Economy and commerce

Cambodia saw a trade deficit of 1.32 billion U.S. dollars in the first six months of this year, according to a Commerce Ministry’s report on Thursday. The country’s total imports and exports were valued at 7.62 billion U.S. dollars during the period, up 20 percent from ...

Bankrupt mobile phone operator Mfone is planning to file a com­plaint with the Phnom Penh Muni­cipal Court against six tele­com­muni­ca­tions firms it says have failed to pay back more than $1 million in outstanding debt to the firm, the court administrator charged with overseeing Mfone’s ...

At a congressional hearing in Washington on Tuesday that scathingly rebuked Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling CPP, a U.S. lawmaker called for legislation to cut American aid to Cambodia following the national election on July 28. Representative Steve Chabot, who chaired the House Subcom­mittee ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and South Korea nearly reached the $1 billion dollar realm in 2012, a hike of nearly 100 per cent from the year before, senior officials said yesterday. According to official data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, total bilateral trade between ...

Cambodia has seen a sharp rise in the exports of milled rice in the first six months of this year thanks to increasing demand on international markets, an official said Wednesday. The figures, from the single window secretariat for facilitating milled rice exports, showed that the ...

Staff at eight factories producing footwear for Japanese sportswear brand ASICS were trained Tuesday in how to make sure they are not employing child laborers, a company representative said. ASICS corporate staff have been in Cambodia this week in a bid to overcome the negative publicity ...

A $300,000 sum to repair Siem Reap City’s fire-ravaged Doeum Kralanh market, originally billed on Monday as a donation from Prime Minister Hun Sen, will actually be taken from the national budget, according to a senior ruling-party official. Less than three weeks before the July 28 ...

While the country’s tax revenue grew about 20 per cent in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2012, experts say the amount still isn’t high enough to accurately reflect the country’s GDP growth. Stephen Higgins, former CEO of ANZ ...

While exports of Cambodian rice have been booming, analysts are predicting that new competition from Myanmar could eventually rain on the parade. Cambodia exported nearly 176,000 tonnes of rice in the first six months of the year, a 125 per cent increase from the same period ...

Production of Cambodian organic rice is rising rapidly as international demand for the product increases, experts said at a forum for growers and other in­dustry members held Tuesday at the Phnom Penh headquarters of agricultural NGO Cedac. “In the first six months of this year we’ve ...

An infestation of large snails is destroying rice fields in Preah Sihanouk province’s Prey Nop district, raising concerns among farmers that yields from this year’s harvest will be much lower than usual. Eng Samol, Prey Nop district agriculture director, said Tuesday that the snails had already ...

Cambodia attracted 1.79 million foreign visitors in the first five months of the year, up 19 per cent over the previous year. From January to May, Vietnam remains the main source of visitors with 341,000 tourists, up 11 per cent year-on-year, followed by South Korea with ...

Cambodia’s General Department of Taxation said Tuesday that it had collected 470 million U.S. dollars of tax in the first six months of this year, up 21 percent compared with the same period last year. The country earned the tax of 740 million U.S. dollars ...

Despite criticisms over safety, outbreaks of sometimes violent industrial action and a raise in the minimum wage that it was warned would scare off manufacturers, Cambodia’s garment sector is booming, according to government figures. A report on state newswire Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) on Friday said ...

Acleda Bank is trying to protect its customers from getting bamboozled by a phone scam in which callers allegedly posing as bank employees ask for money transfers in exchange for a prize, according to a statement and ads placed in a local newspaper. An Acleda ...

The number of shipping containers that passed through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by 29 percent during the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2012, according to figures released yesterday. The port received 50,157 standard containers between January and ...

Cargo shipments moving in and out of the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP) increased 29 per cent in the first six months of this year when compared to the same period in 2012, according to official data. The figures show that imported and exported goods amounted ...

This small Southeast Asian country was supposed to become a model for the world apparel industry, with tough factory monitoring and strong worker protections. But a dozen years after the United Nations’ International Labour Organization launched a program to manage Cambodia’s booming garment trade—the first of ...

Mizuho Bank, one of Japan’s largest banks, opened a representative office here Monday thanks to increasing interest in Cambodia by Japanese investors, a bank official said. To date, Cambodia has five foreign banks’ representative offices, 34 commercial banks, seven specialized banks and 37 microfinance institutions, ...

Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temples, one of the world heritage sites, generated an annual revenue of 30 million U.S. dollars from ticket sales, Deputy Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister Sok An said Sunday. Last year, the temples attracted 2.06 million foreigners, up 28 percent year-on-year, he ...

As trade activity between Cambodia and China intensifies, banks are seeing an increase in deals transacted in yuan, the Chinese currency. Operating in Cambodia since 2010, Bank of China’s Phnom Penh Branch has been trying to promote business transactions in yuan, and has seen a significant ...

Japanese sports brand ASICS has agreed to pay compensation to the families of victims who died in a factory collapse in May, a brand representative said. ASICS Corporation managing executive officer Ron Pietersen, who arrived in Phnom Penh on Friday, said the company profoundly regretted the ...

A fire sparked by an electrical fault ripped through the Doeum Kralanh market in Siem Reap City early Friday morning destroying 200 stalls and causing more than $1 million in damage, according to market traders and police officials. The 8,000-square-meter market in Kokchak commune housed a ...

A new Malaysian player in Cambodia’s expanding banking sector aims to capture the “emerging affluent” with its mobile and online services. Malaysian-based Hong Leong Bank will begin operating in Phnom Penh today, with a branch on Street 214. Joe Farrugia, CEO of Hong Leong Bank Cambodia, ...