Economy and commerce

Cambodia has granted operating licenses to 2,424 new companies in the first seven months of 2014, up 44 percent compared with 1,688 firms over the same period last year, according to the latest report of the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday. ...

More than 5,000 workers from a footwear factory in Kompong Cham province went on strike Monday, calling on factory management to increase their benefits. The lively crowd rallied outside the Taiwanese-owned Juhui Footwear factory in Choeung Prey district, dancing to music pumped out of loudspeakers as ...

Developing Cambodia as a diverse travel destination and establishing direct flights will help attract more travelers from China, the country’s second largest source market. Cambodian Ministry of Tourism director of marketing and promotion, Visothy So, emphasized that Cambodia needs to brand itself as a destination with ...

Preah Sihanouk provincial governor Chhit Sokhon ordered three construction sites near Sihanoukville’s O’Tres Beach to scale back their projects on Friday after the owners overstepped building limitations, officials said Sunday. Mr. Sokhon ordered three construction sites along the O’Tres stream, an inlet that stretches about 2 ...

Russia is set to approve duty- and quota-free imports for up to 3,000 Cambodian agricultural products, according to local government officials. A statement issued by Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce on Friday states that Russia’s Minister for Economic Development, Alexey Ulyukaev, agreed in principal to increase the ...

Cambodia is the third most at-risk country to money laundering and terrorist financing in the world, according to a global index released last month, trailing only Iran and Afghanistan. The Anti-Money Laundering Index, first published by the Swiss-based Basel Institute on Governance in 2012, assigns the ...

Cambodia has launched its first large-scale paddy rice bank to ensure uninterrupted supplies to millers and exporters, according to local sources. Thaneakea Srov (Kampuchea) Plc is the rice bank that aims at supporting the local rice industry by way of purchasing, storing and drying rice, as well as ...

Airlines are taking a wait and see attitude about the proposed air route between Hanoi and HCM City that will fly over Cambodia and Laos airspace, cutting flight time compared to the current route.  Experts have said that this will be the most economical air route ...

Economic ministers from the 16 participating countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have reiterated their commitment to conclude negotiations by the end of 2015. The ministers reaffirmed they are committed to ending the RCEP negotiations in line with the vision endorsed by their state ...

Mobile service provider Smart has outperformed its fellow Axiata Group subsidiaries in the first half of the year, according to the Malaysian conglomerate’s latest financial report. Driven by a 115 per cent increase in data traffic revenue, Axiata’s results show Smart’s gross revenue totalled 270 million ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and Vietnam fell marginally by 6 per cent in the first half of this year largely due to a slump in Vietnamese exports, according to data from the Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia. ...

After winning the World’s Best Rice Award for two years running at the World Rice Conference, Cambodia has been selected to host this year’s annual event. The World Rice Conference is a networking event that brings together rice industry professionals from all over the world. Initiated ...

The Singapore-based Phillip Capital Group has purchased a Malaysian-owned Hwang-DBS Commercial Bank in Cambodia for 40 million U.S. dollars and rebranded it as Phillip Bank on Thursday, a bank’s chief said. Phillip Bank’s chairman Lim Hua Min said the Phillip Capital Group, which is an Asian ...

The Phnom Penh government is planning to take action against illegal petrol stations around the city, and has counted 205 of them so far. Chreang Sophan, Phnom Penh deputy governor, said at the opening of a Total station in Tuol Kork district on Monday that the ...

Cambodia’s $5.5 billion garment industry is nearing a crossroads amid uncertain prospects for outsourcing, an industry source says, citing participants at a recent trade show in Phnom Penh. “Many industry suppliers believe that while Cambodia remains a growing market for their textile and garment products, there ...

The Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia (TRC) has issued a warning to 15 companies that offer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services for allegedly failing to pay their annual fees. In a statement published on a local media website on August 22, the TRC demanded the companies ...

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to intensify self-regulatory efforts against corrupt practices to help foster a stronger business environment, NGO Transparency International (TI) Cambodia said yesterday. At a seminar in Phnom Penh, TI Cambodia executive director Preap Kol told business representatives that while government corruption ...

In what could be the latest sign that authorities are pushing ahead with the Areng Valley hydropower dam, Vietnam Military Telecommunications Group has sent engineers into the valley in Koh Kong province to scout for locations where its local subsidiary, Metfone, could build mobile phone ...

After the development company 7NG completed the violent eviction of more than 1,400 families from Phnom Penh’s Dey Krahorm community in 2009, it set its sights on the adjacent White Building. The historic apartment block, which was built as a low-cost housing project under then Prince ...

A livestock industry representative has called on the government to cap Cambodia’s only live pig export company’s trade with Laos, citing shortages in the local market. CP Cambodia, a subsidiary of the Thai conglomerate CP Global, exported some 25,000 head of live swine – boars, sows ...

Hundreds of garment workers traveled from a Kompong Chhnang factory to Phnom Penh on Monday to petition the Ministry of Labor to intervene in their dispute with factory management. About 3,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory have been striking since August 18, accusing ...

Experts say that Cambodia’s economic growth remains fragile and unsustainable, bringing environmental degradation, social inequality and, at times, unrest to the country. Cambodia has maintained a high economic growth rate in recent years, up to 8 percent, “but that high growth comes with high costs,” said ...

A Hanoi-HCM City direct air route, which was once described as “impractical” by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), has come closer to reality as the Cambodian and Lao governments have pledged to create favorable conditions for Vietnam to use Cambodian airspace on the ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) over the weekend released a statement condemning an ongoing strike at a Kompong Chhnang garment factory and urging authorities to “punish the perpetrators.” About 3,000 employees of the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory have been on strike since August ...