News

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday criticized the Cambodian News Channel (CNC) for broadcasting an interview with an NGO worker who had claimed on air that the large number of illegal Cambodian workers to Thailand was due to high cost of obtaining a Cambodian passport. Speaking at ...

A 22.8 percent increase in the value of imports to Cambodia this year is partly due to a high demand for construction materials, a Commerce Ministry official said yesterday. In the first 11 months of 2012, total trade in and out of Cambodia reached $12.31 billion, ...

Canadian funding for ethnic minority communities in the process of applying for communal land titles will run out in March, and other donors have not yet signed up to take over the task, officials from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which currently provides the ...

The open-source mapping website Urban Voice launched a campaign yesterday against a government order banning Internet cafes withing 500 meters of schools that will effectively make it illegal to operate such businesses in much of Phnom Penh. “Implementation of this order would mean the closure of ...

As the lure of Thailand grows increasingly attractive for cash-strapped and under-employed Cambodians, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday made a public appeal for workers to stay in the country, simultaneously urging the Cambodian market to up its competitive edge. In a speech at the inauguration of ...

Popular Japanese hotel chain Toyoko Inn has embarked on a joint-investment with Cambodian company OCIC to build a three-star hotel on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich, to cater to the growth of foreign investors and visitors to Cambodia. The groundbreaking ceremony for the 22-storey, 304 unit Toyoko ...

Respecting labor standards in Cambodian factories will benefit the garment manufacturing industry in the long-run as more international brands will be tempted to source from the country, labor experts said yesterday at a round-table discussion in Phnom Penh. ...

Battambang, Bavet, Neak Loeung and Poipet are among several towns that will benefit from a $37 million loan from the the first quarter of next year after funding was approved at the 18th Greater Mekong Sub Region (GMS) meeting in Nanning, China. The loan comes from ...

Officials expressed optimism that microfinance institution Prasac would be able to attract more deposit placing clients, after the inauguration of its new headquarters in Phnom Penh’s Boeung Tompun district yesterday. Representatives from the National Bank of Cambodia  and Prasac expect the new 10-storey building to enhance ...

Provincial forestry administration officials in Ratanakkiri have dismissed allegations of illegal logging by community residents and chalked the deforestation up to legitimate clearing. A cursory examination of the land in question yesterday seemed to back the company’s claims, Ly Sophan, a team worker at the provincial ...

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines is eying flights to Kuwait, Turkey, and Cambodia starting next year amid its refleeting and expansion program, the Civil Aeronautics Board said Wednesday. PAL has filed petitions with the industry regulator for flights to Istanbul in Turkey, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and ...

Cambodia has great potential in hydropower development and the country could build and tap up to 10,000 megawatts from hydropower dams, said an energy official on Thursday. “At the present, about 10 percent of the hydropower potential is under construction,” Heng Kunleang, chief of the energy ...

About 1,000 workers at a bicycle factory in the Tai Seng Special Economic Zone went on strike Wednesday for a second day, sources said. The sources said the striking workers at Smart Tech (Cambodia) Co Ltd threw rocks at factory windows and threatened to continue ...

Christmas shoppers stand to be taken by surprise this month as campaigners take action in shopping centers around Europe to raise awareness of poverty wages of Cambodian garment workers. With these ‘fashion mobs’, they pressure H&M, Inditex (Zara), Levi’s and Gap to introduce a living ...

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Wednesday officially launched the country’s national clearing system in order to increase efficiency and expand clearing and settlement services for inter-bank transactions. A central bank statement said that the central system can clear and settle payment instruments such as ...

Residents of Tropang Thlong village in Ponhea Krek district say casinos near the border with Vietnam are polluting fishing grounds. ...

More than 1,000 families in four communes in Kandal province’s Lvea Em district submitted a petition Sunday to local officials demanding that a private electricity company either lower its rates or the commune switch to cheaper state-run power, villagers and commune chiefs said yesterday. ...

The Ministry of Commerce will host the 7th Cambodian Export-Import and One Product One Province Exhibition at Diamond Island from December 15-18. ...

Seven months after Prime Minister Hun Sen unveiled an ambitious plan to demarcate 1.8 million hectares of state land and formally acknowledge those who live on it, the completion of the first – albeit the smallest – of eight affected provinces has wrapped up. Marking the ...

The U.S. ambassador to Cambodia has sought to clear up supposed misinformation about Cambodia’s debt to the U.S., which was racked up during the early 1970s by the U.S.-backed military government of Lon Nol and has become a contentious issue between the country. Cambodia has refused ...

As Cambodia’s rice harvest gets into full swing, the government said yesterday that it expects this year’s crop to exceed last year’s, despite fears that drought would limit the yield. Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun said that farmers had already harvested more than 3 million tons ...

Last week, the crane on the top of Gold Tower 42 was removed, adding to the sense that the completion of the Korean-owned skyscraper is ultimately a distant hope. The owner of the unfinished skyscraper, sitting at the corner of Sihanouk and Monivong Boulevards entered into ...

Potential real estate investors in Siem Reap are being advised to look towards retail strips rather than hotels, according to Cambodian real estate professionals. Knight Frank’s Cambodia chief, Sunny Soo, said that while the hotel industry is well supplied, the town lacks an organised retail strip. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed yesterday for developers and landowners in Kep City to build fences around their neglected properties to prevent vines from creeping onto the street of the coastal resort. Since much of the land in Kep City is owned by investors who live ...