News

Cambodia’s total foreign reserves jumped to US$3 billion in the first half of 2011, up from $2.7 billion at the end of last year, according to the National Bank of Cambodia. The reserves help to bolster the Kingdom’s financial standing, which in turn draws investor interest ...

Winning text messages in hand, about 25 angry Metfone customers yesterday gathered at the telecom’s head office on Mao Tse Tung Boulevard to demand the new iPhones they were promised. Each of the customers had paid US$0.30 to enter a Metfone-sponsored contest and received a text ...

Roughly 100 villagers were allegedly threatened by soldiers brandishing AK-47s yesterday, while attempting to block a company from bulldozing their farms in Kratie province’s Snuol district. Soun Vicheka, a representative of 136 families in Snuol commune’s Krasaing village, said villagers formed a human chain to prevent  Horizon ...

New policies in agriculture, real estate and finance led the Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday to keep its outlook on Cambodia’s economic growth this year at an estimated 6.8 percent. The announcement comes even as the World Bank and the government have reduced their expectations, projecting ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will officially open the Chinese-made Kamchay dam in Kampot province today, the largest hydropower dam to date to operate in Cambodia and capable of supplying an extra 193.2 megawatts of energy. Environmental and human rights groups yesterday criticized the dam’s builder and ...

More than 250 villagers blocked National Road 48 yesterday in Koh Kong province while protesting against their eviction from their Kiri Sakor district homes, slowing traffic for more than eight hours, officials said Prom Sann, a representative for the villagers, said the protesters represented 250 families ...

The water and environment ministers of the four Mekong River Commission (MRC) countries are scheduled to meet in Siem Reap today and tomorrow to reach a key decision on the future – some say the survival – of the Mekong River. The ministers – from Cambodia, ...

Foreign tourist arrivals in the Kingdom increased by more than 15 per cent between January and October compared to the same period in 2010, Ministry of Tourism data showed. Officials attributed the arrival of 2.3 million foriegn visitors during the first 10 months of the year ...

An ethanol plant planned for Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province would push local production of the crop, as well as decreased reliance on foreign markets, officials and cassava farmers said yesterday. Construction on the joint venture between a Chinese firm and Cambodia’s National Company for Development will ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged provincial governors to investigate the deaths of the about 250 people who died during the flooding disaster this year in order to develop a strategy to reduce deaths from flooding. If officials could identify the factors that caused the deaths ...

The owner of a fishing lot in Kampong Cham province, whose bid for his lot was cancelled more than a week ago, has been attempting to keep villagers from fishing the area he previously laid claim to by destroying their equipment and sinking their boats. On ...

A domestic migrant worker who returned to Cambodia on Saturday yesterday recounted two years of alleged physical abuse by her employer in Malaysia while she fulfilled a contract for a recruitment firm based in the capital. At a press conference held by Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker ...

Officials were mum yesterday about the proposed construction of an oil refinery by a Chinese firm in Preah Sihanouk and Kampot provinces, and provincial authorities said the company had not yet been granted any land for the proposed project. Ter Chimnarith, deputy director of Kampot province’s ...

Villagers accused of illegally occupying state land in Kompong Thom province protested outside Santuk district hall yesterday to ask for land titles, residents and authorities said. Sue Nhaunh, a villager and representative of 160 families in Kraya commune, said that more than 100 residents had gathered ...

The Senate yesterday spent just 90 minutes ratifying the record $2.6 billion budget law for 2012, which will allow the government to borrow up to $1.1 billion from foreign lenders, according to a Senate statement ...

Hundreds of people whose land has been swallowed by a giant Chinese tourism project on the coast of Koh Kong province will attempt to demonstrate their grievances today by blocking national roads 4 and 48, villagers and human rights workers said Protesters have been resisting China’s ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has not made public the last two quarterly reports on the impact of resettling families who are being evicted for a $142 million railway rehabilitation project. The reports, which are required under an ADM loan agreement with the government, haven’t been ...

Cash transfers to the poor and public works programs for the unemployed are spelled out in a new five-year plan the government launched yesterday in a bid to expand the country’s threadbare social welfare programs. Though full of ambitious targets and budgets, the ‘National Social Protection ...

Shipment through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by more than 28 per cent in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing a government target for 2011. About 73,760 shipping containers passed through the port between January and November, data shows, up from 62,256 containers ...

Construction on a US$2 billion oil refining plant, the Kingdom’s first, will start in April, according to officials close to the project. The plant, which will be built on 365 hectares across Kampot and Sihanoukville provinces and is expected to be completed in 2014, is a ...

The Kampong Chhnang provincial labour department has agreed to mediate an ongoing dispute between workers at a garment factory in the province and their employer over alleged violations of the Labour Law. Pov Sitha, director of the provincial labour department, said workers at the M&V International ...

More than 100 workers from Cambo Handsome One garment factory gathered outside the home of Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday and Saturday, after urging him on Thursday to intervene in a dispute with the factory’s Korean owners. The move followed an appeal to the Ministry ...

An environmental group yesterday criticized Thailand’s announcement last week that it would not oppose Laos’ proposal to build the first Lower Mekong dam at the upcoming Mekong River Commission (MRC) meeting, as long as Laos addresses the dam’s environmental impacts. Water and environment ministers from Cambodia, ...

At least 20 Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand have had their passports confiscated by a Thai recruitment agency, while another 10 have gone missing after they fled the same agency fearing they would be trafficked to work on Thai fishing vessels, Human Rights Watch and ...