Agriculture and fishing

Cambodia had made its first direct shipment of rice to China, an official revealed yesterday, but the test run, which was hoped to open the vast Chinese rice market to local exporters, was largely unsuccessful. Golden Rice Co Ltd shipped 48 tonnes of milled rice to ...

More than 400 families in Kampong Cham province’s Chup commune had filed a complaint yesterday to local authorities over relocation orders issued last week, villagers said. Hom Hon, 55, a retired rubber plantation worker and former employee of Sopheak Nika Investment Group Company, said that on ...

CAVFOOD, a joint venture between Cambodian and Vietnamese companies, launched the first phase of its US$8 million rice mill in Phnom Penh on Friday. The venture is an investment by Cambodian state-owned rice exporter Green Trade and Vietnam’s VNA Food 2 and Bank for Investment and ...

Cambodia’s exports to the European Union increased by 40 per cent to a total value of US$1.3 billion in 2011, according to European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, who is in Phnom Penh for the ASEAN-EU Business Summit. “I think it is fair to say ...

About half of the land concessions granted since 1994 are in the hands of Chinese companies, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. Ouch Leng, CCHR land reform project coordinator, said that from 1994 to 2012, the Cambodian government granted 4,615,745 ...

About 500 protesters erected barricades on National Road 76a in Kratie province’s Snuol district on Saturday to protest the loss of their farmland and homes to encroachment by three agro-industry firms: Sovann Rithy, Samnang Angkor and Dai Nam Cambodia, officials said yesterday. The protest, which remained ...

The Philippines and Cambodia are working together through the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) to combat transnational crimes within their borders, the Philippine Ambassador to Cambodia has said. They also strengthened talks on human development and exchange of experts on agriculture, capacity building through ...

Just hours before Chinese President Hu Jintao landed in Phnom Penh on Friday, a group of dismayed Koh Kong province villagers whose land is under threat from a sprawling Chinese tourism project were escorted onto a bus and sent back home before they were able ...

Net profits at Acleda Bank increased by 86% to $49.4 million in 2011 as the company grew both its deposits and loan portfolio. In a statement released on Friday, Acleda said that loans grew by 35.4 percent to $989.4 million, while deposits at the bank ...

Cambodia is close to a deal that would ship as much as 20,000 tonnes of milled rice to Indonesia, according to sources familiar with the matter. Thon Virak, director of state-owned rice exporter Green Trade and chairman of Federation of Milled Rice Exporters Association, said Green ...

The Japanese government sealed the deal yesterday on an agreement to provide Cambodia with a US$86 million loan for a project that will supply Siem Reap town residents with water from the Tonle Sap lake and alleviate their need for water drawn from wells. The 40-year ...

Cambodia is close to a deal that would ship as much as 20,000 tonnes of milled rice to Indonesia, according to sources familiar with the matter. Thon Virak, director of state-owned rice exporter Green Trade and chairman of Federation of Milled Rice Exporters Association, said Green ...

The European Union has launched a $4.5 million program aimed at increasing food security among indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province, including those whose land has been affected by the growing number of economic land concessions in the area. Speaking on the sidelines of the launch in ...

The government is finalizing a draft law that will aim to prevent importers from price dumping and protect local producers by allowing authorities to raise tariffs on goods, according to a copy of the draft law. In the past, local producers have been negatively affected by ...

Green Trade, a state-owned, milled-rice exporter, had not been updated on a government-to-government rice deal with the Philippines despite recent media reports that claimed a deal was near. ...

Seven fishermen who were trafficked to work on trawlers in waters off Micronesia were repatriated to Cambodia yesterday, the fishermen and a rights worker said. The men, who left Cambodia in 2010 and 2011 to work for Giant Ocean International as fishermen in Singapore, were trafficked ...

The Philippines is close to signing a government-to-government rice supply agreement that would make Cambodia a potential supplier of the grain staple to Manila, along with Vietnam and Thailand, agriculture officials said on Monday. The Southeast Asian neighbours aimed to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) ...

BETAGRO Group, one of Thailand’s largest integrated agro-industry businesses, announced this week that its US$16.3 million animal feed plant in Cambodia is 95 percent complete. The plant, 12 kilometers from Phnom Penh, will initially produce 12,000 tonnes of animal feed per year, but that number ...

About 50 people protested in front of Pailin Provincial Hall yesterday against a government plan to turn their farmland in Sala Krao district into a special economic zone (SEZ), villagers and officials said. “It is the villagers that abuse the government land. They took the ...

Kampong Thom province Police and soldiers have been deployed to Prey Lang forest to monitor the activities of about 500 villagers patrolling for illegal loggers, a police official said yesterday. The police and military officers gathered along a road leading to the CRCK rubber company, which has ...

Kampong Thom province About 500 frustrated villagers, citing the authorities’ inaction as their motivation, rode some 250 motorbikes into Prey Lang forest over the weekend in yet another effort to combat illegal logging they say is decimating the area. The villagers from four provinces surrounding Prey Lang ...

Visiting Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr on Monday praised Cambodia for its rapid economic growth in recent years and political stability. Bob Carr said that Australian Development Assistance Program has allocated 77 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia in 2011-2012, focusing on agriculture development, health, services, infrastructure ...

A total of 36 protests involving economic land concessions ended with violent intervention from armed authorities last year, according to data released this week by local rights group Adhoc. More than a fifth of the cases involved the long-simmering Boeng Kak lake evictions, in which ...

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 ...