Infrastructure

Hours after arriving for his latest visit to the country, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Saturday urged Cambodia to increase state spending in infrastructure and education and to modernize the country’s financial system, according to media reports. Local reporters were quickly ushered out of ...

Tractors carried members of 50 families from Lor Peang village in Kampong Chhnang province’s Kampong Tralach district to the provincial courthouse early yesterday morning, where their hopes faded as they waited for court officials to accept their latest complaint against a company they accuse of ...

The government has given a Chinese mining company the right to extract gold from 28 square km of land in Kratie province’s Sambor district, a provincial official said yesterday. On July 5, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy granted Hing Yuan Hanng Yeak Co Ltd ...

Construction of a US$1.6 billion satellite city on Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changvar peninsula will begin this year after officials inked a contract yesterday with local firm Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC). Dubbed “City of the Future”, the project would include a national stadium, a 60-hectare park, ...

Figures released by the Ministry of Labor on Friday showed that 1,578 garment factory workers have fainted in workplace incidents since the beginning of this year. Pok Vanthat, deputy director of the Labor Ministry’s Medical Unit and chief of its research committee, said that his committee ...

At least 24 international apparel brands have pledged to immediately investigate the mass fainting “phenomenon” that has hit the Cambodian garment factories that supply them, the International Labour Organisation says. Executives of global brands had pledged to work together “to determine the precise causes of incidences ...

The Asian Development Bank said yesterday problems with a railway rehabilitation project – funded by the bank and AusAID – identified by a local NGO that was suspended by the government last month “may require further investigation or analysis”. In July, STT released a report ...

Road accidents claimed the lives of 1,816 people in 2010, a slight increase from the 1,717 killed in 2009, according to a report by the Cambodia Road Crash and Victim Information System. The total number of casualties from road accidents reached 18,287 in 2010, according ...

A TAXPAYER-FUNDED development project is mired in controversy after the Cambodian government launched a crackdown against land rights organisations critical of the compulsory resettlement of families. The Cambodian government has cautioned a small group of foreign organisations against stirring up unrest among those being forced off ...

VISA, Mastercard, Dell and Cisco Systems have been added to a growing list of US companies looking to enter the Cambodian market, according to Frances Zwenig, counsellor of the US-ASEAN Business Council. The financial services and information technology companies joined GE, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson ...

Weak enforcement of mining laws excludes local communities from the decision-making process and smudges the revenue transparency, said George Boden, a campaigner at watchdog group Global Witness. Weak enforcement of mining laws excludes local communities from the decision-making process and smudges the revenue transparency, said ...

Democrat MP for Surat Thani Suthep Thaugsuban denies he held secret talks with Cambodian officials about oil and gas interests in the overlapping marine area during the tenure of the Democrat-led government. Mr Suthep, a former deputy prime minister, conceded yesterday he met Cambodian Deputy Prime ...

Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court has extended a deadline for 52 villagers embroiled in a long-standing land dispute with a development company owned by the wife of Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem to pay court fees, a court official and rights workers said ...

Poor sanitation costs Cambodia $450 million a year due to health costs resulting from water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, according to a new report by the UN Environment Program. The report follows data released last week by the World Bank that found that 75 percent ...

Cambodia’s progress has been slow toward achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal of increasing rural access to sanitation to 30 percent by 2015, up from 8.6 percent in 1996, the World Bank said in a report released Wednesday. The World Bank report said that rural ...

Energy planners are pushing the revival of talks with Cambodia on the oil-rich overlapping claims area (OCA) between the two countries to ensure energy security. They also urge all parties not to turn it into a political issue so that the talks stand a chance ...

NGO Forum confirmed yesterday it had received a “warning letter” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over its advocacy on behalf of communities affected by a railway rehabilitation project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and AusAID. The warning to the umbrella group of 88 ...

Cambodia agreed to acquire Chinese-made Z-9 helicopters for US$195 million in one of 26 memorandums of understanding agreed by the two countries on Saturday. Cooperation was pledged in sectors such as energy, mining, agriculture and road construction, as well as defense spending and aid. The ...

A simmering land dispute in Kratie province’s Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary flared up Friday as hundreds of desperate villagers blocked National Road 76A for four hours in an effort to prevent the clearing of their homes and farms by a rubber company, villagers and human rights ...

Officials in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district said yesterday that all transportation of sand across the old and new Preah Monivong bridges has been banned for the duration of the rainy season to protect the road surface and avoid accidents. According to a City Hall announcement ...

Hundreds of families at Boeung Kak lake would receive land titles next week, Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema announced yesterday, but one village has been excluded from the deal that all but ends Phnom Penh’s highest-profile land dispute. At a meeting with about 500 villagers ...

The Foreign Affairs Ministry met with to non-governmental groups yesterday and accused them of inciting families to oppose the rehabilitation of the Cambodian rail system, ordering the  NGOs to “readjust” their workForeign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said his ministry invited Bridges Across Borders Cambodia and ...

Authorities are planning upgrades to effectively double the capacity of boats travelling from Phnom Penh Autonomous Port to Vietnam, according to port Director General Hei Bavy. A 2009 agreement with Vietnam authorities allows ships travelling down the Mekong from Cambodia to offload at Cai Mep ...

Cambodia on July 28th hosted the 3rd Greater Mekong Sub- Region Environment Ministers to look forward to sustainable economic development in the region and to talk about current projects to reduce harm for regions and also to minimize several environmental challenges affecting natural resources, forest and ...