Economy and commerce

North Korea yesterday proposed to lower tax and trade barriers with Cambodia. The proposal, if made into a formal agreement, would join a long list of agreements between the two countries that have never been followed through. Hong Ki Chol said such an agreement could ...

Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An has called for the greater use of local products in the tourism sector, as products from overseas that continue to supply the industry result in a 25 per cent loss in revenue for Cambodia’s US$2 billion-a-year tourism industry. ...

An EU scheme to boost trade with developing nations is fuelling land grabs in Cambodia, activists say, with thousands evicted from their property to make way for a booming sugar industry. Campaigners are taking their fight to European supermarkets, encouraging a boycott of Cambodian sugar, which ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

The European Union should immediately remove trade preferences it gives to Cambodian sugar companies accused of human-rights violations including land grabs, representatives of the affected communities told a press conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. Community representatives from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces said ...

Heng Chheang, former deputy general director of the Anco Brothers Company, was brought by prison security guards yesterday for questioning to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over fresh allegations of defamation and fraud filed by Senator Kok An last year, officials said. “Although I have already ...

A public tramway system in Phnom Penh could be completed by as early as 2017, a representative of a French urban consultancy company said yesterday. The municipality announced in October that Systra, a railroad consultancy firm based in France, was conducting a feasibility study on a ...

The number of incoming business people from Wenzhou, a Chinese coastal city of three million known for manufacturing, has grown markedly in recent years. So much, in fact, that Wezhou opened an official chamber of commerce in Phnom Penh last week. Labour and land costs on China’s ...

Thailand and Cambodia are making moves to repair trade relations as 30 of Thailand’s provincial commerce departments hold a three-day trade fair in Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island Convention Center this week, according to Jiranan Wongmongkol, director of the Foreign Trade Promotion Office (FTPO) at the ...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead the largest delegation of American businesses ever to visit Cambodia when she arrives here next week to participate in the Asean Regional Forum, U.S. Ambassador William Todd said yesterday. ...

Revenues from the tourism sector increased 7 percent to $1.91 billion in 2011, though more could be made if hotels sourced more goods from local producers instead of importing from abroad, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said yesterday. Speaking at a conference in Phnom Penh, Mr. Khon ...

Despite receiving applications from banks looking to enter Cambodia’s market, the central bank has said it will offer no more commercial banking licenses as the market already has enough players. The decision appears to follow advice offered by the International Monetary Fund earlier this year that ...

Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority saw 8.2 per cent revenue growth during the first quarter of the year, a welcomed disclosure after the retirement of the state-owned firm’s general director was announced last week. The firm took in US$7,725,500 between January and March, up from $7,140,473 ...

Revenues generated at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port increased 13.6 percent to $14 million in the first five months of 2012, compared to the same period last year, a port official said yesterday. Lou Kimchhun, director-general of the port, said that revenues came from a 9 percent ...

Vietnam and Cambodia have set a target of US$5 billion in bilateral trade by 2015 as the countries’ economic relationship deepens. However, some wonder if such an ambitious goal is realistic, especially given the government’s desire to realize US$5 billion in annual trade with China by 2017. The goal was announced at a June 24 ...

A dispute over territory in the South China Sea is once again set to hang over talks when China and the U.S. join in on a week of high-level Asean meetings that start in Phnom Penh on Friday. So far, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ...

Revenue at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port increased 13.6 per cent year on year between January and June, port officials confirmed yesterday. As the state-owned enterprise gears up for listing on the Cambodia Securities Exchange, the neighbouring Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone will play an increasingly important role in ...

Prudential Corporation Asia yesterday received “in-principle” approval from the Ministry of Economy and Finance to establish a foreign-owned life insurance operation in the country, an official statement from the company said. The announcement comes after Canadian life insurance giant Manulife on Thursday made public plans for ...

Europe’s largest manufacturer of two-wheeled vehicles, Italy’s Piaggio, will return to Cambodia in September, being absent since the Khmer Rouge takeover. Vespa Cambodia Co Ltd, part of Narith Long’s Narita group, signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Piaggio last month to distribute its Piaggio scooters, ...

Renaissance Minerals Limited listed in ASX (Australian stock exchange under code: RNS) on June 26 announced the results of its first three drill holes from its inaugural diamond drilling program at the highly prospective Okvau Gold Deposit in Cambodia. An existing independent JORC-compliant indicated and inferred resource estimate has already been defined at the Okvau ...

Cambodia offers plenty of opportunities for Vietnamese exporters although there is intense competition from countries such as Thailand and China, delegates said at a conference in HCM City last Thursday. Le Quoc Phong, general director of the Binh Dien Fertiliser Group, said the Cambodian market had ...

Oil production in Cambodia may not begin until 2016, or at least three years after the originally appointed date, Chevron officials reportedly said at a Ministry of Environment meeting on Friday. Government officials yesterday confirmed the feasibility of the time frame. If Chevron Overseas Petroleum Cambodia gained ...

Inside a nondescript villa in central Phnom Penh, men and women in white lab coats peer through lenses, carefully studying the magnified objects in front of them. But these aren’t biologists researching cell division or bacteria; these are gem testers concerned with inclusions and refractive indices on rubies, sapphires and other precious stones. They are working ...

Property development firm Hongkong Land (HKL) will not break ground on a 10,700-square-meter mixed-use office and retail project in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district until at least 2013, officials at the firm said Thursday. HKL acquired the property behind the U.S. Embassy in April 2011 as ...