Agriculture
Agricultural production
Forestry Officials Confirm Illegal Logging by Vietnamese Firm
During a joint investigation with police and military police last week, the Forestry Administration found evidence of large-scale illegal logging by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, officials said yesterday. ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods, P.18
http://cambodiadaily.com
Shipments of cargo increase by 7.3 per cent
Cargo shipments through Sihanoukville’s Deep Sea Port increased more than seven per cent year-on-year in 2012. Port officials say this growth is a result of Cambodia’s economic performance and an improving global economy. “It is a fast rate of growth compared with previous years. We had ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013011660801/Business/shipments-of-cargo-increase-by-7-3-per-cent.html
Sugar company axes child labour
Rulling party Senator Ly Yong Phat’s Phnom Penh Sugar Company announced yesterday that it had amended its hiring policy to forbid contractors from employing children, while at the same time, opposition parliamentarian Mu Sochua made public her plans to visit the company to investigate its ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013011560790/National/sugar-company-axes-child-labour.html
Families say eviction forced
Hundreds of families in Ratanakkiri province have asked rights group Adhoc to intervene, saying local authorities in Bakeo district’s Laminh commune are illegally forcing them from their homes. Village representative, Ek Orm, 52, said that authorities were forcing villagers to relocate to make way for a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013011460762/National/families-say-eviction-forced.html
Embattled villagers fight on
First, agricultural company DM group displaced them, now a recently arrived commercial farmer has threatened their lives and chased them off their new land, said representatives of 12 families engaged in a long-standing land dispute in Ratanakkiri province. On Wednesday, the 12 Tampuon ethnic minority families ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013011160746/National/embattled-villagers-fight-on.html
Firm Compensates Jarai After Ruining Graves
A Vietnamese rubber company in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district yesterday agreed to pay $4,000 in compensation to an ethnic Jarai community whose traditional graveyard was bulldozed by the firm last week, local officials said. During a meeting at the Paknhai commune police station, representatives of the ...
Soldiers Keep watch over Broma Villagers
More than seven months after government security forces violently evicted hundreds of people living in Kratie province’s Broma village to quell a so-called secessionist movement, more than 70 families are still being prevented by patrolling soldiers from returning to the site of their former homes, ...
Victory claimed in land dispute
More than a month after halting construction around a disputed land concession in Ratanakkiri province, a Vietnam-based company has reportedly gone a step further and agreed to return 30 hectares of razed forest, a village representative and commune chief maintained yesterday. ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/victory-claimed-land-dispute
Broken rice from Cambodia affects export
Exports of milled rice had fallen dramatically last year because of the poor quality of paddy rice, insiders said yesterday. Milled-rice producers told the Post that a large amount of paddy rice broke. From every 100 kilograms of paddy rice, 20 to 23 kilograms of milled rice ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013010960686/Business/broken-rice-from-cambodia-affects-export.html
Kampot Pepper Farmers to see Bumper Year
When the harvest season for Kampot pepper starts next month, farmers in Kampot province expect this year’s crop to yield more than 17 percent above last year, a representative of the farmers said. Nguon Lay, president of the Kampot Pepper Association, said last week that ...
Cambodia, China's Guangxi sign deal to cement agricultural cooperation
Cambodia and China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on strengthening bilateral communication and cooperation in agriculture. The deal was inked between Lord Reasmey, secretary-general of Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, and Zhang Mingpei, director- general of Department of Agriculture of ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-01/08/c_132088306.htm
Forestry Officials Investigate Vietnamese Firm
Amid mounting calls for government intervention to stop the destruction of indigenous land by a Vietnamese rubber company in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, the Forestry Administration has begun investigating claims that the firm is logging illegally and clearing land outside of its concession, officials said ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods, P.19
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/forestry-officials-investigate-vietnamese-firm-7450/
Adhoc Requests Cancellation of 2 Vietnamese Land Concessions
Rights group Adhoc has requested that the government cancel economic land concessions held by two Vietnamese companies in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, on the grounds that the firms are logging and exporting wood illegally. “Adhoc calls on the Royal Government of Cambodia to immediately cancel the ...
Cedac buys rice miller to boost imports
The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, or Cedac, has built a $500,000 rice mill in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district in the hope of exporting more milled rice overseas, an official said yesterday. “We expect that in 2013, we would export between 200 tons and ...
With Election on the Horizon, Politicians Defend Land Policies
Cambodian politicians have begun a public campaign to defend their records on land policies, as they prepare for the run-up to July elections. Politicians from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, as well as the opposition Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties, have said they will give ...
Cargos via Cambodia's city port up 17% in 2012
Cargos entering and leaving through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, Cambodia’s second largest port, increased by 17 percent in 2012 thanks to increasing import and export activities, a senior port official said Thursday. The state-owned port had received 95,333 twenty-foot-equivalent units, or standard-sized containers (TEUs) last year, ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-01/03/c_132077675.htm
Cambodian milled rice exports rise slightly
Cambodian milled rice exports to international markets grew only 2 per cent year-on-year, leading rice trading experts to express concern that the goal of exporting a million tonnes in 2015 cannot be accomplished. Hean Vanhorn, deputy director general of the Ministry of Agriculture and director of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013010360602/Business/cambodian-milled-rice-exports-rise-slightly.html
Coffee production in Mondulkiri province increases
Coffee production in Mondulkiri province in 2012 will be higher than in 2011, according to farmers and producers. Coffee farmer Bou Sopheap told the Post that he just finished the harvest in December. In 2012, his two-hectare plantation provided about four tonnes of coffee beans, compared to ...
Thousands More Logs Found on Company's Land
Ethnic Jarai villagers and a local rights worker yesterday discovered about 3,000 more logs that have been illegally cut by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, according to rights group Adhoc. The logs were found stockpiled in dense forest inside ...
Ethnic Kreung Accuse Businessman of Threats
A group of ethnic Kreung families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have accused a wealthy plantation owner of destroying their crops and threatening to evict them from their homes, local officials and villagers said yesterday. Soeun Sarath, a representative of 13 indigenous families living in Kaleng ...
Vietnam investment in Cambodia hits US$2.5 bil
Vietnamese enterprises so far have invested in 124 projects in Cambodia with total registered capital of some US$2.5 billion, four times higher than the figure in 2009. As such, Vietnam is now among the top five investors in Cambodia, said the Association of Vietnamese Investors in ...
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/55818/vietnam-investment-in-cambodia-hits-us-2-5-bil.html
Hun Sen says CPP will never tax farmland
Prime Minister Hun Sen has said the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will never tax farmland. “It would burden our farmers,” he said in Takeo Sunday. “Although national revenue that comes from land taxes is spent on building roads, water systems, hospitals and schools, we still ...
1,000 More Logs Discovered Inside Ratanakkiri Land Concession
Forestry Administration officials and police yesterday discovered a stockpile of more than 1,000 logs that ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district claim have been illegally cut by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession, a district official said. The 4,000-hectare concession was granted to ...
Hun Sen Encourages Cambodians to Emulate Chinese-Style Wealth
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday encouraged Cambodians to strive for Chinese-style millionaire status as he inaugurated a sugar refinery located inside two controversial plantations belonging to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat and his wife in Kompong Speu province. “I have one clear policy in strengthening the ...