The Phnom Penh Post
Telco regulator to launch
A regulator for Cambodia’s telecommunications industry is expected to launch next month with the hopes of putting in order a sector that has seen little regulation during its short history. Industry insiders have called the move positive but many questioned the body’s ability to rein in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072757654/Business/telco-regulator-to-launch.html
MoU the key to compliance
Amid a spate of garment factory strikes – including one at Tai Yang Enterprises that has lasted more than a month – Cambodia’s Arbitration Council yesterday said it wanted the industry to renew a memorandum of understanding on industrial action that has been in limbo ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072657645/National-news/mou-the-key-to-compliance.html
Rubber price drops as exports increase
Rubber exports increased by more than 5 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2011 as the price decreased more than 28 per cent, according to data received from Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce. The data shows that ...
Cambodia continues to see slow price increase
Food prices drove moderate inflation in June, with experts calling the 1.8 per cent year-on-year increase acceptable. Month on month, inflation rose at about 0.1 per cent, data from the National Institute of Statistics showed. Khin Song, deputy director general at NIS, said the slow rise in ...
Villagers’ homes levelled in Pursat
A coalition of about 30 soldiers, police, forestry officials and military police armed with chainsaws razed some 40 houses belonging to villagers in Pursat province’s Santre commune yesterday, claiming the villagers were illegally living in a state forest, villagers and officials said. According to resident Chin ...
Men charged in bulldozing protected forest
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday charged two government officials and four farmers from Kampong Thom province’s Stoung district with encroachment onto protected land after they allegedly bulldozed a flooded forest that was designated as a protected fish hatchery, police and NGO officials said. ...
Russian-Cambodian satellite venture launched
A new Russian-Cambodian digital satellite television service plans to have 400,000 subscribers in the next two years with 60 channels in Khmer, English, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese and other languages. The venture between Russia’s General Satellite and Cambodia’s Royal Group was soft-launched last night at Sofitel, with ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072557590/Business/onetv-satellite-venture-launched.html
Phnom Penh Autonomous Port pushes for IPO
Following a government push for Cambodia’s largest state-owned firms to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange, Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP) said yesterday that it plans to float on the newly launched bourse. The port would join Telecom Cambodia and Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, both of which ...
Coral reef areas to gain protection in Cambodia
Cambodia’s first Marine Protection Area will be established around two emerging tourist destinations, Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem islands, a British conservation group has announced. NGO Coral Cay Conservation said last week that it has been invited to map out a 300-square-kilometre MPA by the ...
Push for trade in yuan increasing
Slowly but steadily, demand to do cross-border business in Chinese yuan is pushing its way into one of Asia’s dollar-dominated strongholds. As China continues to liberalise the yuan – or at least hint at when some capital controls could be lifted – Cambodian businesses that import ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072557593/Business/push-for-trade-in-yuan-increasing.html
Cops allegedly attacked garment strikers
Police have been accused of punching and shoving garment workers from Tai Yang and Camwell factories in Kandal province as the month-long strike over bonuses continued yesterday. Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, said 11 people had been slightly injured after being attacked ...
Thai government reconsiders deportation
Thailand is rethinking a controversial plan to deport pregnant migrant workers from countries such as Cambodia and instead support them following widespread outrage, a Thai labour ministry official said yesterday. Last month, Thai Labor Minister Padermchai Sasomsap announced plans to send home migrant workers who were ...
Court date set for Koh Kong farmers
More than six years after a sugar company bulldozed their farms in Koh Kong province, some 200 families who have held out ever since, arguing the action was illegal, will finally get their day in court on Thursday. 100 villagers will join them at the ...
US big brand boycott called for by workers
Some 100 workers, along with the president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, delivered a letter yesterday to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh asking Americans to boycott clothing made by Tai Yang Enterprises. Surrounded by protesters, CCU President Rong Chhun said that the group was ...
Loans, deposits mirroring growth
Loans and deposits at Cambodia’s 32 commercial banks rose by more than 30 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, year-on-year in the first half of 2012, which the central bank governor and economists said reflected the growth in economic activities even as export growth ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072457572/Business/loans-deposits-mirroring-growth.html
One man’s trash, another’s power
Phnom Penh’s mountains of garbage might be keeping the city’s lights on as early as 2015 if all goes according to plan, developers and city officials have said. Under a new proposal presented to Phnom Penh Municipal Hall last Tuesday, the Green Asia Global Corporation is ...
Farmers say officials displaced their jobs
About 20 families in Koh Kong province are accusing provincial authorities and military police of blocking them from farming on land that is part of a dispute with a Chinese development firm stretching back almost five years. The rice farms are in Botum Sakor district, which ...
Workers ditch factories for fields
At some point during the planting season this year, Pheap Srey Ngoun will leave her garment factory floor for a rice paddy in Cambodia’s Prey Veng province. Like many fellow garment workers she will leave her position, with permission from the factory, to lend a hand ...
Supporters pray for Sonando
While Mam Sonando lay in a cramped Prey Sar prison cell yesterday, sweating out a fever, some 100 members of the Association of Democrats burned incense and kneeled in prayer at the Preah Ang Dang Keu shrine, calling for the outspoken Beehive Radio director’s release. With ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072457577/National-news/supporters-pray-for-sonando.html
Property rights threatened, NGOs claim
A draft agricultural land law threatens to eliminate property rights and effectively remove all limitations on the size of economic land concessions, a coalition of civil society groups said in a statement released.The draft of The Law on the Management and Use of Agricultural Land, ...
David Boyle and May Titthara, P. 1
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072457586/National-news/property-rights-threatened-ngos-claim.html
Workplace injury rate rises
A spike in factory faintings contributed to a 65 per cent increase in the number of workplace injuries reported in 2011, a Ministry of Labour official said yesterday. Leng Tong, director of the occupational health and safety department, said the ministry plans to introduce specialist safety ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072457581/National-news/workplace-injury-rate-rises.html
New border crossing to open at Preah Vihear
Cambodia and Thailand will open another permanent border crossing between Preah Vihear province and Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province on Wednesday An Ses, the new permanent border crossing, is primarily used for the trade of agricultural products. Cambodian people usually import products from Thailand through the crossing, ...
More confess to Kratie ‘secession’
Ministry of Interior officials announced yesterday that three more villagers accused of involvement in a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province turned themselves in and confessed their guilt on Saturday, taking advantage of the prime minister’s offer of immunity for those who agree to act as ...
Cassava plantings decrease
Cassava plantings in Battambang province dropped more than 18 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2011, according to agriculture officials. The decease is a result of that previous year’s yield fetching a low price and farmers ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072357551/Business/cassava-plantings-decrease.html