Agriculture and fishing

More than 2 million of the Kingdom’s nearly 18 million hectares of land – roughly 12 per cent – was given out to 225 private companies in economic concessions last year, according to an annual report released by rights group Adhoc yesterday. The concessions put 606 ...

The government has already granted roughly 300,000 hectares in economic land concessions (ELC) so far this year, according to data released by a local rights group yesterday. The figure, which amounts to 40 percent of the total land concessions granted in all of 2011, has ...

Though less well-known than Kampot pepper, the price of Kompong Cham province pepper has increased by 44 percent from last year and is developing a following in Thailand, farmers and vendors said. With a total of 906 hectares of land dedicated to cultivating pepper in Kompong ...

Cambodia is importing hundreds of tons of silk from China and Vietnam to compensate for a fast-declining domestic industry, which is suffering due to producers opting to grow other crops instead or raising silk worms, according to silk producers. Men Sinoeun, director of the Artisans’ Association ...

The government has granted private companies the right to develop about 65,000 hectares of land in wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and on public reserves since January 1, data from a human rights group reveals. Ouch Leng, land reform project coordinator for the Cambodian Center for Human ...

The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...

Agricultural officials and farmers in Kampong Thom province are increasingly worried about the adverse effect that a severe drought is having on more than 200 hectares of rice crops. director of the provincial agricultural department, told the Post yesterday that due to an unusually low amount ...

The government has chosen representatives of two obscure NGOs to send to an annual meeting between civil society groups and regional leaders during next month’s Asean summit in Phnom Penh, sparking an outcry among other non-governmental groups that say this will prevent critics from being ...

Two workers were blinded and three others were injured on Saturday after a fire they built on a cassava plantation in Kratie province set off an unexploded ordnance (UXO), Pi Thnou commune police chief Sum Hon said yesterday. ...

The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) is an important component of a larger ecosystem of capital markets, according to Eugene Lam, CEO of OSK Indochina Securities Ltd, one of Cambodia’s securities underwriters approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC). Lam says one of ...

Salt farmers in Kampot and Kep may be unable to harvest the roughly 90,000 tons they sell annually due to excessive rains, and the country may have to turn to foreign markets, producers said yesterday. Ly Sreng, deputy chief of the Kep-Kampot Salt Producers Community, ...

The decreasing amount of farmers harvesting soybeans last year has limited supply and raised prices at the markets roughly 42 percent to 4,000 riel per kg, or about $1, according to an agricultural official and farmers. Cheam Chan Sorphaon, director of the provincial agriculture department in ...

The value of approved agricultural projects in 2011 increased by more than 30 per cent compared to the year before, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. The CDC approved 24 projects worth US$724.9 million last year, $674 million of which was ...

About 400 villagers in Kratie province’s Chhlong district protested yesterday in an effort to stop Kasten agro-industrial company from building houses on contested farmland, the protesters said. The company used red paint to demarcate its boundary and started building houses on the farmland in January, said ...

Kep province – On a sunny weekday in Kep, a seaside village about halfway along Cambodia’s coast, the crab market was heaving. Women in straw hats and rubber boots stood knee deep in the surf shouting out prices, periodically darting into the sea to pull writhing ...

Cambodia’s Finance Minister Keat Chhon said Monday that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is expected at 7 % this year. The forecast is higher than that of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank — all forecast at ...

Five cashew farmers in Ratanakkiri province will file a lawsuit against Hong An Mang Yang K Rubber Development Company today at the provincial court after the company mistakenly burned down 13 hectares of cashew trees last week, a human rights official said on Friday. With cashew ...

Cambodia’s Finance Minister Keat Chhon said Monday that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is expected at 7% this year. Cambodia’s forecast was based on the increases in garments exports, tourist arrivals, and agriculture as well as a gradually recovered real estate sector, the ...

Last year saw a record increase in economic land concessions and the area controlled by agro-industrial companies jumped to more than 2 million hectares nationwide, according to human rights groups who track such projects. Mining companies are also flocking to Cambodia and those already have ...

The provincial office of rights group Licadho has called on Koh Kong provincial politicians to help more than 1,000 families being forcibly evicted to make way for a sprawling gambling resort and other development, representative said yesterday. More than 130 families, from three villages in Kiri ...

During a speech lasting more than three hours, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday sought to clarify his recent blanket amnesty of fisheries crimes, and called on fisheries officials to reform the law that criminalizes certain means of fishing. In his speech, Mr. Hun Sen provided ...

New limitations on Vietnamese exports of processed cashews and slowing demand on the international markets is expected to decrease the price of raw cashews by roughly 40 percent this year, sparking concerns among Cambodian farmers, who are now midway through the harvest season, traders and ...

Nearly two dozen fishermen were re­patriated to the Kingdom yesterday after being trafficked aboard Thai fishing boats where they endured forced labour and rampant abuse. The 11 men bring to 30 the number of fishermen repatriated from Malaysia and Indonesia this year. They were visibly shaken ...

Days after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced a blanket pardon for all suspects and convicts jailed for small-time fisheries crimes, the premier yesterday signed into effect an expected sub-decree canceling fishing lots across the country. Last month, Mr. Hun Sen announced that he would cancel ...