The Phnom Penh Post

Thailand will not object to the proposed Xayaburi hydropower dam in Laos, but Vientiane must shoulder responsibility for potential environmental damage caused by the US$3.8 billion project, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday. “Laos has the right to construct the dam as it is located inside Lao ...

The Royal Government needs to address the environmental impacts not only from climate change but from man-made, water-based infrastructure such as dams before another natural disaster like the recent flooding claims hundreds of lives, community representatives said yesterday. At the first NGO Forum conference on climate ...

Improved fiscal management and preparation for a decline in foreign aid would help increase Cambodia’s credit rating, according to a quarterly credit opinion from Moody’s Investor Service, which maintained a stable outlook for the country. Reduced exposure to crisis and stagnation in Western economies, continued foreign ...

Europe’s continued economic troubles have weighed heavily this year on Cambodian silk producers, officials and industry insiders said yesterday. Debt woes in the euro zone, the Kingdom’s main export market for silk, have caused job losses, among other issues, according to officials. Cambodian Craft Cooperation, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen called for improved relations between Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam during sideline discussions with high-ranking officials from the three countries at a meeting in Phnom Penh yesterday. Hun Sen’s personal spokesman, Eng Sophalleth, said the premier had spoken with Huynh Dam, president of ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court ordered on Tuesday that workers striking at Cambo Handsome 1 return to work within 48 hours and banned them from striking in front of the garment factory, in the capital’s Dankgor district. Seang Sambath, president of the Federation of Friendship Unions, ...

A regional meeting on disaster risk reduction and climate change wrapped up yesterday with officials pointing to the recent flooding as a reason to take immediate action to prepare for disasters. “We must not sleep or wait for donors to take action,” Ross Sovann, deputy secretary-general ...

A new USAID-funded malaria project in Myanmar will draw on prevention, treatment and containment models developed in Cambodia, and underscores the emergence of closer relations between Washington and Naypyitaw, health officials said yesterday. The US$24 million project will expand the effort to contain drug-resistant malaria, which ...

China’s Erdos Hongjun planned to build a bauxite processing plant in Kratie province as part of the company’s US$1.5 billion venture in the Kingdom’s northeast, provincial officials said yesterday. The plant would serve Erdos’s mine in neighbouring Mondulkiri, an exploration licence for which was granted by ...

Consumer prices in the Kingdom rose about five per cent year-on-year in October, according to the National Institute of Statistics, though they held steady from September. Declining food and fuel prices, along with an appreciating US dollar, were listed as the main reasons for the stabilisation ...

Female workers were rushed to hospital in a second mass fainting yesterday at Su Tong Fang Ying Kam garment factory in Russey Keo district, unionists said. About 17 female workers became overwhelmed with diesel fumes from their sewing machines and were rushed to Calmette Hospital, where ...

Police and military police stopped about 200 villagers from entering rice fields in Battambang province yesterday, saying they had no right to harvest in the 100-hectare area because it belonged to well-known businessman Song Thon, villagers said. Chhut Mao, a 64-year-old village representative of Lvea commune, ...

Workers and managers at Cambo Handsome 1 garment factory were continuing discussions last night after a fourth day of protest in which union leaders said more than 20 employees were injured in a confrontation with police. The workers are protesting against the suspension of three union ...

Cambodia aimed to become one of the region’s main rubber producers over the next few years despite the industry’s low international recognition, officials said during the second Global Rubber Conference, held in Phnom Penh on Friday. To that end, the Kingdom had encouraged companies and investors ...

In what is becoming an all too familiar tale, another mother of a domestic worker who was sent to Malaysia has filed a complaint alleging her daughter is being exploited. Chea Si Yan said yesterday she wanted her daughter and goddaughter to come home because they ...

A mother whose family face eviction from their home at Boeung Kak lake was farewelled at a funeral on Saturday evening, hours after her body was found in the Mekong River. Chea Dara’s body was identified by family members on Saturday in Samraong Thum commune, Kien ...

Cambodia’s total exports rose more than 40 per cent year-on-year through October, carried by strong growth in agriculture shipments. Total exports reached US$4.05 billion in the first 10 months of 2011 compared with $2.82 billion during the same period last year, an increase of 44 per ...

Cambodia’s 2012 budget passed through the National Assembly yesterday unopposed, without a single question asked and no parliamentary debate in a situation the government, opposition and observers all said was unfortunate. It took just over three hours for the law to be passed, 86 to 0, ...

Hattha Kaksekar Limited, one of Cambodia’s largest microfinance institutions, has received a US$5 million loan from a French development organisation in order to meet rising demand among its client farmers. PROPARCO, which is a joint venture between the French Development Agency and public and private shareholders, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday rebuked the World Bank for revising downward its outlook for gross domestic product growth in the Kingdom, claiming the bank’s projections could cause market panic. The premier also announced a new government projection of 6.4 per cent GDP growth this year, ...

Police detained two unionists and broke up a protest in Siem Reap province yesterday where workers demanded the owners of the Angkor Village Hotel and Resort respect a court decision ordering them to reinstate 67 workers. On October 26, Siem Reap Municipal Court ruled that the ...

About 400,000 garment and footwear makers will get a US$5 a month raise starting in January, and the factories that employ them will receive a two-year tax holiday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. The $5 raise, from $61 to $66 a month, is intended to ...

The government was urged yesterday not to start sending domestic helpers to Malaysia again until it had a Memorandum of Understand with Kuala Lumpur guaranteeing protection of Cambodian migrant workers there. Ya Navuth, executive director of Coordination of Action Research on Aids and Mobility, also said ...

A Japan energy company yesterday said it planned to build a rice mill fuelled by rice husks in Cambodia’s Takeo province. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kingdom’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) confirming cooperation ...