Agriculture
Agricultural commodities, processing and products
Sugar Firm Files Defense in Cambodian Lawsuit
British sugar firm Tate & Lyle has denied knowing of the alleged abuses at two Cambodian plantations accused of illegally driving hundreds of families off their farms and says that the families have no right to ask the company for compensation, according to the firm’s ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uk-sugar-firm-files-defense-in-cambodian-lawsuit-21913/
Agriculture Contributes To Helping Cambodia’s Economic Growth: PM Hun Sen
“The agriculture sector today is still playing significant role in promoting local production growth, job creation, and contributing to the poverty reduction of the people. At the same time, the agriculture sector will continue the basic role for economic growth and socio-economic development in Cambodia in ...
Mekong forest facing sharp decline: WWF
BANGKOK: Demand for farmland may strip the Greater Mekong region of a third of its remaining forest cover over the next two decades without swift government action, a leading conservation group warned Thursday. Forests are being cleared for commodities such as rubber and rice while illegal logging is decimating ...
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/mekong-forest-facing-sharp-decline-wwf/661574.html
Cambodia Must Up its Game in Rice Exports
Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements last month, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. Over the last few years, Cambodia has emerged as a major rice exporter in the region, due in large part ...
http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2013/05/01/cambodia-must-up-its-game-in-rice-exports/
High Risk Seen in Kingdom’s Business Environment: Report
Corruption, a weak judicial system and the potential for complicity with human and labour rights abuses are key risks for firms looking to invest in Cambodia, a new report [by Maplecroft, a UK-based global risk and strategic consulting firm] analysing investment risk in the Kingdom ...
Report Says Quarter of Forests Have Been Cleared in 40 Years
Cambodia has lost almost a quarter of its forests in the past 40 years due to rapid development and China’s demand for timber, according to a new report released yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on the Greater Mekong Region. Looking at five countries in ...
Angry Villagers Confront Workers
Jarai minority villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district protested in two locations yesterday against a Vietnamese company that community leaders say has been clearing their protected land and forcing villagers to accept inadequate compensation. Community leader Sev Hem said 30 angry villagers directly confronted five Company 72 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050165347/National/angry-villagers-confront-workers.html
Thailand and Cambodia to forge closer trade talks
After the fourth Joint Trade Commission (JTC) recently, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said that Thailand and Cambodia had the potential to drive two-way trade up by 30 per cent, due to strong growth in 2012. Last year, bilateral trade grew by 40.5 per cent year on ...
Special Thai-Cambodian cassava-corn trade zone set to be established
Thailand and Cambodia are on a path towards the setting up of a special trade zone that will see the two neighbors actively trade cassava and corn. Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom revealed on Monday that the 4th Thailand-Cambodia Joint Trade Committee meeting, held last week, saw ...
http://thainews.prd.go.th/centerweb/newsen/NewsDetail?NT01_NewsID=WNFOR5604290010003
Draft of New Public Land Policy Is Released
The government on Friday released a draft of a new public policy guide on the county’s contentious land sector, a move that was welcomed by NGOs, who also called for the government to hold further consultations on the draft. Local rights groups have singled out ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/draft-of-new-public-land-policy-is-released-20672/
New Kampot Salt Farm Has Big Ambitions
TOEK CHHOU DISTRICT, Kampot province – A donor-backed project launched here on Saturday aims to produce Cambodia’s first export-quality sea salt and invigorate the struggling local salt industry. In a ceremony among Kampot’s vast fields of coastal saltpans and low levees, company representatives from Asia Salt ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/new-kampot-salt-farm-has-big-ambitions-20505/
Forest Allegedly Cleared By Company
Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. “The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042965293/National/forest-allegedly-cleared-by-company.html
Kingdom spending $3m to boost rubber quality
A $3 million initiative to purify the quality of rubber trees planted across the country is intended to spur farmers to plant more rubber, a government official said. Ly Phalla, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042965285/Business/kingdom-spending-3m-to-boost-rubber-quality.html
Rubber draft law addresses regulatory holes
The government is drafting a rubber law to regulate the sector in response to the rapid growth of rubber plantations across the country, an official said. Ly Phalla, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said officials ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042665257/Business/rubber-draft-law-addresses-regulatory-holes.html
Scale of Wildlife Sanctuary Destruction Denied
A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/scale-of-wildlife-sanctuary-destruction-denied-20366/
Rubber Firm Accused of Illegal Deforestation
A rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of encroaching on communal land belonging to an ethnic minority in Ratanakkiri province has cleared 150 hectares of forest outside of its economic land concession (ELC) in the past month, according to the senior investigator for local ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-firm-accused-of-illegal-deforestation-20367/
Cambodia’s first dairy plant
Cambodia’s first dairy factory is being planned for Phnom Penh, as one of the owners, a Vietnam-based dairy company, hopes to tap strong local demand for its products. The 2.7-hectare factory, in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ), would produce condensed milk, yoghurt and UHT ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042565223/Business/cambodia-s-first-dairy-plant.html
Demand for quality rice seed development
To enhance Cambodian rice yields, the government should encourage private development of rice-seed production and focus its efforts on farmers’ education and regulations that ensure the quality of seed, industry experts say. The Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), under the direction of the Ministry ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042565221/Business/demand-for-quality-rice-seed-development.html
Decision Pending in Dispute Between Villagers, Businesswoman
Farmers in Kompong Chhnang province locked in a land dispute with a local businesswoman are waiting for the government to make a decision on who owns the property after student volunteers measured the area earlier this month as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/decision-pending-in-dispute-between-villagers-businesswoman-20022/
Kingdom’s rubber exports rise, but prices stay flat
Rubber exports from Cambodia were up over 17 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, but the revenue from rubber stayed steady as prices decline worldwide, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. The data showed that in the first quarter of this year, ...
Export Values Up 21 Per Cent
Cambodian export values increased more than 21 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, and officials said the rise was a positive sign for the Kingdom’s economic growth. According to the Ministry of Commerce’s export data ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042465194/Business/export-values-up-21-per-cent.html
Villagers Protest Eviction by Chinese Company
More than 100 villagers living on a 20-hectare swath of a rubber plantation in Ratanakkirri province gathered outside O’Chum commune hall yesterday to protest their eviction at the hands of a Chinese company, local officials and rights activists said. About 120 families from Trang Churng Village ...
606 New Companies Opened in Cambodia in Q1, Down 33 pct
Cambodia had granted operating licenses to 606 new companies in the first quarter of this year, a 33 percent decrease compared with the 904 firms at the same period last year, the Commerce Ministry’s report showed Tuesday. Yim Rom, an official at the ministry’s statistics ...
Thais remove cassava and maize import restrictions
In order to boost the Kingdom’s trade performance and improve the quality of lives of farmers along the Thai-Cambodia border, Thailand has agreed to remove import restrictions on Cambodian cassava and maize. Speaking to reporters after the forth meeting of the Joint Trade Committee between Cambodia ...