The Phnom Penh Post

Premium revenues across Cambodia’s insurance industry are expected to increase 20 per cent year-on-year in 2011, Mey Vann, director of the Department of Industry and Finance at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, predicted yesterday. The Kingdom’s six insurance firms are set to accrue a total ...

Heightened global food and fuel prices continued to inflate Cambodia’s market in September, and experts said flood damages would elevate costs further toward the end of the year. Year-on-year inflation hit 6.7 per cent in last month, up 1 per cent from August, according to data ...

The Kingdom’s fish exports declined 48 per cent in the first nine months of 2011, as a result of growing local demand, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of fish totalled 1,099 tonnes from January to September, compared to 2,123 ...

Sonatra Microfinance Institution, a joint investment between local and foreign investors, officially started operations in Cambodia yesterday. A US$50 million loan package was signed during the ceremony on Thursday, providing Singapore-based EastWing Group and Japanese firm Grand Cooperation with a 30 per cent stake of the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday led a delegation of businessmen and top government officials to join the eighth China-ASEAN expo and investment summit to be held in Nanning, China, from October 21 to October 26. The Cambodian prime minister planned to meet his Chinese counterpart Premier ...

The latest United Nations assessment shows that the damage from flooding is far worse than previously thought, according to a report received by the Post late yesterday. Drawing on data from three ministries as well as the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), the assessment raises ...

The Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies announced a temporary ban on the sending of all domestic workers to Malaysia amidst another underage trainee scandal – this one involving a firm owned by the wife of a senior member of Cambodia’s international police department. On Monday, the ...

Ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat has kept a promise to stop his company’s dredging operations on Koh Kong province’s Tatai river, relieved business owners and residents living along the waterway said yesterday. But provincial officials confirmed that as the senator’s dredging boats moved on to ...

Representatives of 32 families living in the capital’s Chamkarmon district staged a protest yesterday in Tonle Bassac commune, pleading with Prime Minister Hun Sen to intervene on their behalf against the Thai Bun Roong company, which they say is forcing them to sell their land ...

Scores of crying women who said they had been forcibly detained and girls who claimed to have received fake documents to conceal the fact that they were as young as 16-years-old were discovered at a centre owned by the SKMM Investment Group labour recruitment firm ...

While sovereign debt crises in Europe and a lagging US economy have yet to curtail cheap Cambodian exports, industry watchers said domestic producers should diversify their target markets to avoid a future slow down. Exports saw a more than 40 per cent increase year-on-year between January ...

The Kingdom’s cassava exports soared 94 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2011, despite the recent flood devastation the agriculture sector has experienced, according to Ministry of Commerce figures. The statistics showed that Cambodia’s export of dry and fresh cassava hit about 22,652 ...

Cambodia’s banks should be largely spared the heavy damages already seen in many parts of the Kingdom’s economy, officials said yesterday, though microfinance lenders will feel some impact. Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon last week revised downward the government’s gross domestic products for 2011 ...

Cambodian garment makers are filling orders for the 2012 London Olympics in what insiders say is the first time the country has supplied the Games. ShenZhou International Group Holdings Ltd, one of China’s largest apparel exporters, makes shirts and other sportswear for Adidas that will supply ...

More than 200 residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak lake gathered outside Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday as four villagers who filed complaints after their homes were demolished by real estate developer Shukaku Inc last month responded to summonses for questioning ...

China’s dam-building ambitions and alleged lack of transparency were front and centre yesterday during a roundtable discussion on Mekong River development held in the capital. Representatives from the Chinese embassy defended their country’s record, claiming that China was “eager to participate” in regional cooperation mechanisms. “We aren’t ...

Cambodia firm Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Singapore-based company to develop a high-output rice seed factory in the Kingdom. The cooperation between major investment firm OCIC and agriculture research company Smah Prum Royal International Pte Ltd is set to ...

Although a Thai minister claimed recently that delays in resolving the disputed overlapping claims area with Cambodia would result in an energy crisis, experts said yesterday the statement had been politically motivated. Thai Energy Minister Pichai Naripthaphan said last week Thailand would run out of gas ...

About 250 villagers who turned out in Preah Vihear province’s Srayong commune to protest against alleged land-grabbing by rubber firm Siladamich Company yesterday found themselves blocked by company security guards and police, though arrests threatened a day earlier failed to materialise, villagers said. Villager representative Meas ...

A Malaysian firm on Saturday signed a joint agricultural agreement with property development company Paragon Corporation Cambodia worth a potential US$2 billion in exports of corn, rubber, coffee and other cash crops. Penned by Paragon Corporation Cambodia and Markmore Group Malaysia, the joint development project will ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and Thailand increased slightly by 8 per cent during the first eight months of 2011 compared to the same period last year, according to the Thai Embassy’s Foreign Trade Promotion Office (FTPO) statistics obtained by the Post yesterday. The increase in trade ...

Tokyo: The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its outlook on Cambodian GDP growth in 2011 from 6.5 per cent to 6.7 per cent just days after government officials announced a full percentage-point reduction in economic expectations. Stabilisation in the real estate sector, as well as strong increases ...

Rights groups said yesterday a ban on sending Cambodian domestic workers to Malaysia – signed by the Prime Minister on Saturday – should not be lifted until both countries implemented measures to stop deaths, rapes, forced detainment and under-age recruitment in the labour sector. Groups including ...

Kulan district villagers embroiled in a land dispute in Preah Vihear’s Srayong commune say they will follow through with a planned 200-person protest against rubber firm Siladamich Company today despite being threatened with arrest. Village representative Lem Lom, 32, said  yesterday that Srayong commune police and ...