Aid and development

THE government expressed disappointment yesterday with the World Bank’s announcement that it had halted new country loans due to the ongoing land dispute at Boeung Kak lake in Phnom Penh and vowed to raise the issue with the bank’s executive board. “We are very dissatisfied ...

Government officials yesterday dismissed the World Bank’s recently revealed decision to freeze funding for new projects in Cambodia to protest a Phnom Penh real estate project that has forced thousand of families out of their homes. A housing rights group closely following the evictions said ...

The World Bank has frozen funding to Cambodia, making good on its threat in March to reconsider aid levels to Cambodia in response to the ongoing eviction of thousands of Phnom Penh families from Boeng Kak lake, a Bank official confirmed yesterdaySome 3,000 families have ...

The World Bank said on Tuesday it had stopped providing loans to Cambodia and would not resume lending until the government did something to help hundreds of families facing eviction from land around a lake in the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. “The World Bank’s last ...

Some 200 factory workers and taxi drivers protested in Phnom Penh yesterday morning to demand that the government take action to curb the rising costs of food and fuel, and threatened larger demonstrations if it failed to actAccording to figures released by the National Institute ...

Documents obtained by The Post have shed new light on the scale of Chinese investment connected with the controversial Boeung Kak lake real estate project. The US$98 million project in northern Phnom Penh is the smallest of Mongolia Erdos Hongjun Holding Group’s planned investments in ...

“Bilateral trade between Cambodia and China grew about 82 percent in the first half of 2011 if comparing with the same period for last year while the two countries are trying to boost the trade ties to achieve US $2.5 billion in 2012,” Ministry of ...

The European Union has said that it has no plans to suspend Cambodia’s duty-free trade access even though there have been concerns over land evictions as a result of economic land concessions. The EU is seeking that human rights are not the cost of trade ...

Cambodian exporters ought to make further use of tariff-free entry to the European Union, particularly given loosened regulations governing rule of origin, EU officials said at a trade seminar yesterday. Least Developed Countries such as the Kingdom could export to the EU duty and quota ...

According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) the regional and national power grids are key to development, though plans for their development have come under criticism by a number of NGOs who believe that power generation should be decentralized. The ADB’s Greater Mekong Subregion program ...

Environment Minister Mok Mareth yesterday defended the recent surge of economic land concessions granted by his ministry inside the country’s enviornmental conservation areas, saying that they would do more to help the areas than hurt them. Mr Mareth’s comments came while responding to questions at ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has called corruption a “fundamental concern” for Cambodia even with the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) celebrating 10 months since its inauguration. The ADB’s Country Governance Risk Assessment Report and Risk Management Plan which is to be released soon calls for capacity ...

A 10 year strategic plan designed to ensure financial stability in Cambodia has been released by the central bank to much skepticism. The $700,000 study sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is said to be short on details even though it calls for the ...

The World Bank has ceased funding Radio National Kampuchea (RNK) as of last month due to a failure to comply to the bank’s Demand for Good Governance Project agreement. The funding ended on June 30. The World Bank granted RNK US $20 million with a ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has released figures which show they believe that the Cambodian economy will grow between 6.8 and 7 percent in 2013 and 6.8 percent in 2012. Their reporting sites the growth in the Cambodian garment industry as a major factor. The ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is focusing on lending to the agriculture, education, finance, water supply and transport sectors in Cambodia as part of its three year Country Partnership Strategy, worth $500 million. $377 million will be allocated to 12 projects in the five mentioned ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said that the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railways will not be at the expense of those who live along the lines and has pledged to address the issue. Resettlement has been a problem for the rehabilitation but a new plan ...

Japanese fund manager Asset Design plans to launch a Cambodian equities fund in late 2011. The fund would target large returns after the Kingdom opened its stock exchange this month, an Asset Design executive said yesterday. Asset Design expected the scale of the fund to ...

Overloaded vehicles are contributing to a more rapid than anticipated deterioration of Cambodia’s road network, experts said yesterday. “The cost of overloading causes problems to everyone involved, but it is easy to control damage if we have good system in place. This is the only ...

Compensation for Phnom Penh villagers set to be displaced by railway reconstruction may be insufficient due to a “systematic downgrade” of the value of their homes by the government, a report released yesterday said. The report, issued by the NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, said the ...

The Asian Development Bank announced yesterday that the organizations behind the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railways, including the government and the Australian development agency, have jointly pledged to address the complaints of people facing eviction from dwellings across the rail lines. The Australian government provided ...