The Phnom Penh Post
Union lands court KO
In a landmark ruling, the Siem Reap Municipal Court yesterday ordered a luxury hotel to reinstate 67 sacked workers – a legally binding decision that unionists have hailed as a great moment for the judicial system. The decision comes after more than two months of protests, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102752392/National-news/union-lands-court-ko.html
High food prices shrink imports in third quarter
Food and beverage imports in the Kingdom fell more than 70 per cent in the third quarter, as high international prices and the growth of domestic production dragged on demand. About 192,580 tonnes of food and beverage products entered Cambodia between July and September, down 72 ...
ACLEDA, Tong Yang sign MoU
Tong Yang Securities (Cambodia) and ACLEDA Securities yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to partner the services they offer to the Kingdom’s budding financial markets. To expand their footprint in the market, the companies aimed to provide a combination of advisory and underwriting services for companies ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102752376/Business/acleda-tong-yang-sign-mou.html
Camintel to join mobile scramble
A ninth telecoms operator would enter the Cambodian market next year, officials said yesterday, surprising insiders who claimed the sector was already overcrowded. Camintel, a joint Cambodian state- and Korean-owned company, would offer mobile services in 2012, CEO Kang Namkook said yesterday at a telecommunications conference ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102752377/Business/camintel-to-join-mobile-scramble.html
Fainting report finds heat, hysteria
The results of an investigation into two mass fainting incidents at a factory in Kampong Chhnang confirmed that M&V International Manufacturing had violated Cambodian labour law by forcing some staff to work overtime and failing to give them a full day off each week, according ...
Climate plan has Kingdom seeing REDD
The Forestry Administration has teamed up with the Cambodian Wildlife Conservation Society and Forest Carbon to develop a large-scale REDD project in eastern Cambodia, officials said yesterday. REDD – or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, a UN initiative – is one of the ...
Bridget Di Certo
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102752383/National-news/climate-plan-has-kingdom-seeing-redd.html
Displaced families face wreckage on return
More than 60 percent of nearly 50,000 evacuated families have returned home as floods recede in areas along the Mekong River and other parts of the country, said the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM). Nearly all displaced families have gone back to flood-wrecked villages in ...
Floods to push up non-performing loans in 4th quarter
The worst floods in a decade may boost the number of nonperforming loans in the Kingdom’s microfinance industry in the fourth quarter, insiders said yesterday. However, those insiders said the damage done to Cambodia’s agriculture sector would not have a significant impact given the MFIs’ diversified ...
Cambodia’s beer market growing more crowded
The Kingdom’s latest brewery is set to launch on November 1, introducing a new player into the growing Cambodian beer market, insiders said yesterday. The Khmer Brewery plant, a US$60 million joint venture between locally based Chip Mong Group and major international brewery manufacturer Ziemann Group, ...
Stories vary on latest mass fainting incident
Workers at a garment factory in Kampong Speu province that supplies global retailer H&M will return to work tomorrow, after more than 100 staff were hopitalised on Monday, following what they and union representatives described as a mass fainting incident. A spokesperson for H&M’s headquarters in ...
Lakeside residents set misery to music
They’ve wept, they’ve yelled and they’ve prayed as they watched excavators tear down their homes, so perhaps it’s understandable that the residents of Boeung Kak lake are now turning to song. “Mom goes to protest, the children cry and sleep on the ground,” go the lyrics ...
Villagers waiting for payment
Residents of two villages in Kandal province say police are threatening to arrest them for filing a complaint about a company they accuse of failing to fully pay them for land allegedly bought from them almost 15 years ago. Kuy Chanthorn, a resident of Kakab village ...
Broken promise spurs protest
Another chapter in the long-running land dispute between development firm Phanimex Company and the Borei Keila community unfolded yesterday as 70 residents once again called on the district governor and Prime Minister Hun Sen to intervene on their behalf. At the heart of the dispute is ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102552324/National-news/broken-promise-spurs-protest.html
Mass fainting follows use of insecticide
More than 100 workers collapsed at the Anful Garments Factory in Kampong Speu yesterday after the cloth they were working with was sprayed with insecticide on Sunday, a senior provincial health official said. Or Vanthen, director of the Kampong Speu provincial health department, said 144 workers ...
Insurance revenues to rise 20% for the year
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 ...
Food, fuel prices jump again
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 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102552319/Business/food-fuel-prices-jump-again.html
Kingdom's fish exports in decline
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 ...
MFI opens with $50m loan package
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 ...
Hun Sen talks trade with Sino counterpart
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 ...
New UN flood numbers grim
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 ...
Maid ban finally complete
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 ...
Dredging ends, effects linger
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 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102052249/National-news/dredging-ends-effects-linger.html
Residents seek market price
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 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011102052253/National-news/residents-seek-market-price.html
Maid firm exposed
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 ...
Yi Somphose, Tep Nimol, David Boyle and Eak Soung Chhay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/maid-firm-exposed