News

Bangchak Petroleum, a majority state-owned oil refiner and retailer in Thailand, said it wants to open five petrol stations in Cambodia, with the first station opening in 2014, the Bangkok Post reported last week. Tui Rutten, president of the Thai Business Council of Cambodia did not ...

Hundreds of residents in five villages in southern Cambodia have been deprived of their sole source of water as a massive pond in their area has dried up, villagers said. The affected villagers of Sre Ronnong commune in Takeo Province’s Tram Kork district have been buying ...

More than 100 workers from Kingsland Garment Cambodia factory, which was a supplier to U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh yesterday, appealing for help in getting their severance payments. In December, workers found out the company had declared bankruptcy ...

A group of Phnom Penh residents locked in a long-running land dispute with a real estate project owned by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin are pitching City Hall a plan they hope will prevent them from being evicted and keep them close to home. “We ...

Cambodia spent more than $1.6 billion importing fuel oil and petrol last year, a figure 14.3 per cent higher than for 2011, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. The money spent on importing 1.6 million tonnes of petrol and fuel oil – 100,000 tonnes more than ...

A local legal aid NGO said yesterday that American retail giant Wal-Mart and Swedish clothing brand H&M have failed to take responsibility for a shuttered supplier factory in Phnom Penh that owes its workers up to $200,000 in unpaid severance payments. The Community Legal Education Center ...

Representatives of the Golden Gain Shoe factory yesterday demanded in court that six members of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (CCAWDU) pay $200,000 in compensation for organizing a week of strikes at the factory. Factory management has accused the leader of the factory’s ...

Despite the massive spike in development underway in Phnom Penh, a new report says that the public interest is becoming marginalised in favour of the political and business elite. The report, from NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), says that currently “commercial interests are driving the urban ...

South Korea replaced the UK as the largest investor in Cambodia last year, with about $287 million injected, 12.5 per cent of the total foreign direct investment, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). This represents 33 per cent ...

Thailand’s biggest convenience store operator, CP All, plans to apply for licences to open 7-Eleven stores in countries including Cambodia by 2015, according to a Reuters news report yesterday. The other two countries are Myanmar and Laos, and the plan is part of CP All’s expansion ...

After the success of its first project, the Shangri-La Garden City, Sen Sok Condo Company is beginning its second project along Road 595, located two kilometres north of the 7 Makara Sky Bridge. Construction on the second project, called Maldives City, has begun, and the company ...

The number of foreigners who bought condos in Cambodia increased by between 30 and 40 per cent in 2012 compared with 2011, a recent study showed, while 997 condo units currently belong to foreigners. Nuon Rithy, general manager of the Bonna Realty Group, said that according ...

Experts are recommending that a proposed dam on the Sesan River in northeast Cambodia be equipped with earthquake protection measures, after discovering a quake occurred in the area some 30 years ago. The proposed Lower Sesan II dam would be situated on a site in Stung ...

A group of opposition lawmakers have written to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urging action against a sugar factory owned by a ruling party official accused of exploiting child labor and grabbing land from villagers. Six Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) parliamentarians sent a letter dated Jan. ...

China’s demand for natural resources is being felt in a big way in Cambodia. Illegal logging and economic land concessions are threatening Cambodia’s dwindling forests, which now echo the sound of chainsaws. Prey Lang forest — an eight-hour journey north and east of the capital, Phnom Penh ...

Laws protecting ethnic minorities’ communal land rights are good, but their implementation has a long way to go, said participants in a forum of minorities from Mondulkiri and Kratie provinces yesterday. After July’s parliamentary elections, legislators should take the opportunity of a newly constituted government to ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged public institutions to provide clear terms of reference for the services they provide, as part of an effort to attract investment in the Kingdom. Institutions that did not implement this policy would be punished under the law, he said. ...

The number of companies registering to become members of the Garment Manufacturing Association in Cambodia (GMAC) doubled last year, with more investment in value-added products. GMAC said the number of new members reached 120 last year, compared with 60 newcomers in 2011. “Labour-intensive industries in China ...

More than 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province have accused a group of Chinese-owned sugar plantations of encroaching on their farms and community forests since mid-2012 and say they are still waiting for a resolution. Sen Som, a rice farmer in Chheb district, said Heng Rui ...

Fears of theft are on the rise among market vendors in a tourist district in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province, the gateway to the world-renowned Angkor archeological site. Vendors at a market in Puok district said they had lost a lot of money following a slew of ...

Ethnic Bunong villagers living in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district have sent a petition to the Ministry of Land Management, urging the government to refrain from issuing them private land titles, local officials said yesterday. This way they may instead to eligible for a communal title ...

Senior official from across the government have started drafting a master plan that aims to map out the future locations of everything from roads to cities and development zones across the country. Land Management Minister Im Chhun Lim chaired the first meeting of a 20-member National ...

Failed Cambodian telco Mfone owes at least $65 million to multiple creditors that sources say include the government. A court injunction to freeze Mfone‘s assets, obtained by the Post yesterday, shows Mfone owes Chinese telco provider Huawei Technologies more than $65 million. Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge ...

The government has publicly issued lists showing the costs of fees that businesses must pay to authorities for various services, in an effort to help companies avoid making informal payments made illegal by the anticorruption law. The lists were drafted during the past year after Cambodia ...