Land policy and administration

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have brought almost 70,000 new jobs to the country, according to an Asian Development Bank report released last week. With tax exemptions on production materials, lower profit tax, and renewable leases, the SEZs have drawn foreign-owned factories manufacturing everything from bicycles ...

The government yesterday vowed to finish distributing all land titles currently under consideration by 2020.In a speech, Im Chhun Lim, the minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, said the government was committed to improving land security in Cambodia in its bid to address ...

Phnom Penh’s public housing policy, aimed to provide affordable housing for the middle income class and low income class, is expected to boost the construction sector in Cambodia as an increased population and rapid urbanisation is expected to create a demand of more than a ...

The Kampong Speu Provincial Court has joined the fray in a land battle between Hun Sen’s elder brother and a general attached to RCAF’s infamous Brigade 70, ordering a halt to its clearing.A court officer, joined by 20 local authority officers and several members of ...

The Svay Rieng Provincial Court has sentenced three community activists to five years in jail for clearing trees on state land claimed by several dozen local farmers. ...

A bitter dispute over the development of the main market in Ratanakkiri province’s Banlung City, which has pitted the city’s governor against a well-connected CPP lawmaker, was resolved by the Council of Ministers earlier this month in favor of the complainant, a wealthy businessman who ...

Two villagers released on bail by the Kampot Provincial Court on Wednesday on charges of illegally clearing part of a social land concession for retired soldiers said Thursday they would not stop clearing the plot. ...

Koh Kong’s provincial prosecutor has invited four community representatives to provide statements regarding violence allegedly committed in January during an ongoing land dispute with Chinese company Union Development Group.The invitation was received this week by residents of Prek Smach village in Kiri Sakor district, who ...

Rights group Licadho has called on the government to make available statistics on the full extent of economic land concessions (ELCs) in response to data collected by the organisation over five years. ...

Two villagers jailed earlier this month over a land dispute in Kampot province that authorities blame on League for Democracy Party president Khem Veasna were released on bail Wednesday, hours after Mr. Veasna told the media at a press conference that he had lost contact ...

Community representatives, civil society organisations and opposition members have urged the government for more urgent action to resolve land disputes following the release of annual data showing that all 24 provinces were affected in 2014, with hundreds of cases still unresolved.The call came at yesterday’s ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday warned that a CNRP victory in the 2018 national election would inevitably lead to war when the opposition party starts redistributing land from the rich to the poor, something that opposition leader Sam Rainsy said would only be done ...

Phnom Penh officials announced on Monday that the city had finalized its offer of compensation to 154 families who have spent years protesting their eviction from the Borei Keila neighborhood. ...

Seung Hyung Lee did not know that blocking an excavator with his body would be part of his job description when he came to work in Cambodia. The senior vice-president of developer World City, however, found himself doing just that last week, when construction equipment ...

About 400 students and a few villagers protested in Phnom Penh on Sunday to demand the release of two men arrested last week after a protest over a land dispute in Kampot province, with authorities claiming that the demonstration was organized by a politician who ...

Cambodia’s new industrial development policy calls for more factories and special economic zones, but accomplishing this will be difficult. ...

Companies that transfer their land holdings to another firm in violation of government policy will have their concessions stripped from them, the Agriculture Ministry has said.But the ministry added that in such an event a “partner” firm may be sought to develop the offender’s economic ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al and a group of NGOs on Monday agreed to cooperate to resolve a years long dispute between hundreds of families in Koh Kong province and a Chinese company they accuse of stealing their land. ...

Residents of Koh Rong Island, off the coast of Sihanoukville, have this week called on government officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, to review what they are labelling “abusive activities” by the Royal Group (RG) conglomerate. ...

About 40 members of the Boeung Kak community gathered yesterday to mark the fourth anniversary of a landmark government regulation that provided land to some of those dispossessed by the lake’s filling but left many others out. ...

New houses built for 100 families who were pushed off of their land by the construction of the Sesan Krom II Dam have been slammed as substandard by the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc). ...

The Ministry of Land Management has again accused rights group Licadho of spreading false data that shows that the number of families embroiled in new or intensifying land disputes jumped threefold last year. ...

After about 100 villagers on Sunday burned effigies of officials involved in a land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province that has dragged on for nearly a decade, the provincial governor said the protest was “contrary to the law” and gave authorities a reason to arrest ...

The government has declared leases on plantations will be limited to 50 years, slashing the length of some existing concessions in half, though neither ministry responsible for overseeing the move would confirm the legal basis for doing so.The decision was announced in a press release ...