Economy and commerce

Southeast Asia’s rice-exporting nations are in talks to create a formal alliance aimed at boosting prices and increasing export revenues, a move that could cause tensions with rice-importing nations. But any bid by the five countries to drive up prices will be a challenge, given previous ...

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, one of the leading banks in Japan, will sign a memorandum of understanding with Cambodia’s leading Acleda Bank on Friday for business cooperation, according to a press release from Acleda on Thursday. Under the agreement, both banks will provide mutual support for ...

More than 2,500 Ocean Garment factory workers jostled with about 100 military police in the capital’s Dangkor district yesterday in their second protest march over the alleged sexual harassment of four female employees. In an inter-governmental ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday, Ocean – which supplies ...

The chief executives of two companies behind major developments in Cambodia-who were jailed in Seoul in February for their part in a major South Korean financial scandal-have been partially cleared and released, according to a court official. Lee Sang-ho – the CEO of World City Co. ...

Cambodia entrepreneurs faced considerable problems when it came to obeying tax laws and other regulations, officials at a seminar about that very subject said yesterday. The VDB Loi company organised the seminar on “New Practices and Preferential Trade Rules” with the co-operation of the General Department of Customs and ...

The department of customs and excise will begin certifying companies it deems trustworthy so that their goods have easier passage across Cambodia’s borders, an official said yesterday. Traders will receive ranks based on compliance with customs rules, he [Nuom Chanrith, the director of planning at the Finance Ministry’s general ...

Cambodia’s workforce must quickly improve its skills base if it is to compete with other countries in the region when the Asean bloc becomes a single market in 2015, officials said yesterday at a seminar held in Phnom Penh. When the Asean Economic Community goes ahead in ...

More than 2,00 female workers from a factory in Phnom Penh that makes clothes for the U.S. brand Gap protested yesterday for a third straight day demanding that the firm sack a manager at the factory for allegedly abusing workers. Lining Russian Boulevard near the Ocean ...

The second mass fainting in a month at Kampong Chhnang’s M&V garment factory, a supplier for global retailer H&M, saw 23 women taken to hospital yesterday, bringing the total number of affected workers in August to 67. Noun Sam Ol, president of the Free Trade Union ...

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) of Japan will sign a memorandum of understanding with Acleda Bank Plc this weekend for mutual business co-operation. Senior Acleda officials said the agreement would help to improve investment and trade from Japan to Cambodia.   Acleda will also give Japanese investors and businesses advice ...

Cambodia will face both challenges and opportunities when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) combines its 10 countries into a single market for economic development, a move intended for 2015, officials said during a round-table discussion yesterday. Sok Siphanna, an adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...

Railway freight services between Phnom Penh and Touk Meas commune, in Kampot province’s Banteay Meas district, the location of a Siam Cement factory about 40 kilometres north of Kampot town, began yesterday, finally putting the Toll Royal Railways concession on an earning basis. According to Toll Royal Railways ...

Cambodia needed to invest in women to aid its development and integration into the ASEAN economic community, United Nations Under Secretary-General Noeleen Heyzer said yesterday. Heyzer, executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(ESCAP), met with Minister of Women’s Affairs Ing Kantha ...

One of the largest banks in Japan, Sumimoto Mitsui Banking Co., will sign an agreement with Acleda Bank Friday to share market data and banking services, Acleda announced yesterday. The deal would allow Sumimoto Mitsui, which currently only has a representative branch in Cambodia, to access ...

Cambodia’s trade with Malaysia grows sharply in 1st 4 months of Y 2011 The bi-lateral trade between Cambodia and Malaysia increased by 75% in the 1st 4 months of this year, compared to the same period last year, said a senior commerce official Wednesday. From January to ...

Cambodia’s trade with US reaches US$1.39-B in 1-H, + 4.5% Bi-lateral trade volume between Cambodia and the United States had jumped to US$1.39-B in 1-H of this year, a 4.5% rise compared with US$1.33-B at the same period last year, according to the statistics of the ...

Despite touting its Cambodian venture on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE), a British registered mining firm’s plan to extract gold in Ratanakkiri province stalled and the firm may face legal action over a failed deal to obtain an exploration license. Astra Resources Plc. has also gone ...

The government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will start drafting a new resettlement plan this month that could improve the compensation on offer for some of the roughly 200 Phnom Penh families losing their homes because of rehabilitation of the country’s railway network in ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has so far contributed $84 million toward the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network, said yesterday it would support a deal to drop the current railway  operator if it means the new concessionaire would foot the $60 to $100 million needed ...

Honey collectors from four provinces in Cambodia signed an agreement with the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) in order to bring more honey to the capital. CEDAC has encouraged farmers from four provinces – Preah Vihear, Kratie, Koh Kong and Mondulkiri – ...

Forestry Administration officers said yesterday they were still struggling to remove a large cache of illegally harvested wood they seized along the Stung Chinit River in Kampong Thom province a week ago. Heng Kamich, head of the Forestry Administration in Santuk district, said the officers seized ...

In an effort to improve Kratie town’s aesthetics, authorities have ordered about 300 shop owners on central roads and along the river bank to relocate their operations or face physical removal. Vendors were given until today to move to a location about a kilometre away, but ...

Companies and individuals need to do more than just create technology. They need to optimise the services and goods they provide, especially when introducing new concepts to developing markets such as Cambodia. That was the message from one presenter at last weekend’s T3CON12-ASIA conference in Phnom ...

Twenty-three workers at the M&V garment factory fainted yesterday morning in Kompong Chhang province, the second thime in a week that a mass faining has occured at the factory, a Labor Ministry official said. Meng Hong, a member of a workplace safety committee that the Ministry ...