News

Authorities in Tbong Khmum province seized two trucks that were about to break the government’s ban on timber exports to Vietnam by carting wood across the border for a company owned by business mogul Kith Meng. ...

Cambodia’s top election body will take legal action against groups that conduct or publish opinion polls in the two weeks leading up to June 4 commune elections, its spokesman said on Sunday, warning that the surveys could lead to “social instability.” ...

The Tax Department has announced a one-month extension to its traditional March 31 deadline for companies to submit their annual corporate tax filings – an unprecedented last-minute move that some legal experts argue could be sending the wrong message to taxpayers. ...

The steep increase in Angkor Wat ticket prices on February 1 did not discourage tourists from visiting the country’s chief tourist draw, as some feared, but it also did not reap any significant material gains for the government coffers, new data shows. ...

An illegal logger lost a foot to an anti-personnel mine in Preah Vihear province near the border with Thailand on Saturday while searching for rosewood. ...

After claiming for weeks that a controversial party slogan was not actually official, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party decided to remove the phrase from its official party platform yesterday in an attempt at “reconciliation”. ...

The government should increase the annual budget of communes by $100,000 to increase the quality of life for ordinary Cambodians, an analyst has told VOA Khmer. ...

According to the report, the number of people living in rural areas who had access to clean water increased from half in 2015 to 53 percent in 2016, while access to sanitation, such as proper toilets, increased nearly 10 percent to 56 percent. ...

The state-owned enterprise that operates Cambodia’s only deep-sea port is aiming to raise $27 million by floating a 25 percent stake on the Kingdom’s stock market, a company executive said yesterday. ...

The banana is Cambodia’s national fruit and makes an excellent after-meal dessert. But its popularity extends further than just being a sweet fruit. Due to its affordable price, it’s also food for the poor and can be used regularly as offerings to the spirits or ...

The European Union is expected to enter Kampong Speu palm sugar into its registry of protected geographical indicators (GI) by July following a push by the Cambodian government to protect the specialty food product in one of its biggest markets, a Ministry of Commerce official ...

The Environment Ministry is studying water samples from Preah Vihear province to find out what has been killing thousands of fish in the Stung Sen River, where villagers are reportedly blaming a sugarcane plantation. ...

The Japanese ambassador is set to sign a new aid package today pledging about $140 million worth of support for various projects, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ...

About 30 cart pullers at the Poipet International Border Checkpoint staged an hour-long protest yesterday demanding that Thai customs officials remove transit fees that have been in effect for about one month.   ...

Opposition lawmakers yesterday left a meeting at the Interior Ministry exasperated, as officials from the latter continued to deem the presidency of their leader, Kem Sokha, and the vice presidency of three senior lawmakers, illegitimate, but offered no clear path to a resolution. ...

Doctor Beat Richner, the prominent Swiss-born doctor credited with resurrecting the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals – which have treated millions of patients free of charge since 1992 – stepped down from his more than two-decade role of managing the hospitals, citing a serious illness. ...

The portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister Bin Chhin has grown again after he was handed a handful of new jobs on Tuesday, including advising the prime minister on anti-corruption efforts and overseeing the Council of Jurists and “one-window” service for foreign investors. ...

Passengers using the Phnom Penh city bus service will now have a choice of buying electronic tickets through Wing (Cambodia) Limited Specialized Bank – the kingdom’s leading mobile banking services provider. ...

The trade volume between Cambodia and the United States in 2016 reached about $3 billion, while nearly 240,000 American tourists visited the kingdom. Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry told reporters yesterday after a meeting between Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn and Mom Rady, a Democratic member ...

Members of the prime minister’s anti-logging task force who had been looking into officials’alleged collusion with Vietnamese timber smugglers in Mondulkiri has ended its 10-day investigation. ...

Five Cambodians expelled from the U.S. arrived in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said, as Cambodia continued to call for revisions to the 2002 agreement with the U.S. that allowed their deportation. ...

About $170,000 remains to be found for a coalition of watchdogs and civil society observers known as the “situation room” to successfully monitor all of Cambodia’s 2017 commune elections for irregularities. ...

Chinese and ASEAN representatives are meeting in Siem Reap to begin hammering out a code of conduct for the highly contested South China Sea. ...

Executives at Singapore-listed energy firm KrisEnergy Ltd say they have settled terms with the Cambodian government and are ready to sign a long-awaited production-sharing agreement that would pave the way for the first-ever extraction of petroleum from Cambodian territorial waters. ...