Economy and commerce

Taking the stand for the first time since his arrest at a garment worker protest that turned violent in early January, union leader Vorn Pao told the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday that he went to the protest only to make peace and was ...

Nearly three years after it was shut down for supposed renovations, Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon Referral Hospital is still not operational and former staff say they have been left out in the cold about what will happen to the site. Commune, district, municipal and national health ...

Cambodia’s largest financial institution, Acleda Bank, has been adopted into the World Economic Forum’s group of Global Growth Companies (GGC), an exclusive club made up of some of the world’s fastest-growing medium-size firms. The WEF yesterday announced that 20 companies from the Asia-Pacific region had been ...

Transparency International Cambodia (T.I.) will next week launch an app for smartphones that allows users to log instances of bribery with the advocacy group. Bribespot, the work of a team of German computer programmers, will encourage users to share details of corrupt activity in real time, ...

Cambodia imported 453,000 tons of petroleum in the first three months of 2014, up 10 percent from 412,190 tons over the same period last year, the data of the Ministry of Commerce showed Tuesday. During the January-March period this year, the country spent 442 million U.S. ...

Cambodia’s exports to Japan increased sharply by 39 per cent over the first three months of 2014 compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). Total exports reached more than $178 million at the end of March, ...

Some 250 families in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Sruoch district have sought intervention from rights group Adhoc to help resolve a land dispute involving a business they allege is headed by the son of former provincial governor Kang Heang. Families from three villages say Heang, who ...

Amret Microfinance received a $10 million boost yesterday by a loan from German development bank KfW, according to a joint statement from the finance institutions. Chea Phalarin, chief executive officer of Amret Microfinance Institution, said yesterday that the new loan – equal to nearly double its ...

The newly formed Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), an organisation aimed at uniting the entire rice sector under one representative body, will be headed by Sok Puthyvuth, son of Deputy Prime Minister Sok An. Puthyvuth, who is also CEO of SOMA Group, a multifaceted business that includes ...

Muon Sokmean, a 29-year-old garment worker, scrambled off Veng Sreng Street on January 3 with military police in violent pursuit, brandishing their batons. What had been a militant protest for a $160 minimum wage in the garment sector—with many protesters lobbing rocks and crude Molotov cocktails ...

After Caltex managers allegedly reneged on an agreement to pay workers a $20 bonus to suspend a strike for two months, employees say they would only return if the deal is in writing. In a Friday meeting, the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation agreed with ...

A group of 20 ethnic minority Chong villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley blocked the road Friday to prevent a group of Chinese engineers from reaching the site of a controversial proposed dam. A number of Chong villagers have been intermittently camping near the road ...

In a first for the Kingdom’s organic rice, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), successfully exported its produce to Hong Kong earlier this month, the organisation’s top official confirmed yesterday. ...

In his fight for workers’ rights, Sar Mora has learned to be stubborn. The union leader behind the closure of Caltex gas stations across Phnom Penh, Mr. Mora’s members remained on strike Sunday despite an apparent agreement on Friday for workers to return to their stations. “We ...

Inspired by Australian mining regulations, the Cambodian government is considering a raft of changes to the mineral resources mining law, including a rethink of the sector’s comparatively high tax rate. Citing discussions held with Western Australia state mining industry representatives last week, Meng Saktheara, secretary of ...

Prominent businessman and Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat yesterday questioned what he had done to warrant a verbal attack from opposition party leader Sam Rainsy, who said on Wednesday that the tycoon had grabbed land from people in Koh Kong province and should ...

Two factories in the Manhattan Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province’s Bavet town have fired more than 40 workers since thousands-strong strikes ended early this month, unions say. Terminations at Best Way and Fico garment factories were bosses’ way of exacting revenge for the ...

Cambodia’s steadily declining rubber prices have hit critically low levels that are destined to only get worse as Thailand prepares to offload huge rubber stocks, the secretary-general of the Association for Rubber Development of Cambodia said Thursday. As the price of natural rubber has paralleled a ...

After a three-year moratorium on sending maids overseas—sparked by a spate of serious abuses by recruiters and employers—momentum is building to once again send hundreds of thousands of Cambodian women to work overseas as domestic servants. Since Prime Minister Hun Sen shut down the industry in ...

Rights groups are calling out the Australian government for being “curiously absent” from discussions about further compensation for thousands of families affected by a railway rehabilitation project that it co-funded with the Asian Development Bank. The bank has borne the brunt of criticism over botched resettlement ...

The amount of land used to grow longans has doubled in the past two years, but a lack of supply-chain infrastructure is hampering farmers’ ability to get top dollar for their product, the fruit’s body says. Sreng Sreang, deputy director of the Pailin Longan Farmers’ Community ...

The head of a construction company working to upgrade Phnom Penh’s dusty, potholed Veng Sreng Street said Thursday that the project would take twice as long to complete as expected. In November, Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong announced that a 6.5 km strip of the road—which ...

A small group representing striking Caltex gas station workers delivered a petition to the US Embassy on Thursday, asking for help as they seek an increase in monthly wages. Hundreds of Caltex workers have been on strike since Monday, joining garment factory workers in calls for ...

A special committee set up in March to settle a long-running land dispute between 52 families in Kompong Chhnang province and the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has finished its work, leaving 17 families without a deal. Deputy provincial governor Dork Sothea, who ...