Economy and commerce

Rice futures jumped the most permitted by the Chicago Board of Trade, advancing to a one- month high, as flood damage to crops in Southeast Asia boosted prospects for U.S. exports. Storms since September damaged 12.5 percent of paddies in Thailand, the world’s largest exporter, and ...

French engineering firm Systra is underway with a feasibility study to build a tramway from Phnom Penh International Airport to the Royal Railway Station, Governor Kep Chuktema said on Friday. The agreement to study a tramway was first made between Systra and City Hall in July ...

The Kingdom’s fish exports declined 48 per cent in the first nine months of 2011, as a result of growing local demand, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of fish totalled 1,099 tonnes from January to September, compared to 2,123 ...

Sonatra Microfinance Institution, a joint investment between local and foreign investors, officially started operations in Cambodia yesterday. A US$50 million loan package was signed during the ceremony on Thursday, providing Singapore-based EastWing Group and Japanese firm Grand Cooperation with a 30 per cent stake of the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday led a delegation of businessmen and top government officials to join the eighth China-ASEAN expo and investment summit to be held in Nanning, China, from October 21 to October 26. The Cambodian prime minister planned to meet his Chinese counterpart Premier ...

With few reforms made in the past year, Cambodia ranked 138th out of 181 countries for the second consecutive year in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report released yesterday, a ranking that put it behind countries such as Syria and Sudan. The report ranks countries based ...

Ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat has kept a promise to stop his company’s dredging operations on Koh Kong province’s Tatai river, relieved business owners and residents living along the waterway said yesterday. But provincial officials confirmed that as the senator’s dredging boats moved on to ...

Scores of crying women who said they had been forcibly detained and girls who claimed to have received fake documents to conceal the fact that they were as young as 16-years-old were discovered at a centre owned by the SKMM Investment Group labour recruitment firm ...

While sovereign debt crises in Europe and a lagging US economy have yet to curtail cheap Cambodian exports, industry watchers said domestic producers should diversify their target markets to avoid a future slow down. Exports saw a more than 40 per cent increase year-on-year between January ...

The Kingdom’s cassava exports soared 94 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2011, despite the recent flood devastation the agriculture sector has experienced, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of dry and fresh cassava hit about 22,652 ...

Cambodia’s banks should be largely spared the heavy damages already seen in many parts of the Kingdom’s economy, officials said yesterday, though microfinance lenders will feel some impact. Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon last week revised downward the government’s gross domestic products for 2011 ...

Cambodian garment makers are filling orders for the 2012 London Olympics in what insiders say is the first time the country has supplied the Games. ShenZhou International Group Holdings Ltd, one of China’s largest apparel exporters, makes shirts and other sportswear for Adidas that will supply ...

Cambodia is unlikely to meet even half of its 2015 goal to export 1 million tons of milled rice unless export and production costs are greatly reduced and more private investment goes toward the agriculture sector, according to a new World Bank study obtained Monday. The ...

PHNOM PENH: Malaysia expects to minimise its dependence on imports of animal feed and lessen the impact of the global food crisis by 2020 under the reciprocal investment policy, Agriculture and Agro-based Minister Datuk Seri Noh Omar said. One such initiative under the policy was the ...

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance H.E Keat Chhon said Cambodia Security Exchange (CSX) will begin trading from January 2012. Inaugurated in July, the CSX would be put on hold until next year because some rules and regulations have been being discussed ...

A Malaysian firm on Saturday signed a joint agricultural agreement with property development company Paragon Corporation Cambodia worth a potential US$2 billion in exports of corn, rubber, coffee and other cash crops. Penned by Paragon Corporation Cambodia and Markmore Group Malaysia, the joint development project will ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and Thailand increased slightly by 8 per cent during the first eight months of 2011 compared to the same period last year, according to the Thai Embassy’s Foreign Trade Promotion Office (FTPO) statistics obtained by the Post yesterday. The increase in trade ...

The government has collected 6,557 billion riel, or about $1.6 billion, in revenues in the first seven months of 2011, a figure that is twice that of the $801 million in revenues that were collected during the same period last year, data released by the ...

Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh on Wednesday, in a meeting with the European Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, called on delegates to host an EU-ASEAN business summit next year, according to Eurocham members who were present. The summit is expected to focus on enhancing business strategies ...

Tokyo: Cambodia needs more than an estimated US$13 billion in infrastructure works by 2020 if the country intends to continue attracting foreign investment, a joint survey by some of the world’s top financial institutions indicated on Wednesday. During a conference held by the Japan International Cooperation Agency ...

The Ministry of Labour has been ordered to permanently close the labour recruitment firm T&P following the discovery of more under-age trainees in its Kampong Chhnang centre. The move marks the first time the ministry has shut a labour reruitment firm, and follows intense criticism of ...

Bilateral trade between China and Cambodia is on track to reach $2 billion by the end of this year, its highest level ever, an official at the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh said. Jin Yuan, economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese Embassy, said during a ...

As government borrowing from China continues to increase, a new study released yesterday showed that Chinese concessional loans carry higher interest than any others. According to the study, released by the NGO Forum on Cambodia at a workshop in Phnom Penh, China’s average interest rate on ...

IBM reaffirmed its commitment to the Cambodian market through a two-day event from 5 to 6 October in Phnom Penh which it demonstrated technology solutions for companies and governments of all sizes. With the potential market in Cambodia, IBM targets to set up its full ...