Land Concessions Now at 1.2 Million Hectares, Official Says
The total number of land concessions offered by the government to private agro-industrial firms hit 1.19 million hectares, or 13.5 percent of Cambodia’s total land mass, a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The government figure undermines figures released late last year by rights groups Adhoc and Licadho, which said the actual number of hectares given to firms is nearly twice as much. Ith Nody, undersecretary of state at the ministry, announced the figure during a speech at the Ministry of Land Management’s annual meeting and said that concessions have been granted to 118 agro-industry firms across 17 provinces. He also said that the number would have been higher, but that an additional 51 firms that were granted a total of 479,000 hectares in concessions have since had their land reclaimed due to a failure to comply with their contracts. …
