The Cambodia Daily

The Minister for Agriculture yesterday appealed to buyers to address the shortage of pigs in Phnom Penh by applying for licenses that would allow them to import more livestock from neighbouring countries. An industry representative and a market expert, however, warned of the potential fallout that ...

Overseas labor recruitment agencies that send maids to Malaysia are planning to lay off about 1,000 staff members as they prepare to close down many pre-departure training centers following a growing scandal around abuses and criminal activity during the recruitment, training and sending of maids. An ...

The Agriculture Ministry is preparing to distribute rice seedlings in an effort to replace more than 220,000 hectares of rice paddy that has been destroyed by flooding. However, by the time floodwaters recede, there won’t be enough time left in the rainy season to replant ...

Cambodian debt to China now stands at $4 billion, 35 percent of last year’s gross domestic product and more than half of the country’s total outstanding debt to foreign donors, according to a senior government official. The amount of money Cambodia owes China has been growing ...

The government and the US Embassy yesterday signed off on half the nearly $65 million the US is giving Cambodia in aid this year, more than two months after Cambodia cancelled a major meeting with its foreign donors that was scheduled for November. Held roughly every ...

Experts yesterday urged the Ministry of Labor to extend the latest draft of a forthcoming trade union law to include civil servants, who are currently shut out of the law in contravention of international conventions Rong Chhun, president of both the Cambodian Confederation of Unions and ...

Some 100 former residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community yesterday delivered petitions to 10 embassies and the offices of the World Bank and European Union asking them to pressure the government into increasing the compensation for their evictions. Sam Vanna, a representative of the residents, ...

With ongoing floods causing an unprecedented $521 million in estimated damages, economists warn that poor farmers are being the hardest hit. The latest government estimate marks a roughly threefold increase from an earlier prediction of more than $161 million, which was the cost of the ...

Police said they freed one recruit from a Phnom Penh recruitment agency this weekend and were seeking to prosecute its director, adding that they were doing the same for the director of the SKMM recruitment agency, where 78 recruits were freed last week. The court ...

Reactions in Malaysian media to Cambodia’s Oct 15 ban on sending maids to Malaysia contain a mix of shame, indignation and a need to stress that most employers in Malaysia do not mistreat foreign domestic workers. “There are very few bad apples among us,” said an ...

French engineering firm Systra is underway with a feasibility study to build a tramway from Phnom Penh International Airport to the Royal Railway Station, Governor Kep Chuktema said on Friday. The agreement to study a tramway was first made between Systra and City Hall in July ...

With few reforms made in the past year, Cambodia ranked 138th out of 181 countries for the second consecutive year in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report released yesterday, a ranking that put it behind countries such as Syria and Sudan. The report ranks countries based ...

NGO Friends International launched a government-backed campaign yesterday to discourage visitors from participating in “orphanage tourism” in an effort to protect children from being exploited, organizers said yesterday Citing an unreleased report by Unicef and the Ministry of Social Affairs, James Sutherland, international communications coordinator for ...

Thirteen construction workers have filed a complaint against the Banteay Meanchey provincial branch of T&P Co Ltd – the recruitment agency at the center of allegations involving illegal detainment of trainees – officials said yesterday. The workers, who had previously worked illegally as construction workers in ...

Following a dip in 2009, new land disputes increased last year by more than 50 percent to 28, while the total number of ongoing cases is now 282, according to a report released yesterday by the NGO Forum. Culled from media and field reports, each recorded ...

The Minister of Labor yesterday defended his ministry’s much-criticized interpretation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ban on sending maids to Malaysia, after it allowed about 3,000 young women to still be sent abroad despite the serious risk of abuse and exploitation. Minister of Labor Vong Sauth ...

A new lobster-breeding program could generate up to $600 million in revenues over the next five years, according to Nao Thuok, director of the Fisheries Administration at the Ministry of Agriculture Mr Thuok first mentioned the new breeding program at a meeting in Phnom Penh hosted ...

Industrial pollution ‘hot-spots’ have been identified in waterways in Phnom Penh, Kandal and Kompong Cham provinces following a five-month period of research as part of a UN-backed effort to encourage companies to adopt cleaner practices. The hot spots – defined as a source of pollution where ...

Residents involved in a long-running land dispute in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district have been prevented from registering to vote in next year’s commune elections, village representatives said yesterday. The village, Oambel, is not recognized by authorities as it forms part of a conservation area ...

Cambodia is unlikely to meet even half of its 2015 goal to export 1 million tons of milled rice unless export and production costs are greatly reduced and more private investment goes toward the agriculture sector, according to a new World Bank study obtained Monday. The ...

Despite signs that demand is starting to come back to the real estate sector, an oversupply in the market has kept prices for commercial and residential properties in Phnom Penh flat over the past 12 months, according to data from Bonna Realty Group. Prices for commercial ...

Seventy-one out of 89 National Assembly lawmakers yesterday voted to approve the construction of a coal power plant in Preah Sihanouk province by a company run by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin and his daughter, and licensed the plant to sell electricity to Electricite du ...

As tens of thousands of families continue to struggle with ongoing flooding, delays are still hampering the provision of overseas aid, with some donors holding back on distributing funds. China flew in two planes, laden with supplies worth $8 million, over the weekend and the South ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has summoned two residents of the Boeng Kak lake community to appear for questioning today and Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit filed against them by City Hall, a court official said yesterday. The families of the accused have been left out of ...