Infrastructure

Cambodian villagers demonstrated on Friday against a controversial Lao hydropower dam that activists say is being built in defiance of an agreement to assess its potentially damaging impact on millions of people first. About 200 villagers whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River urged a halt ...

Forestry Administration officials have seized equipment valued at $1.5 million from a Banteay Meanchey province biofuel plantation, which is being investigated for fraud in the UK, company and forestry officials said yesterday. Sustainable Agro Energy’s assets were frozen in February and investigators at the U.K.’s ...

The Australian Embassy conceded that problems have plagued the relocation process of about 160 families moved to Trapeang Anhchanh on the outskirts of Phnom Penh last September. The families were moved for a railway rehabilitation project partially funded by the Australian government’s AusAID. “We agree on the ...

The Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) is planning to develop a 400-unit apartment complex on the former site of the Ratanakkiri provincial airport, an official with knowledge of the project said yesterday. Ly Teang, Banlung City branch manager for Canadia Bank, whore investors are the ...

Adding to a growing body of research into the flaws of Cambodia’s $142 million railway rehabilitation project, a report published yesterday said soaring debt levels are crippling families forcibly relocated by the project. In the report by land rights organization Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), researchers tracked ...

A technology called “Super Wi-Fi” that uses the frequency spectrum between television channels called “white spaces” could be a game-changing force in how people connect to the internet, especially in places like Cambodia. The technology, which requires specialised equipment costing about US$2,000 for a base station ...

Hundreds of Kompong Cham villagers protested yesterday and Sunday against high electricity prices in another example of energy-price demonstrations that are becoming increasingly frequent across the country. In Kompong Cham province’s Batheay district, more than 500 villagers yesterday continued a protest over electricity prices that began ...

An unnamed Chinese investor will put nearly US$400 million into a 300-megawatt coal-powered plant in Kampot province, officials said yesterday. The plant, slated for a November groundbreaking, will provide power for the Kampot Special Economic Zone, the nearby Prey Nob oil refinery in Preah Sihanouk province ...

A Chinese mining firm has donated about $200,000 toward the building of a new district headquarters for the ruling CPP in Preah Vihear province, officials said yesterday. Kong Makara, director of the provincial industry, mines and energy office, said that Chinese company Cambodian Iron Holding and ...

About 200 people from Siem Reap’s Angkor Chum district protested outside the district governor’s office on Friday, calling for private electricity company Duong Narin to lower its prices and asking the state electricity authority to connect to their area, protesters said yesterday. The residents of ...

Australia’s Fairfax media has obtained a leaked official report into a troubled and controversial Cambodian rail project being funded by AusAID and the Asian Development Bank. The report outlines poor construction, botched surveys leading to the evictions of families ...

A biofuel company is currently under investigation for fraud in the U.K. after millions of dollars of investors’ money was spent on a jatropha plantation in Banteay Meanchey province that never produced even a single drop of biodiesel. The company, London-based Sustainable Agro Energy PLC, had ...

A delegation of Chinese officials yesterday donated two airplanes and signed an agreement to provide Cambodia with loans for a new hydropower dam in Battambang and the renovation of two national roads. The deals were made during a meeting in Phnom Penh between He Guoqiang, a ...

Cambodia was in discussions with the Chinese government on funding for a 250-kilometre stretch of rail line between Phnom Penh and Vietnam, in what Cambodian officials yesterday called a move away from a “complicated” Asian Development Bank loan. Va Sim Sorya, director general at the Ministry ...

The U.S. firm selling credits for a carbon trading scheme that could earn Cambodia tens of millions of dollars said yesterday that sales could start in a matter of months, despite mounting claims of deforestation within the community forests set to anchor the project. ...

Milled-rice exporters have called on the government to continue its efforts in reducing electricity and transportation costs, two of the main obstacles facing the government’s goal of exporting 1 million tonnes of milled rice by 2015. At a working group on rice exports on Friday, 40 ...

The garment industry could be close to renewing an industrial relations memorandum of understanding, but an independent union believes it is being edged out of negotiations because it opposes the use of short-term and fixed-duration contracts. Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, said yesterday ...

No ground was broken in May on the New Siem Reap International Airport (NSRIA), a US$1 billion Korean investment, and officials say no definite date has been set for work on the project as the developer looks for new partners. NSRIA Co Ltd, an equal joint ...

Dr. Tim Killeen, author of The Cardamom Conundrum, Reconciling Development and Conservation in the Kingdom of Cambodia, discusses his recently released book, which argues that Cambodia is well positioned to reap the benefits of ‘green development’. Why did you select the Cardamom Mountains as the area ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to the world to harmonize energy prices to food prices as food production shouldn’t outstrip the consumption of volatile fuels while food price remains stable, at the 4th workshop on food security and nutrition. Calling it “The Phnom Penh Initiative,” Prime Minister Hun Sen requested that the issue be ...

Despite facing criminal charges, 70 villagers from Kompong Chhnang province embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the KDC Development Company have moved back onto the contested land, court officials and villagers said yesterday. KDC, which is owned by Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy ...

The Australian government yesterday said it has been aware of poor working conditions and inappropriate surveying methods used on Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project since February and had ordered that the project’s partners investigate the matters. “The Australian Government was alerted to possible concerns about workplace health ...

The rehabilitation of Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network has encountered delays due to poor construction work and inappropriate surveying methods when making plans to lay down tracks, according to a draft review of the ongoing $140 million project conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and ...

It’s a nearly 300-kilometre stretch of rail in disrepair. More than 60 bridges – some crumbling, some dotted with landmines at the base – lie on the line between the towns of Bat Deong, northwest of Phnom Penh, and Sisophan near the Thai border. The ...