Aid and development

A group of about 20 officials and tourism-related business owners from Nanning City, capital of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is visiting Cambodia to broaden bilateral relations and cooperation in tourism. The delegation is led by Yang Min, Nanning’s vice mayor. On Tuesday, the group ...

Eric Sidgwick, Country director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to Cambodia applauded Cambodia for managing it’s, sometimes problematic, public debts. During the Wednesday meeting with Deputy Prime Minister, Sok An, Eric Sidgwick said, good management led to the positive changes of donations and ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday that he will pay an official visit to China early next month to meet with new Chinese leaders for talks on further enhancing bilateral relations. “I hope that new Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang ...

A week after British researchers released a study warning that the nation’s grasslands would soon be lost if drastic action was not taken to protect them, some agricultural experts have called for moderation, noting that the intensive rice cultivation blamed for the grasslands’ destruction is ...

The Department of Foreign Trade plans to set up a “rice trade zone” project in the East to process Cambodian rice for export to other countries. Tikhumporn Natvaratat, deputy director-general of the department, said his organisation plans to implement the project in Chanthaburi, Trat, Sa Kaeo ...

The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund has committed to provide another $10 mln U.S. in grants to address the environmental crisis engulfing mainland Southeast Asia. The ground-breaking biodiversity fund was launched in 2008. During the first phase, $10 mln was invested in efforts to conserve the critical ...

Cambodia will sign a $33.9 million grant aid today from the Japanese government to support various small hydropower dam projects, improve a hospital and update resources of a university, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ...

The Asian Development Bank has refused to release a critical study on the impacts its $141.6 million railway project is having on thousands of Cambodian families because disclosure of the report could hurt its relationship with the government, an ADB spokeswoman said. Raising concerns about the ...

Cambodia will sign to receive 33.9 million U.S. dollars in grant aid from Japan for three projects in small hydropower dams, healthcare and education, according to a news release from Cambodia’s foreign ministry on Monday. ...

Around half of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a ...

Thailand and Cambodian signed an agreement for the formation of a joint business council to promote bilateral trade and investment. The memorandum of understanding was officially endorsed on Tuesday evening by Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen on the sidelines of ...

The European Union in efforts to reduce the poverty rate and secure a free society has awarded $4.5 mln to four projects. These projects will work to improve justice, natural resources, land rights, and build the capabilities of local authorities. Four projects were selected among ...

The government has announced plans for a landmark project to create a system for diverting and then stocking waste water, in a bid to prevent run-off into the streets of Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap river. Moeung Sophan, a consultant to the Phnom Penh Department ...

The Ministry of Commerce and bank officials announced yesterday that they will hold a meeting next month aimed at better facilitating rice millers’ access to credit. The move is part of the Asian Development Bank’s Climate Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development program to address food security ...

The U.N.’s expert on housing rights has cited the World Bank’s failure to help thousands of families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood as a prime example of why the bank needs to make human rights a focus of its land sector programs worldwide. At ...

The government announced new plans for developing both transportation and rural sanitation at the annual meeting of the Ministry of Rural Development at the Chaktomuk Conference Hall in Phnom Penh yesterday. According to officials at the event, the ministry will be completing by year’s end a ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday broke ground for the construction and enlargement of a 248-kilometer stretch of national road No. 6A, saying that the road is vital for the development of the economy and tourism. The road will be widened from the current 7 ...

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) announced yesterday that it will provide technical support for Cambodian small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), strengthening their capacities through the establishment of a national policy, officials said. Meng Saktheara, director-general of the General Department of Industry at the Ministry of ...

Cambodia will earn about $50 million a year from exports of dried cassava to China through Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly said Thursday. Cambodia’s agricultural exports previously went through Vietnam and Thailand, amounting to between 7,000 and 8,000 tons a year. ...

Chinese-owned Avic International plans to export 8,000 tonnes of dried cassava from Cambodia to the Chinese market this year. According to Chan Saron, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, there are currently 31 companies listed as exporting cassava to China from Cambodia, but only 17 ...

A CPP lawmaker said yesterday the government has signed 13 payment guarantees to companies constructing coal-fired power plants and hydropower dams in the country, a move that an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official reiterated was risky for the country’s fiscal future. CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap said ...

The government’s guaranteed bailout of major infrastructure projects, such as the future 400-megawatt hydropower dam in Stung Treng province, requires a thorough assessment of forecasted risks – a capacity which the government currently does not possess, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official said yesterday. Speaking on ...

The European Union’s ambassador to Cambodia raised issues of judicial reform, land reform and the upcoming national elections in a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday morning. The European Commission’s directorate-general for trade is currently reviewing a report by the U.N.’s human rights envoy ...

Ethnic minority villagers expecting to be displaced by a proposed Chinese-built hydroelectric dam in northeastern Cambodia are asking the country’s parliament not to approve a law providing financial guarantees for the project. Villagers living along three rivers that will be affected by the dam spoke ...