Ministries and other national bodies

The country’s anti-corruption czar on Tuesday said the former director of the National Malaria Center must pay back the $351,000 in bribes he took in exchange for mosquito net contracts—effectively admitting the ex-director’s guilt—but that he would not be prosecuted. ...

Civil groups have urged Cambodian authorities to provide places for students to stay during the upcoming national high school graduate exam and prevent hotels and guesthouses from increasing room rates in all cities and provinces. ...

Cambodia attracted about 2.3 million foreign visitors in the first six months of 2015, an increase of 5.6 percent compared with the same period last year, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said Tuesday. ...

With the Grade 12 national high school exam about two weeks away, a group of five NGOs sent a letter to the Ministry of Education on Monday asking the government to prevent guesthouses from hiking their prices for students who have to stay overnight in ...

Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol on Monday asked the World Bank and the European Union to review a trio of new trade agreements with Cambodia’s neighbors to determine what impact the deals would have on the country’s exports. ...

Cambodia is planning to join the regional anti-drug-trafficking operation Safe Mekong, which aims to stem the flow of illegal narcotics through the notorious “Golden Triangle” area, after Thailand and Laos announced they had asked for Cambodia and Vietnam to be involved. ...

For Sam Phat and her family, the decision 10 years ago to plant rubber trees on their hectare of land was an easy one. Because of booming demand, mostly from China, rubber prices were high, and the startup cost of planting trees was low. ...

As deforestation in Cambodia’s forests has grown in recent years, more and more citizens have come together to fight against it. Now, a group of 300 people are going to campaign for awareness about the destruction of Prey Lang, the largest evergreen forest in the ...

More than 150,000 hectares of rice fields have been affected by a drought in some areas of the country, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, warning that the lack of rain, combined with labor shortages, could prevent the government from meeting its rice production goal ...

Cambodia and Thailand are planning to open four new border crossings in four provinces as part of a move to increase trade between the two countries, officials said yesterday. ...

Investors have turned their eyes to the e-commerce sector in Cambodia as more people in the Southeast Asian nation have access to the Internet, businessmen and commerce officials say.​ ...

Cambodia Tourism Marketing Strategy 2015-2020 has been finalized and will soon set in order to achieve the 8 million foreign visitors gold by 2020, said an official. ...

Around a thousand people from Cambodian government institutions, experts and aid workers as well as community members gathered Sunday to shine a light on a variety of issues faced by the country’s indigenous peoples — including access to modern health care. ...

Sixteen undocumented Vietnamese migrants were arrested yesterday at a construction site in Preah Vihear, the latest in a spate of arrests of workers without papers. This summer has seen a spike in arrests, fines, and deportations of expat workers – with police saying that more ...

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs released a statement Thursday expressing its “grave regret” at a joint NGO statement that criticized Prime Minister Hun Sen for a speech in which he referred to an unnamed female protester as a female animal. ...

The Ministry of Commerce will begin publishing a news magazine early next month to promote its activities and provide information on market developments, an official said Wednesday. ...

With criticism mounting in recent months over the failure of police to carry out an arrest warrant for Khmer Rouge navy commander Meas Muth, the Interior Ministry has said that it needs to gauge public opinion before taking action. ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit has written to Health Minister Mam Bunheng to say that his ministry is failing to follow required procurement procedures and to urge him to bring its practices in line. ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy collected approximately $3.5 million in non-tax revenue from the extraction industry during the first six months of the year—about 92 percent of what it collected from the sector in all of 2014, ministry spokesman Meng Saktheara said Tuesday. ...

Sixty-two Cambodian students have gotten annual scholarships for their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in various universities in China, according to Chinese News Agency (Xinhua).​​ ...

The manager of a Vietnamese rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province accused of illegally logging in collusion with local military police denied the claims Tuesday but admitted to calling on police to quell protests. ...

The government wants Cambodia’s Muslim community to start its own bank to cater to the 600,000 Muslims living here, Labor and Vocational Training Ministry’s secretary of state Datuk Othsman Hassan said yesterday. ...

China has overtaken South Korea to become the largest tourist source of Cambodia’s Angkor world heritage site, Cambodia’s state-run Agence Kampuchea Press (AKP) reported on Monday, citing a senior tourism official. ...

As an environmental NGO held a press conference in Phnom Penh on Monday to present evidence against a company it accuses of illegally extracting sand from an estuary in Koh Kong province, opposition lawmaker Son Chhay called on Prime Minister Hun Sen to order an ...