News

Cambodia is mulling over a nuclear power option to feed its anemic energy sector, although private sector pundits called the rough plan a dream – a dangerous one at that. The government plans to use atomic energy in the future as oil, coal and biomass power ...

Oil imports to Cambodia in the first half of the year increased 22 percent to nearly 1 million tons compared to the same period last year, according to figures obtained yesterday from the Ministry of Commerce. According to the data, Cambodia imported 922,860 tons of gas ...

Hattha Kaksekar Ltd, a local microfinance institution, has invested almost US$2 million in a new ATM network, the company announced yesterday. Hattha Kaksekar now has around $32 million in deposits and will become the first financial institution to use SmartVista, an automated ATM process which also ...

The Phnom Penh Municipality has begun construction work on a road skirting the area formerly taken up by the Boeng Kak lake, according to a statement posted on the city’s website. On Monday, the municipality held an inauguration ceremony for construction of a 615-meter concrete road ...

Police in Battambang arrested six villagers embroiled in a land dispute with a local businessman on Wednesday after 10 other villagers accused them of defrauding families in the area, deputy provincial governor Uy Ry said yesterday. However, villagers and rights workers in Kors Kralor district said ...

“I trust the Cambodian doctors with a simple problem. But if it’s a serious illness, and I need an operation or something, I don’t really trust them,” said Ly Molina, 31, a businesswoman from Phnom Penh. Ms. Molina spoke as she waited for a bus to ...

More than 100 villagers protested in front of Banan district hall in Battambang province yesterday, demanding the release of six villagers who were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly accepting money to illegally divide state land. The six suspects have been accused of advertising land and then ...

Villagers from Svay Rieng province’s Krasaing commune have vowed to continue their protests to preserve a patch of community forest earmarked for clearing, despite receiving an official warning yesterday. Residents said it would affect over 2,700 people. ...

The World Bank has blacklisted an arm of the company that carried out a much-criticised study into the Xayaburi hydro dam project, it has confirmed. According to the bank’s website, Pöyry Management Consulting Oy Finland has been banned from conducting business with the bank for three ...

Hattha Kaksekar Limited, one of the country’s largest microfinance institutions (MFIs), is in talks to become a commercial bank by 2014, an official at the micro-lender said yesterday. The move, if successful, will be in line with the Central Bank’s policy to support MFIs in diversifying ...

In the first six months of the year, 26 Cambodians have been shot dead by the Thai military while illegally logging along the border, nearly double the number killed in all of 2011. “According to the Cambodian-Thai Relations Bureau documents for the semester, there were 26 ...

Little more than a week after garment workers were granted a US$10 monthly increase in allowances and bonuses, thousands of workers at a number of factories joined strikes with a clear message yesterday: they need more. Workers rallied outside factory gates and some marched to the ...

The number of Cambodian workers passing through Poipet international checkpoint to work in Thailand decreased by 10 percent during the first six months of the year compared to 2011, an immigration police officer said yesterday. Leak Romnea, chief of administration of Banteay Meanchey province’s Poipet immigration ...

The number of agricultural tractors and power-trailers imported to Cambodia through the Poipet International Checkpoint in Banteay Meanchey province has decreased by 72 percent in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period last year, the provincial commerce department said. Thong Thyna, ...

The ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) 10 + 1 Session with 10 ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners, namely, Australia, Canada, China, the European Union (EU), India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America were held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 11 July 2012. They focused on cooperation ...

About 2,000 kilograms of Kran-houng luxury timber worth tens of thousands of dollars and a Toyota Camry car were seized by authorities in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district on Wednesday, military police said yesterday. ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district were arrested Tuesday in connection with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, a forestry official said yesterday. Veal Veng district forestry chief Thorn Bunthet said that Kuy Van, 55, and Leng Chhoeuk, 50, were arrested ...

Cambodia will push to finalise a rice-exporting bloc with four other regional countries by the end of the year in a bid to become the world’s “food basket”, according to the Ministry of Commerce. The group of countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar – ...

Following the release of the country’s first nationwide economic census earlier this year, the government is now planning to carry out a similar census dedicated to the agriculture sector, a government official said yesterday. Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun announced the government’s intention to carry out ...

Real estate developments covered in green tarp have sprung up across the capital’s Boeung Kang Kong commune, and housing units are filling before the projects are finished, insiders said. The value of construction approvals in Phnom Penh jumped by 557.5 per cent in March to US$150.5 ...

The number of condominiums in Phnom Penh has increased 22 percent to 2,578 units since the beginning of the year, according to data released yesterday by Asia Real Estate Cambodia. The firm said that the majority of the new units came from the completion of 10 ...

The number of visitors to Cambodia through its two main airports increased 19.7 percent to more than 1 million people in the first half of the year, compared to the same period last year, figures released by Cambodia Airports show. Between January and June, 1,028,285 passengers ...

Cambodian farmers often turn to pesticides when trying to stop insects from destroying crops, but the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (Cedac) has come up with a better idea: frogs. “Frogs are important to protect rice plants from damage by insects, especially during ...

As criticism continues to mount over the arrest of outspoken Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando, a government spokesman shot back yesterday, accusing NGOs of undermining the country’s rule of law. “NGOs are not a judge and [the] rule of law reflects from the people,” said ...