Economy and commerce

Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce said Friday that it has granted operating licenses to 1,676 new firms in the first five months of 2014, up 55 percent as compared with the 1,084 companies for the same period last year. ...

It’s day seven of the FIFA World Cup, and the night staff at Phnom Penh’s popular Score Sports Bar and Grill are looking a bit sleep-deprived. Score is paying its staff “very well” in extra wages during the World Cup for the long nights they ...

Chinese firm Huaxin Cement Co has purchased a 40 per cent stake in Cambodia Cement Chakrey Ting Factory Co, a cement-making factory currently under construction in Kampot province. Huaxin’s $24 million investment Cambodia Cement lifted the local factory’s working capital to $60 million, up from $32 ...

Once every four years, when the FIFA World Cup rolls around, business surveys and studies are inevitably released telling us that all those hours spent watching football, thinking about football and talking about football have a tangible effect on the global economy. During the 2010 World ...

Grand Twins International (GTI) ended trading yesterday with a slight decline. The newly listed company was changing hands at 9,480 riel ($2.36) per share at the 1pm close, down from 9,640 riel ($2.40) at the morning’s opening. ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi met with representatives of the country’s businesses and employers Thursday for talks that focused on the protection of workers’ rights and measures that can be taken to ensure that strained industrial relations do not once again erupt into violence. In ...

Woori Bank has decided to acquire Cambodia’s microfinance institution Malis Finance for 5 billion won ($4.9 million) to accelerate its global expansion. The Financial Services Commission approved Woori Bank’s acquisition of Malis on Wednesday, according to bank officials. ...

Cambodia’s Soma Group and Thailand’s C.P. Intertrade on Thursday signed a joint-venture agreement to build a sophisticated rice milling and refining factory in the western Kampong Speu province of Cambodia. The deal was inked between Sok Puthyvuth, chief executive officer of Soma Group, and Prasit Damrongchietanon, ...

The activist Independent Monk Network has called on the Ministry of Cult and Religion to release paperwork proving that an agreement it struck with NagaCorp to help construct an electricity substation at Phnom Penh’s Buddhist Institute does not involve the selling of any of the ...

Demand for top-quality workspace in Phnom Penh is increasing, so much so that property firm Knight Frank has labelled the capital as the fastest-growing city for rented prime office space in the entire Asia Pacific region. The firm’s June 3 quarterly report, which marks the first ...

The Cambodian finance industry is to celebrate the sixth Banking and Finance Conference a week from today, at a meeting that will focus on developing technology in the country’s financial sector. ...

The consequences and containment of violence cost the Cambodian economy over $1.5 billion in 2013, just under 10 per cent of its estimated GDP for the period, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace’s Global Peace Index released yesterday. According to IEP executive chairman ...

Activists working in Prey Lang forest have accused military and police officers of being behind two illegal timber hauls they have intercepted. In the first case, an estimated 50 cubic metres of timber being transported through Kampong Thom’s Sandan district on homemade tractors was found last ...

Pailin province’s $5 million animal-feed processing plant and warehouse is to finish construction in the next three months and it is a welcomed development for the local farming community. The plant’s owner, Chea Kea, who also owns Diamond Crown casino on the border with Thailand in ...

Event management firm, MyEvents International, is eyeing Cambodia as the next lucrative market after strengthening its foothold in India and the Middle East, group chief executive officer, Shahul Hameed Dawood said. “Cambodia is a growing market and we see a lots of potential there for an ...

The Cambodian government has budgeted $3.5 million for tourism-related advertising and promotions in 2014, Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said yesterday. “This year the budget has reached $3.5 million dollars, half of the total budget for the ministry as we will host PATA Travel Mart 2014,” ...

Acleda Bank has reinvested $39 million of profits back into its operations instead of paying out dividends to shareholders, an announcement on its website states. It is the 11th time Alceda has opted to increase registered capital, with the latest top-up taking the bank’s total capital ...

Lagging demand from foreign buyers has led to Cambodian rice being stockpiled at the country’s mills, according to the head of the country’s peak rice body. Sok Puthyvuth, president of the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), said that with exporters receiving fewer orders, the country’s larger rice ...

Workers at a garment factory that closed without warning last week received payment yesterday for nearly a month and a half of work, but some are still waiting for bonuses owed to them. More than 400 workers lined up at the Canadia Industrial Park gates, behind ...

Despite lapses in factory safety and ongoing labour unrest, Cambodian exports of garments and textiles grew 9% in the first three months of the year. According to data from the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), Cambodia exported US$1.17bn worth of garments and textiles between January ...

The Ministry of Commerce has vowed to uncover more markets for Cambodian products to help buffer against price fluctuations caused by the Kingdom’s dependency on neighboring countries. In a response to concerns raised on social media, Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol wrote on the ministry’s official Facebook ...

In Samrong Leu village, a picturesque community nestled deep in the verdant fields of Kors Kralor district, the acrid smell of smoke fills the air. Outside almost every house in this community, billows of smoke continuously emerge from the domes of homemade mud kilns, drifting around ...

The group in charge of determining the national minimum wage for the garment sector yesterday agreed to increase salaries annually on January 1, determined by discussions that are to take place in the final quarter of each preceding year, officials said. The agreement was signed during ...

Bankrupt telecommunications company Mfone yesterday handed out the final instalments of unpaid wages to former employees. More than 1,000 former Mfone staffers received the remaining 30 per cent of their unpaid wages after the telecommunications firm filed for bankruptcy in February 2013. Since then, workers have ...