Economy and commerce

The area of cassava under cultivation fell by 11.5 per cent across the country this season, while the price of cassava chips remained the same as last season’s price. Officials blamed an unstable price during the previous season (from April to April) for the drop. According ...

Old Place Seafood, a Chinese restaurant that cost $4 million, has opened in Phnom Penh. A representative of the restaurant, which is opposite the Chinese embassy, said the growing number of Chinese people in the Kingdom had justified such an investment. Luu Meng, president of the ...

Representatives of a massive hydropower dam project in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district approached local authorities late last month informing them that the government had granted the company permission to clear 36,000 hec­tares of land for a reservoir, officials said on Sunday. The 400-megawatt Lower Se­san ...

A delegation comprised of Japan’s top business leaders, known as Keidanren, began a six-day trip to Myanmar and Cambodia Monday, seeking new business and investment opportunities there. Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, is leading the delegation and said he hopes that meetings with ...

Revoking its decision to sack the vast majority of its work force for a prolonged strike, the Winson International garment factory agreed to allow the 868 workers back to work following negotiations late last month, worker representatives said yesterday. After mediation by officials from the Ministry ...

Loans and deposits at Cambodia’s 32 micro-finance institutions and four NGOs, as well as small loans from Acleda Bank, rose sharply last year compared with a year earlier. Industry players say this is a result of the Kingdom’s rapid economic improvement and political stability. Official data from ...

Hong Kong has banned egg imports from Cambodia due to the country’s recent avian influenza outbreak, which claimed four lives last month. “Hong Kong does not import live poultry or poultry meat from Cambodia, but 170,000 poultry eggs were imported from there last year,” the ...

Cambodia will soon boast its first tractor assembly plant, with operations expected to begin by the third quarter of this year. The one-hectare plant, in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district, is a joint venture by Belarus-based Minsk Tractor Works, one of the world’s biggest tractor producers, ...

Against the backdrop of the ongoing Thai government’s rice-pledging policy, Thai rice exports are expected to further decline this year. While it may provide opportunities for Cambodia, the country has not yet benefitted much from the policy, industry experts said. “I think the Thai rice scheme ...

Portraits of the late King Father Norodm Sihanouk covered the floor and dozens of coin-sized badges emblazoned with his image were scattered on the sidewalk in front of the Singha Mean printing house yesterday. Kuo Ransiky, the 41-year-old owner of the printshop on Phnom Penh’s street ...

Sales of plants and flowers will reach a high during the Lunar New Year celebrations in Phnom Penh, which start on Sunday, as more customers than ever before buy floral decorations for their houses, flower shop owners in Phnom Penh predicted. “During the weekend many people ...

Pirated computer software accounted for about $50 million in losses to the Cambodian economy every year, an industry expert said yesterday. According to Pily Wong, president of the ICT Business Association, about 95 per cent of the computer software used in Cambodia is counterfeit, crippling the ...

K-Cement workers who were told they could not form a company-wide union because their workplaces were “separate” entities have now had their application to register individual unions rejected by the Ministry of Labour, union leaders said yesterday. Sok Kin, vice president of the Building and Woodworkers ...

Bangchak Petroleum, a majority state-owned oil refiner and retailer in Thailand, said it wants to open five petrol stations in Cambodia, with the first station opening in 2014, the Bangkok Post reported last week. Tui Rutten, president of the Thai Business Council of Cambodia did not ...

More than 100 workers from Kingsland Garment Cambodia factory, which was a supplier to U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh yesterday, appealing for help in getting their severance payments. In December, workers found out the company had declared bankruptcy ...

Cambodia spent more than $1.6 billion importing fuel oil and petrol last year, a figure 14.3 per cent higher than for 2011, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. The money spent on importing 1.6 million tonnes of petrol and fuel oil – 100,000 tonnes more than ...

Despite the massive spike in development underway in Phnom Penh, a new report says that the public interest is becoming marginalised in favour of the political and business elite. The report, from NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), says that currently “commercial interests are driving the urban ...

South Korea replaced the UK as the largest investor in Cambodia last year, with about $287 million injected, 12.5 per cent of the total foreign direct investment, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). This represents 33 per cent ...

Thailand’s biggest convenience store operator, CP All, plans to apply for licences to open 7-Eleven stores in countries including Cambodia by 2015, according to a Reuters news report yesterday. The other two countries are Myanmar and Laos, and the plan is part of CP All’s expansion ...

The number of foreigners who bought condos in Cambodia increased by between 30 and 40 per cent in 2012 compared with 2011, a recent study showed, while 997 condo units currently belong to foreigners. Nuon Rithy, general manager of the Bonna Realty Group, said that according ...

A group of opposition lawmakers have written to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urging action against a sugar factory owned by a ruling party official accused of exploiting child labor and grabbing land from villagers. Six Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) parliamentarians sent a letter dated Jan. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged public institutions to provide clear terms of reference for the services they provide, as part of an effort to attract investment in the Kingdom. Institutions that did not implement this policy would be punished under the law, he said. ...

The number of companies registering to become members of the Garment Manufacturing Association in Cambodia (GMAC) doubled last year, with more investment in value-added products. GMAC said the number of new members reached 120 last year, compared with 60 newcomers in 2011. “Labour-intensive industries in China ...

Fears of theft are on the rise among market vendors in a tourist district in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province, the gateway to the world-renowned Angkor archeological site. Vendors at a market in Puok district said they had lost a lot of money following a slew of ...