Economy and commerce

The Chinese-owned Global (Cambodia) Trade Development company takes over today as Phnom Penh’s new municipal bus operator, although City Hall said Tuesday that the company did not have to go through a bidding process to get the contract. The creation of a permanent public bus system ...

Six border checkpoints in Banteay Meanchey province were on Saturday closed unilaterally and without warning by Thailand, local officials and border police said. Lieutenant Colonel So Channry, chief of the 911 border battalion in O’Chrov district, said that Thai authorities had closed the checkpoints, one of ...

When a group of six unions organized nationwide strikes in December demanding a $160 minimum wage, the opposition CNRP aggressively took up the cause. Opposition leaders rallied support outside factory gates around the country and tens of thousands of garment workers flooded into Phnom Penh’s Freedom ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen told business leaders and government officials Tuesday that he will not tolerate “illegal” labor strikes that harm investment, but avoided judgment on a request to withdraw ratification of a U.N. convention protecting workers’ rights to unionize. Speaking at the 17th Government-Private Sector ...

More than 20 families working on a controversial palm oil plantation in Ratanakkiri province owned by the Hoang Anh Lumphat company have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing the owners of improperly withholding one month’s pay. Lor Sophal said he and another 22 families, ...

Cambodia needs to build qualified and competent human capital to prepare for competition when the ASEAN Economic Community becomes a reality at the end of 2015, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday. “The Cambodian government will focus its attention on strengthening education quality and technical vocational ...

Heng, a Cambodian development company, has made a big surprise when introducing its self-modified electric car. The car, named Angkor EV 2014, is created by a local designer, manufactured by Heng Company which has set up a $20 million factory in Kandal province. The car, operated by ...

Many small and medium companies of Japan are showing their interest in doing business in Cambodia, according to an assistant of Prime Minister Hun Sen. 99 percent of Japanese small and medium companies are interested in investing in Asia, especially in Cambodia, which is located ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that the country’s banking sector has enjoyed strong growth in recent years and urged the banks to increase their lending to agriculture. According to the report of the National Bank of Cambodia, lending at the kingdom’s 34 commercial banks ...

The Government-Private Sector Forum was held here on Tuesday after it has had a hiatus for two consecutive years because of Cambodia’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2012 and general election in 2013.     The Tuesday’s dialogue was presided over by Prime Minister Hun Sen with the participation of ...

The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) is calling out telecommunications firm Mobitel over a TV ad that shows a young Cambodian man who is shocked and dismayed when he meets, on a blind date, what appears to be a transgender woman. Lasting about 60 seconds, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called on government bodies, local authorities, international organisations and the private sector to dial back Cambodia’s widespread theft of copyrighted works, like film and music, and encouraged the creation of more original, home-grown cultural works. Copying other countries’ cultural output – ...

Siam Kubota Corporation Co Ltd is set to expand its business by opening subsidiaries in Cambodia and Laos as part of its preparation for the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. Siam Kubota has invested a total of Bt68 million in the two ...

The Malaysian Insurance Institute (MII) and the Insurance Association of Cambodia (IAC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for “a bilateral collaboration to forge a beneficial business relationship to further enhance insurance knowledge and skills development for the insurance industry in Cambodia,” said a ...

British Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy Lord Puttnam will visit Cambodia from March 4 to 7 to strengthen bilateral trade and investment relations, according to a press statement from the British Embassy here on Monday. During his visit, Lord Puttnam will call on Prime Minister Hun ...

Auditors from the Coca-Cola Company visited Oddar Meanchey province on Friday to investigate allegations of land grabbing against sugar plantations that supply the global drinks giant, but called off a community meeting because of a heavy police presence, an NGO said Sunday. Chun Bora of the ...

As buyers swoop in to purchase Thai rice at garage-sale prices, Cambodian exporters are dealing with lower than usual rates, and the results are being felt all the way down the supply chain to the farmers themselves. New figures from rice industry publication Oryza show that ...

Authorities in Svay Rieng town are ignoring locals’ complaints over a Chinese firm that has allegedly been filling in a river in preparation to build a canal, villagers said yesterday. More than 130 families in Svay Teu commune, Svay Rieng province, have delivered petitions to provincial ...

Australia-based energy company Star8 officially launched operations on Friday at its solar-powered factory just outside of Phnom Penh. The ceremony marked the commencement of production on solar-powered tuk-tuks, the mainstay of the company. Hun Many, the youngest son of Premier Hun Sen, and Alison Burrows, the Australian ...

Two union representatives said that they were detained and “educated” Thursday for distributing leaflets calling on workers to participate in a nationwide strike next month. Yin Saroeun, secretary-general of the National Trade Unions Coalition, said police detained him and his colleague, Chuob Noek, at about 11 ...

Though an occasional mango or pineapple can be spotted on Eung Uy Kheam’s sleepy farm in Kampot province, it’s the 130 durian trees that the fourth-generation farmer calls his cash crop. In Kampot, on Cambodia’s southwest coast, a pilot project led by the provincial Department ...

Five Kompong Chhnang villagers locked in a land dispute with a company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, who had repeatedly tried—and failed—to file a complaint with their provincial court, were summoned for questioning at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court ...

In 2011, the Environment Ministry entered into a deal with the Ratana Cooperation and Construction company to swap its valuable 2,400-square-meter location on Sihanouk Boulevard in Phnom Penh’s Tonle Bassac commune for a 9,000-square-meter plot of land and a new headquarters 20 km away in ...

Hong Kong technology company Pacnet says it’s expanding its virtual private network (VPN) services to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. In a statement released Wednesday, the company said the expansion involved global internet protocol VPN services based on multi-protocol label switching (MPLS). ...