Aid and development

Loans from Japan to Cambodia will help finance work on a key highway upgrade. The loan package totals US$150 million and will be used for the project to upgrade Cambodia’s National Road No 5. ...

The Chinese government has agreed to donate $3.5 million to build a ninth building inside the compound of the Senate on Norodom Boulevard, Senate Secretary-General Oum Sarith said on Tuesday following the signing ceremony in Phnom Penh. ...

A museum bankrolled by North Korea on Cambodia’s tourist trail in Siem Reap is ready to open, according to local media.The $10 million Grand Panorama Museum sits near Cambodia’s famous Angkor Wat temple complex and is scheduled to open on December 4. ...

The United Nations and the Cambodian Ministry of Women’s Affairs will organize four major events across the country to raise awareness of the need to end violence against women and girls, according to a UN Women’s statement on Wednesday. ...

The European Parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on the Cambodian government to revoke the arrest warrant for opposition leader Sam Rainsy, with its parliamentarians suggesting some $435 million in aid be canceled if it is ignored. ...

An Angkor-themed museum funded and operated by North Korea, but located in Siem Reap, is finally set to open after years of delays.The vast Grand Panorama museum, set on a 4-hectare site just 3 kilometres from the temple complex, is due to open on December ...

A U.S. State Department official told the country’s Senate on Thurs­day that recent political events in Cambodia, including the beatings of lawmakers outside the Nation­al Assembly and the removal of opposition officials from their seats and positions in parliament, were a cause for “grave concern.” ...

The World Bank is considering yet another internally funded project in Cambodia that, if approved, would lift the organization’s four-year-old freeze on new lending to the country. ...

For many Southeast Asian countries, Japanese developmental aid may be synonymous with building bridges, roads and public facilities. But besides its infrastructure-building capacity, Japan is also boosting one of the strategic tools of diplomacy at its disposal: human resource development. ...

The World Bank could approve its first internally funded project in Cambodia in March, according to recently released reports, a move that would effectively end the freeze on new lending the Bank imposed on Cambodia over four years ago. ...

Despite failing to meet many of the expectations of its foreign donors over the past two decades, Cambodia’s government has never struggled to secure aid from abroad. ...

A three-year vocational training project aimed at creating employment opportunities in the electronics industry while eliminating electronics waste, or e-waste, wrapped up yesterday, with its organisers calling for more funding in order to continue its training component. ...

As Cambodia has the highest rate of deforestation among developing countries. Experts say that the country needs a more sustainable development plan to protect its ecosystem. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday signed up to provide a total of 64 million U.S. dollars loan and grant to Cambodia for the projects of irrigation and malaria control system, according to an ADB statement. ...

The government has handed out the first 250 land titles to the more than 3,000 families in a World Bank-funded project for poor Cambodians that has been criticized by a local rights group for sticking many of those families with unusable land. ...

The World Bank looks forward to working with Cambodia to support the country’s efforts in reducing poverty and improving economic and social conditions for its people, especially in agriculture, health, education and transportation, said Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank Regional Vice President for East Asia ...

Work began yesterday on Cambodia’s first national environmental plan in more than a decade. Once completed, the National Environmental Strategy and Action Plan (NESAP) will form the backbone of Cambodia’s environmental policy until 2023. The far-reaching plan – which is expected to be put into ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is supporting the government of Cambodia to develop a National Environmental Strategy and Action Plan (NESAP) to help the country achieve its sustainable development goals. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday called for more investment from France, telling business leaders in Paris that they could access the entire region when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) kicks off at the end of the year. ...

About $115 million worth of concessional loans to Cambodia and a mutual extradition treaty were approved during a meeting between Prime Minister Hun Sen and French President Francois Hollande in Paris on Monday, according to Mr. Hun Sen’s Facebook page. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday to receive a grant worth more than $150 million, the majority of which will go toward the construction of a massive sports and entertainment complex in Phnom Penh, a sen­ior official ...

In an effort to address speech and communication disorders, which affect about one in 25 people countrywide, Unicef Cam­bo­dia awarded the organization OIC: The Cambodia Project a $42,000 grant on Wednesday to provide informal speech therapy training to Cambodians. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called for more collaboration and integration of financial markets at the regional level, especially with China – the world’s second-largest economy – to offset the effects of a slowing global economy. ...

The World Bank on Monday stuck to its prediction made in April that the country’s economy would continue to cool off slowly over the next few years and said China’s own slowdown would send only modest ripples through Cambodia.     ...