Economy and commerce

Officials in Ratanakkiri province are investigating the provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc for incitement after he helped villagers organize a demonstration, ultimately canceled, against a Vietnamese rubber company in O’Yadaw district. Mr. [Chhay] Thy, [Adhoc’s Provincial Investigator] said yesterday that he met with about ...

Cambodian garment exports are expected to grow in 2013 with the increasing foreign investments along with focus on new market including Japan and China, according to the Garment Manufactures Association of Cambodia (GMAC). In 2012, apparel exports of Cambodia grew nine percent to US$ 4.61 ...

Thailand will forge closer ties with Cambodia and other neighbouring countries to increase competency in rice trading and boost the bargaining power of Asean countries by setting up a rice-trading zone soon. Also, Thailand will expand crop cooperation to cassava to raise farm incomes in the ...

Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temples, one of the world heritage sites, received 694,700 foreign tourists in the first quarter of this year, a 8 percent rise from the same period last year, the statistics of Siem Reap provincial tourism department showed Friday. The top three countries visiting ...

The Bank of China is going to expand its business operations in Cambodia after it was launched here two years ago and seen rapid business growth, Zhu Shuming, visiting deputy governor of Bank of China, said Friday. Speaking at a meeting with Chea Chanto, governor of ...

Despite steady economic growth in recent years, Cambodia remains one of the least-developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region and faces the challenge of diversifying its economy and moving up the production value chain, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) ...

As rising economic growth spurred demand for personal loans, Prasac, Cambodia’s biggest microfinance institution (MFI), provided $106 million in loans between March, 2012 and March, 2013, an increase of 66 per cent compared with the corresponding period a year earlier.  “Loans [were] mainly used for service ...

The Kep-Kompot Salt Producers Community says salt production fell nearly 50 per cent below forecasts because of early rainfall, which is assumed to end salt harvesting for the year. Prime Minister Hun Sen, however, has stepped in to ensure that price remains stable. Hun Sen ...

A subsidiary of Indian firm Mesco Steel has arrived in Cambodia to begin developing a gold mine in Ratanakkiri province, according to an investor involved in the deal. Mesco Gold has paid a fee of $1.2 million to Canada-listed exploration firm Angkor Gold to develop a ...

A bribery investigation by the World Bank has discovered misconduct by a major Canadian construction firm that was awarded a $5 million contract to help expand access to electricity in rural Cambodia, the bank said. In December 2009, SNC-Lavalin announced that it has been awarded ...

The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) has seen slow progress in its first year of operations because there has been only one listed firm and public knowledge about the stock market remains low, officials said Thursday. The CSX was officially launched trading on April 18 last year ...

Government action will be needed to ensure that nearly two decades of impressive economic growth continues in Cambodia, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report published Wednesday. In its 2013 World Economic Outlook, the IMF put Cambodia’s gross do­mestic product (GDP) growth for 2012 ...

When the owner of Kingsland garment factory fled the Kingdom last year, enough pressure was applied to its sourcing companies H&M and Walmart to persuade them through their intermediaries to compensate workers left jobless. Distance could no longer absolve them of responsibility. Just like the Kingsland ...

As this year’s pepper harvest gets under way, farmers in Kompong Cham province are expecting lower yields due to severe hot weather in recent months. Yin Sopha, executive director of the Dar Memot Development Agriculture Pepper Cooperative, said the hot weather and lack of rain ...

A U.K. firm being sued by 200 Cambodian farmers over the loss of their land to two sugar plantations has defended its business dealings, claiming that the affected families were dealt with legally and were properly compensated for the loss of their properties. Local farmers ...

A U.S.-based energy company has announced that it is planning a biomass project using genetically modified rice in Cambodia, in a purportedly massive deal about which little information has been made public. In a statement posted online Thursday, Sino Bioenergy Corp. said it had signed a ...

In May 2013, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and Better Work will launch HERproject in Cambodia. HERproject links multinational companies and their factories to local NGOs to create sustainable workplace programmes that increase women’s health awareness. The project also seeks to demonstrate the return on investment ...

The bilateral trade volume between Cambodia and the United States was worth about 499 million U.S. dollars in the first two months of this year, down 2 percent compared with 510 million U.S. dollars at the same period last year, the statistics of the U.S. ...

The World Bank upgraded Monday its GDP growth forecast for Cambodia to 7.0 percent for this year, up 0.3 of a percentage point from its last projection in December. “In Cambodia, a likely stabilization in high-income country conditions should support further improvements in garment production and ...

After years of immersion in a vicious price war, battle weary and capital-haemorrhaging [sic] mobile operators in Cambodia’s oversaturated telecommunications sector may finally have reason to breathe a sigh of relief; 2013 might be cited as the year the tide turned. Tarred by legal threats, ...

The Thai owners of a pair of sugar plantations in Koh Kong province accused of forcing hundreds of farmers off their land will give the land back if it can be proved that those evicted legally own the land, rights workers and a village representative ...

Going by the World Bank’s method of grouping nation states by their wealth, Cambodia this year could become a lower-middle income country. Not satisfied, however, with this graduation—a feat in itself from Cambodia’s position of extreme poverty just two decades ago when gross domestic product (GDP) ...

Cambodia will start the construction of a new and more modern stadium on Friday, an official said. Prime Minister Hun Sen will preside over the groundbreaking ceremony for the stadium’s construction, covering 83 hectares of land in the commune of Bak Kheng, in the Russey Keo ...

Cargos entering and leaving through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, the kingdom’s 2nd largest port, increased by 34 percent in the first three months of this year due to rising trade activities, a senior port official said Thursday. During the January-March period this year, the state-owned port ...