rental district are enjoying occupancy rates of close to 100 per cent, ...

To attract tourism and make Battambang province more appealing as a nightlife destination, provincial authorities are preparing to follow the way of Siem Reap and lay the groundwork for a Pub Street ahead of the Khmer New Year. The deputy governor of Battambang, Ngon Ratthanak, says ...

Three families involved in a bitter land dispute with a powerful land developer in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district on Monday rejected City Hall’s offer of new housing, saying the apartments being offered were far too small. They also said they planned to file a complaint ...