Economy and commerce

Cambodia continued to improve its business environment over the past year, according to the World Bank’s “Doing Business 2017” report that measures the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it in 190 countries. The World Bank made this assessment despite the Kingdom’s ...

Business leaders from the Lower Mekong region are urging their respective governments to use local currencies for trading in border regions instead of the US dollar, arguing that this would facilitate business transactions and reduce exchange costs, a Thai newspaper reported yesterday. ...

Vietnam agreed yesterday to waive all duties on a total of 300,000 tons of rice and 3,000 tons of dried tobacco exported annually from Cambodia to the country, according to a bilateral agreement signed at two back-to-back summits to promote economic cooperation in the Greater ...

In an effort to help small and medium-sized rice millers and exporters that are presently unable to provide suitable collateral to qualify for the government’s emergency $27 million rice loan, the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has joined with the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) to ...

Tess International, a Malaysia-based provider of software solutions for the financial sector, signed a distributor agreement yesterday with Cambodian management consulting and business technology firm IdeaLink Consulting to provide software to Cambodian banks and microfinance institutions that helps them combat financial crimes. ...

With the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the tax-collection arm of the United States government, stepping up its global sweep to catch American individuals and corporations hiding their overseas earnings, the American Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia yesterday held a presentation for investors and financial institutions ...

The Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) has the potential to become a major global production center due to its favorable geographical location and its proximity to economic powerhouses in both Southeast and South Asia,  Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. ...

The government’s much-heralded $27 million emergency rice fund, announced last month amid complaints from rice farmers and millers that cheap competition and low-storage capacity was driving down prices, has so far had only limited takers among rice millers. ...

Cambodia is close to signing an ambitious agreement with the Indonesian government that would pave the way for the Kingdom’s rice producers to export 1 million tonnes of rice under a new quota scheme, a state official said yesterday. ...

Casino operator Donaco International Ltd posted a seven-fold increase in revenue in its first full-year financial filing since acquiring the Star Vegas Resort and Club in Banteay Meanchey province’s Poipet commune, according to the company’s audited annual report, released yesterday. ...

A rising global demand for dates is behind the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in Phnom Penh yesterday between companies from Cambodia, Thailand and Israel, seeking to start growing the fruit in Cambodia within the next 10 years. ...

Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya released its first financial statement since completing its acquisition of Cambodian microlender Hattha Kaksekar Ltd (HKL) last month, showing a quarterly net profit increase of 10.6 percent from a year earlier. ...

Rubber exports have continued to rise in the first nine months of the year, despite the fall and current stagnation of prices as global demand continues to stall, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). ...

The central bank released its first-ever national study yesterday on perceptions and usage of the riel and foreign currencies in Cambodia, which aimed at not only understanding existing trends, but also at steering future financial legislation to boost the circulation of Cambodia’s national currency. ...

Ente Nazionale Risi (ENR), Italy’s national rice agency, has raised concern over increased European rice imports from countries such as Cambodia, according to rice industry publication Oryza. ...

Cambodia ranked third-worst for illicit trade out of 17 countries in the Asia-Pacific region in a recently released index by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) that analysed governments’ abilities to combat illegal trade operations.​ ...

An extensive tax treaty that would shield Chinese businesses operating in the Kingdom from double taxation, and vice versa, has been drafted and is expected to be approved imminently, according to a senior Cambodian tax official. ...

Kampong Speu province will soon be home to a Chinese-funded agricultural special economic zone (SEZ) with facilities to research plant diseases, after the Ministry of Agriculture and Tian Rui (Cambodia) Agricultural Cooperation SEZ Co., signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday. ...

The National Bank of Cambodia rolled out a new mechanism yesterday that offers immediate liquidity to financial institutions to cover their payments and reserve obligations, while giving the central bank greater control over the country’s money supply and moving toward the establishment of a benchmark ...

Singaporean customs data on sand imports from Cambodia show near identical figures to those recorded by the UN, which last month were dismissed by a top official amid a reporting discrepancy in the hundreds of millions of dollars. ...

The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) provided Amret Microfinance Cambodia with a grant of $245,000 to help more women in the Kingdom access financial services and eventually contribute to local community development. ...

reah Sihanouk provincial authorities have ordered a casino that operated in Sihanoukville shut down after it failed to renew its operating licence, local media reported yesterday.​ ...

The Ministry of Commerce has extended the deadline for companies to re-register their businesses online for a third – and “final” – time, giving companies until December 31 to complete the online registration before penalties kick in, according to a document posted yesterday on the ...

A representative of the company behind a massive $23.2 billion development in Kampot province – which envisions creating two islands off the coast – insisted yesterday that the company was not engaged in any activities that would raise a conflict of interest and that it ...