Infrastructure

Blackouts in Phnom Penh will no longer be a problem after an energy source near Sihanoukville starts providing an extra 50 megawatts of coal-fired power to the city next month, the director-general of Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said. Keo Rottanak said by mid-June at the latest ...

For Meach Mean, a veteran campaigner against hydropower dams in Cambodia’s northeast, this year has brought a double dose of bad news. First, he says, two Chinese hydropower companies have begun feasibility studies into a pair of dams planned for tributaries of the Mekong River ...

Co-operation on the exchange of electricity will be very important in making the 10-country ASEAN bloc move forward to a single market by 2015, experts said, but a shortage of power supply in each country remains a challenge. Speaking to reporters yesterday after the opening of ...

A massive power outage that left large areas of Phnom Penh without electricity and water and plunged southern Vietnam into darkness on Wednesday was caused by a crane operator knocking a tree onto a high voltage power line, Vietnam’s state-owned energy provider said yesterday. “A ...

Leaders of ASEAN power utilities and authorities gathered on Thursday to follow up the progress of the ambitious ASEAN power grid action plan, which was set to inter-connect power lines in the 10 ASEAN member states by 2020. Speaking to reporters after the opening ...

Several days of rain have finally brought relief to hundreds of families in Koh Kong province’s Khemara Phoumint City who had been without water for two weeks because the reservoir that provides their supply dried up during hot season. LYP Group, a company owned by ...

A massive power outage Wednesday in Southern Vietnam brought rolling blackouts that lasted for hours to Ho Chi Minh City, the entire southeastern region of Vietnam and large sections of Phnom Penh. Vietnam’s state-owned Southern Power Corporation said Wednesday that the problem occurred around 2 p.m. ...

Cambodia has seen huge growth of foreign aid and loans over the past two decades, but experts are beginning to question its worth—and what conditions might be attached. Total aid from 1993 to 2012 amounts to around $10 billion, with the percentage of aid coming as ...

Officials and business people say solar panels are gaining in popularity in rural areas, where the power grid does not reach. Mao Sangat, director of Solar Energy Cambodia, told the Post yesterday that his company saw increases of installation of solar power systems for families whose ...

The occupants of 90 Phnom Penh households whose homes were partially or completely dismantled to make way for the Railway Rehabilitation Project partly funded by the ADB have demanded the bank offer them fair compensation. In a letter submitted to the Inter-Ministerial Resettlement Committee, the ADB, ...

Vietnam’s investment in Cambodia has increased significantly in the last three years, but a mechanism to encourage and oversee investments in prioritized sectors is needed, according to diplomatic sources. Tan Nguyen Tien, head of the economic section at the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, said Vietnam’s ...

Thailand-based Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Pcl (RATCH) has “seriously assessed” investment possibility in neighbouring countries including Cambodia, a company statement said last Thursday. It said it had geared up for business expansion in domestic and international markets in the potential existing investment bases Laos and Australia, ...

About 300 people on Saturday blocked off a stretch of National Road 5 in Banteay Meanchey province protesting what they call is an unfair increase in electricity prices. Protesters believe that the private electricity supplier, Sok Vitith, altered the Commune’s electricity converter without telling the ...

The government wants to play a bigger role in helping local businesses remain competitive and, to this end, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) has launched a new award to recognise companies that have achieved high produc-tivity standards. Ten companies will be awarded in ...

After reaching agreement late last month, the contract for a $90 million concession loan from Japan to Cambodia was officially signed in Phnom Penh yesterday to improve 83.5 kilometres of National Road 5. The construction is scheduled to start in June 2015 and will be ...

Hundreds of families in Koh Kong province’s Khmara Phoumint City are suffering from a shortage of water, which is provided by a reservoir that dried up during the hot season, local officials said yesterday. Smach Meanchey and Dang Tong communes typically receive water from the Cham ...

With the potential for vast state revenues from oil extraction and mining in coming years, Cambodia is currently failing to manage its nascent extractive industries according to a think tank. New York-based Revenue Watch Institute yesterday launched its 2013 Resource Governance Index, which included Cambodia for ...

Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisal has given the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) the green light to proceed with a plan to build coal-powered plants in Myanmar and Cambodia – providing Thailand with 10,000 megawatts of electricity. Egat has also been instructed to negotiate the ...

The government on Friday awarded CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat a $92.21 million contract to install power lines in Cambodia’s eastern provinces, the Council of Ministers said in a statement. During the weekly Cabinet meeting, senior officials including Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on the ...

Srekor village has stood on the banks of the Se San River in northeastern Cambodia for generations. In a few years it will be gone, submerged along with more than 300 square kilometres of surrounding farmland and forest. For 37-year-old rice farmer Pa Tou, the ...

Recurring power cuts and power shortages draw sharp complaints from Cambodia’s public, the political opposition and business owners. Keo Ratanak,  director-general of Electricite du Cambodge (EDC), talked to the Post’s Sarah Thust. What is EDC doing to reduce electricity cuts here? The issue of power shortage is ...

The National Assembly of Cambodia on Friday ratified the agreement on maritime transport between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, saying the agreement is essential to develop trade and economic ties between ASEAN and China. “The agreement aims to facilitate and foster ...

Since 1998, Phnom Penh’s population has doubled to more than 2 million. High-rise buildings have popped up in the city’s center and housing developments have been hastily erected. Yet the city’s antiquated, decades-old drainage system has undergone little improvement in that time and experts say the ...

About 100 people protested Wednesday evening outside a Phnom Penh ice-making factory owned by the daughter of deputy Kompong Spue governor Tong Seng, complaining that the factory causes a bad smell and that the health of residents in Russei Keo district’s Kilometer 6 commune was ...