The Phnom Penh Post
Japanese investors looking to Cambodia
Prime Minister Hun Sen received a visiting delegation of Japanese investors on Friday, according to the national news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse. Led by Fujino Takashi from the Keidanren Japan Business Federation and a member of the Board of Directors at Asahi Glass, the delegation’s visit ...
Tobacco tax increase likely
Increasing the tobacco retail tax — one of the world’s lowest at 10 per cent of unit price for domestically produced cigarettes — would deter smokers and increase government revenue while having minimal effect on tobacco producers, Ayda Yurekli, co-ordinator for the World Health Organization’s ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091858767/National-news/tobacco-tax-increase-likely.html
Cambodians protest Xayaburi in Bangkok
Cambodians were among anti-Xayaburi dam protesters who demonstrated outside Thai Parliament in Bangkok yesterday, urging Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to halt construction and tear up an agreement to buy the proposed dam’s power. A group of Cambodians travelled to Bangkok especially to raise their concerns about ...
A national car for Cambodia
UK-based BIW automotive company on Friday signed a US$2 billion join venture investment with ACICA Automotive (Cambodia) to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province for a Cambodian-made vehicle within the next three years. The agreement was made between BIW’s director Robin Bowyer and ACICA’s Group ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091758751/Business/a-national-car-for-cambodia.html
R'Kiri duo charged in death of reporter
A Ratanakkiri provincial court has charged a married couple with premeditated murder in the grisly killing of Vorakchun Khmer newspaper reporter Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found axed to death in the back of a car last week. The suspects, An Bunheng and his wife, ...
Border provinces request more energy from Thailand
Thailand had been asked to supply more electricity to those Cambodian provinces close to the shared border, according to officials. Suy Sem, Cambodian minister of Industry, Mine and Energy, talked to reporters after a bilateral meeting with his counterpart, Thai Minister Arak Chonlatanon last week, a ...
A new push for tourism cooperation
With the aim of attracting 25 million international visitors from 2013 to 2015 to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CVLM) the respective ministers of tourism pushed for greater cooperation in developing the region’s tourism sector on Friday, according to the Vietnamese Communist Party official news ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091758749/Business/new-push-for-tourism-cooperation.html
Journo, forest official allegedly beat logger
A local journalist and a forestry official were arrested by military police in Kratie province’s Sambo district on Friday night for allegedly discharging a weapon into the air and beating a man with a boat oar in an extortion bid gone awry. According to district military ...
Bandith trial to begin soon
The long-awaited trial of former Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith – accused of shooting three garment workers at a protest in February – could begin within the next week, a Svay Rieng Provincial Court official said yesterday. Investigating judge Pich Chhert said the inquiry into the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091758746/National-news/bandith-trial-to-begin-soon.html
Eviction fears grow at lake
Villagers living in raised houses on the capital’s Boeung Tumpun lake fear their eviction is on the horizon as sand pumping increases at the site, they said yesterday. In recent months, heavy machinery has been at work at the Boeung Tumpun site. Sand pumping has ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091758736/National-news/eviction-fears-grow-at-lake.html
Timber Firm's workers back
Employee at timber company Angkor Flywood in Kampong Cham province will return to work today after their bosses agreed yesterday to all but one of their demands: an increase in wages. Sok Kin, vice president of the Building and Word Workers Trade Union Federation of Cambodia ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091758737/National-news/timber-firms-workers-back.html
Vietnam trade fair to boost two economies
In an effort to stimulate US$5 billion in trade between Cambodia and Vietnam by 2015, the Vietnamese Trade Fair will be held at the Diamond Island Convention and Exhibition Centre from September 21 to 25. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen and Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan ...
Stringer who reported on logging found dead
A local newspaper stringer who had written about illegal logging was found dead in the back of a car yesterday in Rattanakiri province’s O’Chum district. Hang Serei Oudom, 44, was a stringer for Vorakchun Khmer, or Khmer Hero, newspaper. Police said his body was covered in blood ...
Union President calls for inspectors
The president of the Free Trade Union yesterday sent a letter to the Ministry of Labour’s inspection department to monitor working conditions at M&V factories in Kampong Chhnang province, alleging excessive overtime is causing workers to faint. “They have to work both in day and night ...
Energy issues focus for ASEAN
Prime Minister Hun Sen opened the 30th ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting yesterday in Phnom Penh, where ASEAN officials will focus on ASEAN green energy and develop a plan for ASEAN’s power grid, officials said. Victor Jona, deputy director general of energy of the General Department ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091258643/Business/energy-issues-focus-for-asean.html
B Keila, B Kak continue petitioning
Free of the police resistance that thwarted their march the previous day, about 65 Borei Keila and Boeung Kak community supporters marched to the Ministry of Justice yesterday in another effort to have land dispute activists Tim Sakmony and Yorm Bopha freed from pre-trial detention ...
Trial of the 'secessionist' commences
Throngs of protesters gathered at the Olympic Stadium yesterday, at times straining against a mix of police force barriers and riot shields in their effort to show support for jailed Beehive Radio director Mam Sonando, whose trial was beginning just down the street at Phnom ...
Rat meat on the menu at the Vietnamese border
Eating rat is a common phenomenon over the border in Vietnam, but increasing numbers of Cambodians in nearby villages are adopting rodent cuisine with relish. As many as three tonnes of rats are caught every day in Cambodia and exported to Vietnam to feed a ...
Price of imported raw silk decreases
The price of imported raw silk decreased to US$44 per kilogram even as raw silk production fell off, according to industry insiders. Imported raw silk dropped 12 per cent to $44 per kilogram compared to $50 per kilogram last May. Cambodia Craft Federation CEO Soeng Kemyun, said ...
Come floods or high waters, most MFIs continue to loan
After experiencing decades of floods, Cambodia’s microfinance institutions say they no longer have problems disbursing loans during the rainy season, according to the head of Cambodia’s Microfinance Association (CMA). A survey issued early this year by a coterie of international aid organisations, including Oxfam, Care, PACT ...
Businesswoman calls on government to return land
High-profile Phnom Penh businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary has called on Prime Minister Hun Sen to return 33 hectares of prime land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district to her company, which lost the rights to it when the government claimed the land in July. Sokountheary said she ...
Casino workers have win, but fight goes on
Threats of strike from about 500 employees of the Tropicana Casino in Poipet were quieted yesterday as workers secured a small victory after management agreed to improve worker conditions and enter talks over their sacked union leader. Morm Rithy, president of union Cambodian Tourism and Service ...
Food Prices Remain High
Global food prices remained high in August according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index, maintaining the high level achieved last month as corn prices jumped in the US and rice prices increased in Cambodia. With 213 points in August the food ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091158634/Business/food-prices-remain-high.html
Villain or victim? Protesters divided over Bopha
Imprisoned Yorm Bopha has either been unjustly targeted for her role in Boeung Kak lake eviction protests or is responsible for the vicious beating of two motodops, depending on which protesters’ chants were true yesterday. It was land evictees versus motodops in the capital as two ...