News

The National Bank of Cambodia was pushing microfinance institutions to look to domestic banks for funding in an industry heavily reliant on foreign loans, experts said yesterday. Although the NBC is seeking to foster healthier relationships between MFIs and the Kingdom’s commercial banks, a dearth of ...

Mount Borkor Resort, the highest location in Cambodia, located near the coastline, will be inaugurated to welcome tourists from all destinations by the end of 2011, while the road climbing to the plateau’s peak and other tourism structures are about to be completed So far, the ...

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index 2011-2012 ranked the Philippines 75th out of 142 economies, up from 85th out of 139 in the 2010-2011 report. Last year’s placing marked a reversal of 2009’s slide to 87th in a list of 133, from 71st ...

Cambodia expects to almost double the amount of land used to cultivate rubber between now and 2020, a move that rights groups say could result in more evictions across Cambodia. Ly Phalla, director general of General Directorate of Rubber Plantations, said yesterday that there are ...

Multiple government ministries and the International Labor organization will form a group to investigate the mass fainting that have plagued Cambodia’s garment industry over the past several months, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said yesterday. There have been at least 15 mass fainting since the beginning ...

Authorities in Kompong Thom province yesterday forced a pagoda to withdraw its invitation to host a workshop about forest protection, continuing their pressure on two NGOs that provide community legal education in the province, a monk and NGO worker said. Chin Neth, chief monk at ...

Citing a government investigation that revealed factories colluding with unlicensed subcontractors to use unethical labor sources including prisoners, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh has asked the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia to urge adherence to labor law. Rehabilitation programs meant to teach vocational skills such ...

A mining company owned by the wife of RCAF Major General Nim Meng has been ordered by the government to pay fines and unpaid taxes after the firm was found to have illegally exported minerals from Cambodia, a report released yesterday by the Cambodian Investment ...

Cambodia approved $1.2 billion in investments from China in the first six months of the year, a 104 percent increase in the amount of Chinese money set to flood into the economy compared to the same period last year, the Cambodian Investment Board said. The ...

In an attempt to foster tourism on the Cambodia-Thai border, tourism officials this week visited the Cham Yeam border crossing in Koh Kong province. Warming relations with Thailand’s newly elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra are expected to improve cross-border tourism, which deteriorated after border clashes ...

Cambodian mobile operators added more than 1 million new subscribers between May and July, with Smart Mobile seeing the largest percentage increase for the period, according to Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications figures obtained by the Post. Marc Einstein, a Tokyo-based analyst at research and ...

A delegation of more than 30 Japanese businesspeople yesterday met with the Council for the Development of Cambodia to discuss investment opportunities in the Kingdom, after seeing what they said were vast improvements in domestic legal and tax regulations.  However, no definite decisions had yet ...

Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh yesterday called on the US to allow duty-free entry for Cambodian exports, a benefit the Kingdom already enjoyed with the European Union. The introduction of preferential tax treatment from the US would result in the Kingdom’s share of that country’s ...

The government has dropped controversial criminal penalties targeting unionists in its latest draft of the union law, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said yesterday. Addressing a meeting of representatives of international apparel brands, including Nike, Adidas and PUMA, unions, government officials and the International Labour Organisation, ...

The government yesterday lashed out at a letter sent by opposition lawmakers to the World Bank that urged the bank to increase pressure on the government to end forced evictions, land grabbing and threats against community members involved in land disputes with well-connected companies. Council ...

As prices continue to climb for freshwater lobster, farming of the crustacean in Cambodia is increasing. A kilogram of top-quality lobster sells for about US$30, up from $10 in 2005, according to lobster farmers. The government is seeking to foster new growth in Cambodia’s wild ...

The Phnom Penh Autonomous Port will transfer 75 per cent of its loading capacity to a new location at Kandal  to better handle the increased shipments passing through the capital, according to PPAP officials. The PPAP had received US$68 mill-ion in financing from the Chinese ...

Cambodian government officials have called on the US-ASEAN Business Council to help finalise implementation of the Kingdom’s first e-commerce law by year’s end. However, US-ASEAN Business Council councillor Frances Zwening said Google did not provide an “in-depth response” to the request for assistance, but added ...

During the past four years, Cambodia has seen drastic decreases in rare species of trees due to illegal logging, community research from the National Resource Protection Group indicates. If continued unabated, illegal logging threatens to wholly deplete Cambodia’s rare tree species, Chut Wutty said. Cambodia’s ...

More than 300 striking workers at Jie Wei garment factory in the capital’s Dangkor district will return to work today after successful negotiations yesterday settled a labour dispute that led to a three-day strike last week. Factory management agreed to nine of the 11 demands ...

The biggest names in the apparel industry, including Nike, Puma and Gap, would meet today with officials from the Ministry of Labour to discuss issues plaguing the Cambodian garment manufacturing industry, such as mass fainting and contractual disputes, labour activists said yesterday.  Dave Welsh, country ...

The Asian Development Bank said yesterday problems with a railway rehabilitation project – funded by the bank and AusAID – identified by a local NGO that was suspended by the government last month “may require further investigation or analysis”. In July, STT released a report ...

Road accidents claimed the lives of 1,816 people in 2010, a slight increase from the 1,717 killed in 2009, according to a report by the Cambodia Road Crash and Victim Information System. The total number of casualties from road accidents reached 18,287 in 2010, according ...

Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summoned for questioning two rights group activists and a journalist over charges that they incited ethnic minority villagers in Lumphat district to violence in 2009, a court official said yesterday. The case against the three men – Adhoc provincial coordinator Pen ...