Economic policy and administration

The Chinese government-run China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) will today formally agree to import 100,000 tonnes of rice from Cambodia, local officials say. Representatives from COFCO and Green Trade Co, a Cambodian government-owned agriculture firm, today met in Beijing to sign the agreement, ...

This tourist town counts itself among the Most Beautiful Bays in the World Club and more than 1 million tourists each year are drawn to its tropical water and sandy shore. Yet when the U.S. Embassy last month warned its citizens to avoid some beaches ...

The Tourism Ministry will announce a new “Green Hotel” standard later this month in an effort to make the industry more environmentally friendly, senior officials say. Tourism Minister Thong Khon said on Friday that while it will not be immediately compulsory for all hotel venues to ...

Unions and factories remained at odds over where to peg next year’s minimum wage for the garment sector after a meeting between representatives for both sides on Friday, though they agreed to resume the talks later in the month. Earlier this year, the Labor Advisory Committee, ...

Nagacorp, owner of Cambodia’s largest casino, NagaWorld, is on track to begin flying in high-rollers from China on a fleet of its own commercial aircraft, according to the company’s latest earnings statement and government officials. In a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday, ...

Most of the infrastructure required for enhanced connectivity in the Greater Mekong Subregion has been put in place, particularly the transport links that form the base of the envisaged economic corridors, Bindu Lohani, vice president of the Asian Development Bank, said yesterday. He made the remark ...

The number of people seeking for jobs has been on the rise each day. However, companies, organizations and institutions are relentlessly complaining that human resource is both scarce and of low quality. Many students who have just graduated for about a year or two say they ...

Driven by garment and improved agricultural export markets, Cambodia has bucked the wider trend of slowing Southeast Asian economies, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). ESCAP’s semi-annual Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, published ...

The government’s long-pledged health insurance scheme for private sector employees, including factory workers, is just around the corner, officials promised yesterday while refusing to name a more specific date. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Labour held a public forum on the insurance plan, which is expected ...

Nascent insurance markets in Cambodia, Cuba and Myanmar offer “significant opportunities” to foreign insurers, according to a US market research company. In a statement released Wednesday, Dallas-based Market Reports Store praised Cambodia’s “bold economic reforms and economic liberalisation” since 2000. ...

The government has squirrelled away about $500,000 for the upcoming Pacific Asian Tourism Association Travel Mart (PTM), which is to run September 17-19. Tourism Minister Thong Khon told the Post yesterday that the government had approved the $500,000 budget for the event, which it is hoped ...

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology has ordered provincial authorities to stop Vattanac Properties, a land developer, from filling in a lake in Kandal’s Kien Svay district because it would affect water supplies to farms of nearby residents. ...

Seven union leaders protesting against being sacked from the Vantage River Textile factory in Preah Sihanouk province each agreed yesterday to accept $300 compensation. Worker representative and sacked employee Keo Srey Pich, 22, said three hours of negotiations between the union, workers and the company, in ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that the country’s economy is forecast to grow by 7. 5 percent in 2014, driven by steady growth in agriculture, garment export, tourism, and construction. ...

Cambodia will join the bidding for the Philippine government’s latest rice import offer, a senior rice industry official says. The Philippine government’s National Food Authority (NFA) last week authorised the import of 500,000 tonnes of rice to the country. The bidding process, which is looking for the ...

Deposite not coming close to achieving their goal of a $160 monthly minimum garment wage, unions announced yesterday that they will raise their demands to $177 for 2015. Ken Chhenglang, acting pres­ident of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia (NIFTUC), said about 10 union ...

A group of unions in the U.K. is urging its government to make sure British brands sourcing clothes from Cambodian factories respect their workers’ rights, and to ask the European Union to negotiate a deal with the Cambodian government to improve factory conditions. In a July ...

Dozens of workers in Preah Sihanouk province marched on the local labour department yesterday after three days of protests against the sacking of seven employees. ...

Cambodia’s banking sector has reported a 9.3-percent increase in lending in the first six months of the year, according to the figures from the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Sunday. The figures showed that the kingdom’s 35 commercial banks had lent a total of 8.09 ...

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, must force British clothing companies to investigate whether garments sourced from Cambodia are made at factories with fair labour practices, the unions have warned. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, has written to Mr Cable warning that ...

Cambodia is projected to receive 4.6 million international visitors this year, an expected rise of 10 percent from 4.2 million last year, Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said Saturday. “In the first six months of this year, more than 2.2 million foreigners visited Cambodia, up 5.2 ...

Fish and rice are staple foods for all Cambodians. Historical records show that Cambodia’s fisheries have been of major importance for centuries. Fish is a major source of nutritious food in the daily diet, a primary source of employment and income and has strong cultural ...

The number of Chinese visitors to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple, one of the World Heritage Sites, has reached 161,700 in the first six months of this year, a 17 percent rise over the same period last year, an official data showed Friday. The data from the ...

A lingering odour in a Sixplus Industry garment factory is aggravating the already-fragile health of its workers, 100 of whom fainted last weekend, and has forced the factory to send many of them back to health centres. ...