Aid and development

The European Commission (E.C.) will today ban all fish imports from Cambodia, carrying through on its threat made in November to punish the country for failing to show genuine commitment to tackling the global problem of illegal fishing, according to a memo released Friday. The ban, ...

Cambodia continues to shoulder a disproportionate percentage of the world’s tuberculosis victims, with a higher prevalence rate of the extremely contagious respiratory disease than anywhere outside of South Africa, according to the World Health Organization. With the assistance of free screenings and free treatment, the Kingdom ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said he has no plans to launch an investigation into Cambodia’s much-criticized sugarcane plantations after a meeting with Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. Bottom line: Cambodia’s free trade benefits to Europe are safe for ...

The European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht started his visit to Cambodia on Tuesday to bolster bilateral trade link. De Gucht held talks with his Cambodian counterpart Sun Chanthol and both sides agreed to further promote bilateral trade relations for mutual benefits, Ken Ratha, ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy will meet Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop at the Australian Parliament on Wednesday, the Cambodia National Rescue Party announced yesterday. ...

Cambodia’s bicycle exports to the European Union are expected to decline this year after changes to EU trade preferences in early January excluded Malaysian and Singaporean parts from the scheme. Under EU preferences, a bicycle is considered a Cambodian product when at least 30 per cent ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday encouraged Cambodia to pick up the slack on its higher-education system in order to bolster the country’s economic competitiveness. “Training human resources is necessary to developing the labour market and encouraging investments,” the premier said during the Royal University of Law ...

The Belgian demining NGO APOPO, which is pioneering the use of mine-detecting rats in the former battlefields of Cambodia, has received funding from the German government to expand its mine-clearance work in the country. In November, the government gave the green light for APOPO to begin ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht will visit Cambodia this week, the European Commission announced, with rights groups hoping that land grabbing related to sugar plantations will be high on the agenda. Following bilateral meetings in Brussels last week between Cambodia and the EU during ...

The Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) installed a solar power generation system last week in an effort to reduce electricity bills by about $200,000 a year. The solar power system, which was funded by the Japanese government, was installed at the PPWSA’s water treatment facility ...

The European Union has called on Cambodia to release 21 jailed activists and protesters and told the government during high level talks held here this week that a failure to reform the judiciary and electoral process could have severe consequences for the ruling party by ...

The World Bank on Thursday asked Phnom Penh municipal officials to do more to help the thousands of families the city evicted from the Boeng Kak neighborhood to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, and is now waiting for a reply, ...

The number of Cambodian rural households with access to latrines increased from 23 to 33 per cent in 2013, a Ministry of Rural Development report released yesterday says. Chreay Pom, director of the ministry’s rural health care department, said that last year, the ministry constructed about ...

Four days of high-level policy meetings between the European Union and Cambodia wrapped up in Brussels yesterday, after seeing “frank and in-depth exchanges” on a number of issues, including human rights, according to an EU press statement released last night. Ahead of the meeting of ...

The 8th EU-Cambodia Joint Committee was held in Brussels on Thursday, preceded by the subgroups on development cooperation, on trade and on institution building, administrative reform, legal and judicial reform, governance and human rights, the European bloc said in a press release. The two sides ...

Cambodia is making steady headway towards its goal of providing universal clean-water access. “The 2013 population census shows that the percentage of people who now have clean water sources has climbed to 49 per cent. We will be able to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goal ...

Corruption remains the most significant challenge facing Cambodia’s economy, according to a survey of more than 300 employers conducted last year by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the results of which were released Tuesday. Despite legislation meant to stamp out graft, corruption continues to be perceived ...

Road traffic accidents are killing more Cambodians per year than those who died annually as a result of war during their country’s more than two decades of armed conflict, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday. Speaking in Battambang province’s Bavel district at the inauguration of the ...

Hundreds of trucks hauling sugarcane queue up along the dusty roads that cut a path through a plantation in Kampong Speu province. Their destination: Cambodia’s most advanced sugar refinery. Its owners say the landmark project, run by the Phnom Penh Sugar Company and its president, ruling ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday inaugurated the China-funded road No. 57B in northwestern Battambang province, saying that the road will contribute to developing economy and reducing poverty. The inauguration ceremony, held in the province’s Bovel district, was attended by Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu ...

Ouch Borith, Secretary of State of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia, and Ugo Astuto, director of South and Southeast Asia of the European Union, will co-chair the 8th meeting of Cambodia-EU Joint Committee to strengthen relations and cooperation between Cambodia and ...

Every morning, right about 8am, Vuthy* starts to feel out of sorts. On the way from his home in Meanchey district to the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital, where he receives treatment, he breaks into a sweat. Vuthy is one of about 140 former heroin addicts who ...

Representatives of some of the 3,000 families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in recent years said Thursday that municipal government officials, who were ultimately responsible for the mass evictions, told them they would be inviting the World Bank and NGOs to help compensate ...

An increasing number of NGOs in Cambodia are facing the prospect of budget cuts, with money from foreign donors decreasing as a political deadlock continues. Cambodia’s robust civil society relies on donor countries, but some have postponed funding while the country’s two rival political parties remain ...