Bilateral development assistance

Sweden loaned Cambodia US$57 million yesterday for economic country development and cooperation for the duration of 2012-2013. The agreement was made between Cambodia’s Economic Minister Keat Chhon and Swedish ambassador to Cambodia Anne Hoglund at the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) yesterday morning. Keat Chhon ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen returned home yesterday from a quick trip to Beijing with the promise of some $523 million in new loans and grants, one day after Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jabao praised Cambodia for helping China maintain “friendly relations” with Asean. Speaking with ...

China has pledged more than $500 million in soft loans and grants to Cambodia and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao thanked it for helping Beijing maintain good relations with the regional grouping ASEAN, a Cambodian junior minister said. A summit of the 10 members of the Association ...

Cambodia expects to export around 300,000 tonnes of milled rice to China per year, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said during the 44th ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting in Siem Reap. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming on Tuesday night, ...

China’s Export-Import Bank officials proposed to provide loans of up to US$70 million for rice milling in an effort to aid Cambodia’s efforts to export a million tonnes of rice by 2015, government officials said yesterday. The bank’s officials visited Cambodia last week to met with Cambodian ...

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, one of the leading banks in Japan, will sign a memorandum of understanding with Cambodia’s leading Acleda Bank on Friday for business cooperation, according to a press release from Acleda on Thursday. Under the agreement, both banks will provide mutual support for ...

The chief executives of two companies behind major developments in Cambodia-who were jailed in Seoul in February for their part in a major South Korean financial scandal-have been partially cleared and released, according to a court official. Lee Sang-ho – the CEO of World City Co. ...

Toll Royal Railways (TRR), the current operator of Cambodia’s dilapidated rail network, restarted freight services to Kampot province yesterday, four months after it suspended its work. TRR’s resumption comes on the heals of a rival proposal to manage the train network by a consortium that includes one ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has so far contributed $84 million toward the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network, said yesterday it would support a deal to drop the current railway  operator if it means the new concessionaire would foot the $60 to $100 million needed ...

Renaissance Minerals announced Friday it has discovered a high-grade gold deposit in an area in Mondolkiri province that lies within the Australian firm’s Cambodian Gold Project. The new find is located about 500 meters to the northeast of the company’s Okvau exploration zone. The announcement comes ...

Revenues generated from Cambodian exports to China fell by 10 percent in the first half of the year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Commerce last week. About $60 million worth of goods were exported from Cambodia to China between January and June, the ...

South Korea and Cambodia have agreed to share military supplies in peacekeeping and rescue operations as part of efforts to expand military ties between the two sides, the defense ministry here said Tuesday. Lee Seon-chul, the head of the South Korean defense ministry’s logistics managment bureau, ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen said this week that he will talk with Chinese leaders especially his Chinese counterpart PM Wen Jiaboa about finance to build 300-500 km rural roads in the country in contribution of helping poverty reduction and living conditions of the local ...

The Chinese government is considering loaning an unspecified amount of money to cover the cost of constructing 20 new national roads, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. Speaking at the inauguration of 128-km stretch of National Road 62 linking Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear provinces, also primarily funded by ...

Chinese firms have huge ambitions for Cambodia, with a second firm this week proposing three projects worth an estimated US$6.5 billion to the National Assembly yesterday, but no deadlines were set for the implementation of the projects, according to officials. Pan Xiaoping, chairman of Ruijin Investment Holding Ltd, ...

Cambodia on Wednesday inaugurated a 128-kilometer China-funded national road No. 62 in an effort to boost social and economic development in northern provinces. The road, from Kampong Thom province’s Kampong Svay district to the provincial town of Preah Vihear province, cost about 52 million U.S. dollars ...

Shandong Shantui, a Chinese firm and one of the largest manufacturers of heavy construction machinery and largest producer of bulldozers has expressed an interest in investing in Cambodia’s agricultural sectors. General Manager Cheng Zhaohong met with Cambodia’s National Assembly President Heng Samrin yesterday morning to present the company’s ...

The Philippines has summoned Cambodia’s ambassador over comments linked to Manila’s territorial row with Beijing. Hos Sereythonh was asked to explain remarks accusing the Philippines and Vietnam of playing “dirty politics” over the issue of Asean and the South China Sea. [H]e did not turn up on ...

The ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) 10 + 1 Session with 10 ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners, namely, Australia, Canada, China, the European Union (EU), India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America were held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 11 July 2012. They focused on cooperation ...

Three years after authorities demolished the last houses in Phnom Penh’s Group 78 community, evictees relocated to the outskirts of the capital are still struggling, the Housing Rights Task Force said yesterday. More than 200 members of the Group 78 community gathered close to the site ...

Detained French architect Patrick Henri Devillers boarded a flight to China late last night after being held in custody in Cambodia for more than a month for his links to the biggest political scandal to hit China in decades, a government spokesman said. At Phnom Penh ...

China is the largest provider of financial assistance to Cambodia for agriculture and irrigation development in the last three years, Cambodia’s Minister of Finance Keat Chhon said on Tuesday. Since 2010 to date, he said, Cambodia has received a total loan of $561 million and a ...

Outlining America’s position on territorial disputes between Asean members and China over the South China Sea, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday also expressed views on a matter a little closer to home: the benefits Cambodia gains from U.S. development assistance. Speaking to reporters ...

Less than four months after suspending work on Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network, Toll Royal Railways (TRR), the network’s operator, has informed the government that it will recommence transporting construction materials needed to build the southern line on Aug. 1, company officials said yesterday. The decision to ...