The Phnom Penh Post

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will provide a $50 million syndicated loan to Acleda Bank to boost lending to small and medium enterprises, of which at least half will support women-owned enterprises, it said yesterday. ...

The number of international tourists visiting Siem Reap fell 9 per cent last year compared with 2014, largely on a decline in European visitor arrivals, a tourism official said yesterday. ...

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice has become the second of that nation’s ministries to deny it is working with Cambodia’s ambassador to the country, Suth Dina, to clamp down on illegal migrants and political dissent. ...

A Cambodian-American political scientist has proposed a novel way to tackle corruption in the Kingdom: force bribe-taking bureaucrats to compete with each other. ...

Phnom Penh City Hall plans to replace the controversial contractor in charge of collecting parking and stall fees from markets around the city, according to a letter from the Council of Ministers posted on social media yesterday. ...

Australian banking giant ANZ has come under fire for its response to a scandal over its financing of a sugar plantation previously linked to forced evictions and child labour in Kampong Speu province. ...

Thai oil company PTT is looking to expand its retail liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business into Cambodia and other Asian markets, a company executive said yesterday. ...

Two men have been arrested over, and a military official implicated in, illegal logging that took place at the protected Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary last week. ...

A boycott of the Capitol Bus Company organised by former drivers and their supporters is picking up steam online after a brutal beatdown took place at a protest last week. ...

The recently created nationwide anti-logging commission seized 300 logs of illegal timber at a sawmill near a Vietnamese graveyard in Stung Treng province on Friday. ...

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith took to Facebook on Saturday to remind drivers of vehicles with illegal “press” licence plates that “it will not be a fine, but prison” if police catch them. ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has urged nervous Cambodian vendors to reopen their shops at a market in Thailand across the border from Poipet town after a counterfeits bust by Thai authorities resulted in a riot and arrests earlier this month. ...

Cambodia’s civil servants and security forces must be politically neutral, and will be if the Cambodia National Rescue Party takes power after the 2018 election, acting opposition leader Kem Sokha told supporters in Banteay Meanchey on Saturday. ...

As parties prepare for Case 002/01 appeal hearings, set to resume on Tuesday, a new report by the Open Society Justice Initiative examines the legacy of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, identifying political interference and insufficient outreach as the court’s primary shortcomings. ...

As Prime Minister Hun Sen attends the US-ASEAN Summit in California today, government officials are in the midst of ongoing negotiations with their American counterparts to formulate a trade and investment agreement, which analysts say could be a stepping stone towards one day joining the ...

Twenty female garment workers at Evergreen Apparel factory in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district fainted yesterday because of toilet fumes funnelled through the ventilation system, though heat stress and heavy workloads were also possible factors. ...

Cambodia and Saudi Arabia on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding to begin work on opening a pipeline for Cambodians to work in the gulf nation, which has been routinely criticised for failing to protect migrant domestic workers from abysmal treatment and slave-like conditions. ...

Acleda Bank, Cambodia’s largest bank, is morphing its existing training centre into a full-fledged educational institution, after obtaining a licence last month. The new institute will look to provide bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration, with majors in finance and banking. The Post’s Sorn ...

Less than a month after the government announced that more than 170 Montagnard asylum seek­ers would have their refugee applications processed, an Interior Min­istry spokesman said on Wednesday that the group had not met the criteria for refugee status and would be returned to Vietnam. ...

Government rangers, paid to protect the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary, allow loggers to process and transport illegally felled timber in exchange for bribes, an NGO alleged yesterday after conducting an undercover operation in the protected forest. ...

A fire burned through 45 hectares of sugarcane plantation belonging to three companies in Svay Rieng province’s Svay Tiep district on Tuesday, with one company representative suspecting that the fire was intentionally set. ...

Amid fears of a potential reprise of anti-opposition violence that flared in October, a US Embassy spokesman yesterday called on the government “to ensure that no one is threatened, punished, or harmed in Cambodia” if a planned anti-Hun Sen rally takes place as scheduled next ...

An Australian mining firm exploring a significant copper and gold deposit in northern Cambodia has reached an agreement with the tenement’s former owner to amend the terms of its 2013 acquisition of the project, it said this week. ...

The government said yesterday it would postpone bidding on two vacated offshore oil blocks given the low global levels of investment flowing into petroleum exploration activities. ...