Social development
The poor
Cambodian textile workers who supply UK clothing stores ‘starving’ and suffering 'mass faintings'
By the time London Fashion Week comes to a close, 58 high-end designers will have shown their collections. Rail-thin models will have walked the runways. Debate will have raged over size zero. In Cambodia, meanwhile, garment workers stitching clothes that supply the UK high street are ...
Planned Mekong dams need environmental assessment
The Cambodian government’s plan to build 20 dams along the Mekong River, with a view to boosting energy security, could harm food security and biodiversity in the region, as well as ignite a regional conflict over sharing of the river’s water, a conference has heard. ...
SciDev.Net News Staff
http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/water/news/planned-mekong-dams-need-environmental-assessment.html
Ecosystems in the Greater Mekong: past trends, current status, possible futures
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan and Guangxi in China) is undergoing unprecedented changes. Many of these are positive, reflecting political stabilization and economic growth following decades of poverty and conflict. But the rate and type of development is ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=ZjY4MTUzZGZkNmQ
Project Aims to Make Subsistence Farms Profitable
BATI DISTRICT, Takeo province – At a farming school here last week, 150 poor agricultural workers gathered to celebrate graduating a two-month training course. The new group of educators will now set out with their newly acquired skills to help transform the country’s poorest rural ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/project-aims-to-make-subsistence-farms-profitable-39081/
Initiative Encourages Private Rural Investment
Representatives from more than 90 Cambodian businesses gathered yesterday at the Council of Ministers building in Phnom Penh to hear about a new initiative that aims to encourage private sector investment in agriculture. The $55.6 million project is an extension of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/initiative-encourages-private-rural-investment-37899/
Prices fluctuate due to poll
As election data trickled in on Sunday evening and a fear set in borne of uncertainty and a beefed-up police presence, demand for basic commodities surged, food prices briefly rose, and some banks saw an expected rise in withdrawals. Sales of rice jumped from their normal ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/prices-fluctuate-due-poll
Cambodia tests 'super rice' to fortify its children
For breakfast, it’s rice. For lunch, it’s rice again, and for dinner – rice. Sometimes, Cambodian Un Koy says, her mother will prepare some beans or carrots, and on very special days even fish or pork. Across Asia, rice is the most widely consumed staple. That’s ...
ADB to loan $55 million to Cambodia's rice sector
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $55 million to help transform the rice sector of Cambodia into a viable commercial industry as well as taking care of the land and water resources. ADB’s Climate-Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development Program―which will run ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=ZjI4NDZjMzFlMmE
Mekong Dams Could Be a Threat to Cambodia’s Food Security
The construction of two hydroelectric dams proposed for the Mekong River would lead to steep declines in the availability of fish-an essential source of protein for Cambodians- potentially threatening food security, according to a new report by the fisheries administration. The study by the administration’s Inland Fisheries ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mekong-dams-could-be-threat-to-cambodias-food-security-32202/
Sugar firm under fire
Asia’s largest sugar company has been accused of torching hundreds of homes, orchestrating the imprisonment of a pregnant activist and using security forces to beat villagers – among a raft of other grave human rights abuses – by communities in Oddar Meanchey province. The allegations levelled ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013060366024/National/sugar-firm-under-fire.html
Cambodian greens see red in upcoming dams
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 ...
http://www.gulf-times.com/environment/231/details/353963/cambodian-greens-see-red-in-upcoming-dams
Vietnam rubber tycoon rejects land grabbing accusations
A Vietnamese rubber tycoon has rejected accusations by Global Witness, a group that campaigns on resource issues, that it was involved in a land grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia. Doan Nguyen Duc, the chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group, told Vietnamese media the information ...
New Kompong Thom Governor Vows to Give Land to Evictees
The newly appointed Kompong Thom provincial governor on Tuesday promised more than 500 families who were forcefully evicted by a Vietnamese rubber plantation more than three years ago that they would be given replacement land to farm on early next month. Security forces evicted villagers from ...
Cambodia’s Economic Opportunity
While significant obstacles remain, the success of the rice sector is a potentially crucial driver in Cambodia’s prosperous and equitable development. Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements recently, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. ...
http://thediplomat.com/2013/05/09/cambodias-economic-opportunity/
Agriculture Contributes To Helping Cambodia’s Economic Growth: PM Hun Sen
“The agriculture sector today is still playing significant role in promoting local production growth, job creation, and contributing to the poverty reduction of the people. At the same time, the agriculture sector will continue the basic role for economic growth and socio-economic development in Cambodia in ...
Cambodia Must Up its Game in Rice Exports
Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements last month, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. Over the last few years, Cambodia has emerged as a major rice exporter in the region, due in large part ...
http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2013/05/01/cambodia-must-up-its-game-in-rice-exports/
World Bank Urged To Review Policies in Places Like Cambodia
The World Bank is under pressure to review some of its policies around the world to ensure that in countries like Cambodia it is not funding the wrong projects. In a discussion at George Washington University this week, panelists said the World Bank is needed for ...
Mondolkiri, Kompong Thom Face Climate Threat
Mondolkiri and Kompong Thom provinces could suffer some of the most extreme effects of climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin region, such as a high incidence of flash floods and droughts by 2050, according to a new study. Analyzing temperature and rainfall from 84 provinces ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mondolkiri-kompong-thom-face-climate-threat-17224/
Animal feed lucrative but demand not being met
The production of animal feed may be lucrative for family-run businesses, but production is failing to meet the local market’s demand, said industry experts. Ros Limhy, National Agriculture adviser for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ Tonle Sap Poverty Reduction and Smallholder Development project, and ...
Millers need greater access to credit: Govt
The Ministry of Commerce and bank officials announced yesterday that they will hold a meeting next month aimed at better facilitating rice millers’ access to credit. The move is part of the Asian Development Bank’s Climate Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development program to address food security ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031161863/Business/millers-need-greater-access-to-credit-govt.html
Cambodia’s Economic Growth Will Help Poverty Reduction
Cambodia economic growth was 7.3 percent in 2012. Agriculture grew by 4.3 percent, crops by 4.9 percent, fisheries by 6.7 percent, industry by 9.2 percent, garment [sector] by 6.9 percent and the service industry by 8.1 percent, said Dr Hang Chuon Naron, Secretary of State ...
Hun Sen Shares Vision of Rubber Plantation Boom
Reporting that the country had achieved better than expected economic growth last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday targeted a rapid expansion of the country’s rubber industry and predicted that almost 1 in 10 Cambodians would soon be working in rubber. “Agriculture continues to play ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-shares-vision-of-rubber-plantation-boom-11253/
'Separatist' farms replaced by RCAF base
A track of land once farmed by 1,000 families in Kratie province — families violently evicted amid claims they were part of a separatist movement — is now home to a military base. Unit 9 Royal Cambodian Armed Forces base, which will be finished later this ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013020661212/National/separatist-farms-replaced-by-rcaf-base.html
Japan Marks 60 Years of Relations With Cambodia
This year marks the 60th anniversary since the start of diplomatic relations between Cambodia and Japan – the country’s largest bilateral donor – and to celebrate, the Japanese Embassy is planning an array of cultural events. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the anniversary, Japanese Ambassador ...