Infrastructure

A Cambodian NGO believes that investment by Thailand’s PTT oil conglomerate in petroleum projects in the region would promote competition and benefit consumers. Thailand’s largest petroleum firm said lastThursday it is currently studying options for petrochemical and oil refinery projects in three Asean countries — Cambodia, ...

The planned construction of hydropowered dams on the Mekong River in South-East Asia could jeopardise livelihoods, water access and food security for 60 million people, across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a study. The study reports that dams will block fish migration routes and ...

Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), a subsidiary of Vietnam’s state-owned electricity giant EVN, is no longer involved in the Lower Sesan 2 dam, a Vietnamese Embassy official confirmed yesterday. Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group and China’s Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd. on Monday signed an agreement in Phnom ...

PTT, Thailand’s largest oil and gas conglomerate said it plans to conduct a feasibility study on petrochemical and oil refinery projects in three ASEAN countries – Cambodia, Indonesia and Myanmar, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Pailin Chuchottaworn, PTT chief executive said, however, that Indonesia and Myanmar ...

The massive and highly controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam project took a major step forward yesterday with the inking of government power purchase agreements and an investment deal between Royal Group and a Chinese company. But details about the contracts, their implementation or the fate of ...

Only about 5 percent of the roughly 2,000 major development projects, such as dams, roads and bridges, approved by the government between 2004 and 2011 carried out environmental impact assessments, an official at the ministry of Environment said yesterday. Speaking at a workshop in Phnom Penh ...

More studies should be conducted on the controversial Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province in order to understand its potential social and environmental effects, Conservation International (C.I.) said in a statement. The Lower Sesan 2-as well as other dams planned for the Sesan, Srepok ...

They’re known as the BK13 and they’re not prepared to let greedy developers take the very, very little they have. They’re 13 women – mothers, grandmothers – who live around what used to be Boeung Kak Lake – not far from the centre of Cambodia’s ...

An official at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy expressed concern that if the quality of Cambodian produced goods does not improve, Cambodia is likely to become largely a retailer of foreign goods when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is realised in 2015. Meng Saktheara, ...

Land prices along National Road 4 still have the potential to rise, despite the relocation of a number of factories to National Road 3, property experts say. The price of land goes from $100 to $300 per square metre from Chaom Chao cycle to the ...

Several groups are calling for the ASEAN summit to address the regional discord caused by the Xayaburi dam, which Laos began constructing earlier this month despite opposition downriver from neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as from conservation groups. On Friday, the Rivers Coalition in Cambodia ...

Capitalising on recent worldwide attention to their plight, some 200 villagers who say they’ve been robbed of their homes and land staged a vivid and stylised protest yesterday aimed at President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for intervention in Phnom Penh’s land-titling ...

Nhan Dan Online – The southern province of An Giang has begun construction of two bridges in Tan Chau town, as part of a bigger project linking two provincial roads with the Vinh Xuong border gate between Vietnam and Cambodia. ...

When Asia-Pacific leaders gather this weekend in Southeast Asia—a bright spot in a sputtering global economy—their Cambodian hosts may extend a warm welcome to U.S. President Barack Obama, but they will view officials from Beijing as old friends. Mr. Obama’s visit to Cambodia—this year’s host for ...

Along the Phnom Penh waterfront the city’s landmark flags have been raised and the street children and beggars are being removed – an unwanted sight for a government out to impress the biggest gathering of world leaders this country has ever seen. At the center of this will ...

The SET-listed Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Plc (RATCH), Thailand’s largest private power producer, is to delay the purchase of a coal mine in Indonesia, as the global coal price has dropped sharply. Ratch had planned to acquire a mine to serve its new coal-fired power plants ...

Cambodia has decided to go ahead with the construction of a dam on a Mekong tributary, but conservation groups are concerned that not enough study has been done on the hydropower project’s environmental consequences. Construction on the 400 megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in northwestern Cambodia’s ...

A glance around Battambang’s dilapidated train station reveals the monumental task it will be to complete the Cambodian segment of the ‘iron silk road’, which will connect Southeast Asia to Europe by rail for the first time. Cows graze between missing rails in front of ...

The National Assembly of Cambodia on Wednesday ratified two international conventions on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency and Nuclear Safety to maintain security and prevent nuclear proliferation. “Cambodia has neither nuclear power plant nor chemical weapon plant; Cambodia is a country ...

Thousand of families that stand to be evicted when construction work on the Lower Sesan 2 Dam begins in 2014 will each receive a 1-hectare plot of land for a home as well as a 5 additional hectares for growing crops, provincial officials said yesterday. Provincial ...

Laos began construction last week on a multi-billion dollar hydro dam project that is opposed by other countries along the Mekong River, and activists who say the project will significantly impact the environment and the economies of four countries that rely on the river for ...

Multinational consulting and engineering firm Pöyry has signed a contract with the Lao government to supervise construction of the divisive Xayaburi hydropower dam in the country’s north, it announced Friday. This work, carried out by its Energy Business Group, will include reviewing the design and ...

If Cambodia’s oil and gas sector is well managed, and transparent, it could provide the country a golden opportunity for investment, development and poverty reduction, said independent economist Chan Sophal, who spoke at a recent gathering looking at the economies of oil-producing countries. Chan Sophal said ...

Viet Nam has urged Laos to continue its research on the environmental impacts of the planned Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Luong Thanh Nghi made the statement at a regular press briefing in Ha Noi yesterday when answering a question ...