News

The World Trade Organisation today will conclude its first-ever review of Cambodia’s trade policies and practices and issue its concluding remarks. The trade review, which began on November 1, is the first time the Kingdom, which was the first least-developed country to fully accede to the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday added his two cents to the ongoing debate on what Cambodia’s debt to China actually is, declaring it stands at only US$2 billion. At a ground-breaking ceremony marking the beginning of construction on Phnom Penh’s Cambodia-China Friendship Bridge, the premier rejected ...

A logistics firm and two garment manufacturers planned to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange during the second half of 2012, underwriter Phnom Penh Securities said yesterday. The companies are the first known private businesses to confirm their intentions of listing on the Kingdom’s still-dormant bourse. Manufacturing ...

Increased fishing yields due to floods have led to an increase in rental fees for the Kingdom’s fishing lots compared to 2010, according to official data. Revenues from bidding on 52 fishing lots in Phnom Penh and four other provinces increased by US$735,000 year to date, ...

Cambodia has granted Chinese timber company Shengda Wood a 22,600-hectare timber concession in Kratie and Strung Treng provinces, officials said. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange-listed company would export wood from the 70-year concession to supply a depleted market in China, Li Jie, a management official in Sichuan, ...

Labour legislation in Cambodia is so weak and so often ignored that half the Kingdom’s children between the ages of seven and 14 participate in the workforce, the world’s largest federation of unions has told the World Trade Organisation General Council in Geneva. Children, women and ...

The government had set aside 3,000 tonnes of rice seeds to distribute to farmers whose crops were destroyed by flooding and had so far distributed 1,900 tonnes of rice to those affected by the floods in 18 provinces, the National Committee for Disaster Management said ...

Approved investments in Cambodia reached $5.6 billion during the first nine months of the year, a 305 percent increase compared to the same period the year before, according to data from the Council of the Development of Cambodia (CDC). Last year’s approved investments during the same ...

About 200 residents of Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community burned tires and threw rocks at the Prampi Makara district office yesterday, demanding that the district governor solve a long-running housing dispute between them and powerful construction firm Phanimex, which they say has failed to abide ...

The US is scheduled today to sign off on another $20 million in funding for aid projects in Cambodia, according to a US Embassy statement issued yesterday. One project will “strengthen the ability of civil society, the private sector, and the government to address food security ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Malaysia returned abused Cambodian maids, including women who were raped by their employers, to work at maid recruitment agencies in that country, a new report by Human Rights Watch claims. The New York-based rights group also said Cambodian police colluded with labor ...

The total value of approved construction projects in the Kingdom soared 97 per cent year-on-year through September, according to official figures, reaching nearly US$1 billion. The number of projects fell to 1,689 for the first nine months of 2011, down from 1,718 in the same period ...

Cambodia could borrow US$1.1 billion from other countries in 2012, 75 per cent more than this year, to help repair infrastructure damaged in flooding and support efforts to increase rice exports to one million tonnes by 2015, a senior official said yesterday. Cheam Yeap, chairman of ...

Workers at a garment factory that was temporarily shut after more than 200 women collapsed in two mass fainting incidents last week gathered yesterday at the facility in Kampong Speu province for a Buddhist ceremony intended to rid the factory of evil spirits. Pheng Songoun, a ...

Hours after downgrading Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said it had also decided to lower the credit rating for Acleda Bank to B from B+, though it maintained its outlook for the bank as stable. The decision follows a similar decision ...

As reports continue to flood in detailing rampant abuse of Cambodian migrant workers abroad, the Cambodian Migrant Workers’ Association (CMWA) said it would be registering with the Ministry of Interior today as the country’s first migrant workers representative organisation, according to its director. “The idea is ...

More than two weeks after a ban on sending maids to Malaysia began, work on a bilateral agreement that would protect Cambodian maids working in Malaysia has not begun, officials said yesterday. Ho Vuthy, deputy director general at the Ministry of Labor’s department of labor, said ...

More than 2,700 families embroiled in 11 separate long-running land disputes in Kandal province are planning to hold a mass protest to draw attention to the continuing arrests and detention of villagers by the provincial court, villagers said yesterday According to Adhoc’s records, Kandal Provincial Court ...

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating by one notch to B due to the country’s continued inability to diversify its economy and increase government spending. The decision by Standard & Poor’s comes after the agency said in September that constraints ...

Myanmar Airways International (MAI) is slated for a November 2 launch of bi-weekly flights between Phnom Penh and Myanmar’s economic hub and former capital, Yangon, Cambodian Aviation officials said yesterday. The flights – on 162-seat A320 jets – will transfer in Siem Reap before continuing on ...

Two new Asian airlines will begin regular flights to Cambodia this winter in an airlines sector increasingly dominated by regional passengers, a Cambodia Airports official said on Friday. Tiger Airways, a Singapore-based airline, will operate daily A320 flights between Singapore and Phnom Penh and Singapore and ...

Nearly 100 residents from about 50 families in Sihanoukville town’s commune 1 blocked National Road 4 yesterday to protest against a Supreme Court verdict ordering their eviction on Friday in favour of a local official   ...

Insurance companies have operated at a loss through the first nine months of the year, paying out a total of $32.5 million over $20.4 million in generated revenues, according to data released by the Cambodian Reinsurance Company on Friday. Ty Atith, a senior underwriter at the ...

Two new claims of abuse of Cambodian maids employed in Malaysia have emerged since Friday, including one case of a woman who returned home with severe mental trauma following alleged mistreatment by her Malaysian employer, the victims’ families said. Iy Thar, a villager from Kompong Thom ...