News

The number of mobile telephone subscriptions reached nearly 20  million at the end of June, representing 135 percent of the total population, the telecoms minister said last week. The number of mobile subscriptions first topped Cambodia’s total population of 14.5 million people in November last year, ...

Four days after requesting permission to get medical treatment outside prison, jailed radio station owner Mam Sonando, who Amnesty International considers “prisoner of conscience”, has yet to receive a reply from prison officials, an associate said yesterday. On Thursday Mr. Sonando requested outside medical treatment for ...

The United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk, President Obama’s Chief Trade Advisor, will be visiting Cambodia’s Siem Reap province on Aug. 30-31 to participate in the 44th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ meetings and the ASEAN-U.S. Business Summit, according to a press release from the U.S. Embassy ...

The Cambodian government has committed to the construction of five dams along the Mekong River in order to meet a huge demand for electricity, but environmental groups warn that severe repercussions loom for this strategy. “While each project proposed in Cambodia comes with a different set ...

The four-day second Cambodia International Machinery Industrial Fair (CIMIF 2012) has begun in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. Leading global brands of industrial equipment for textiles, garment and accessories are among the more than 200 exhibitors from 20 countries displaying their products. The exhibition provides a ...

More than 100 Cham families living in boats on the banks of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Chongva peninsula have agreed to relocate upriver after they celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan over the weekend, a community representative said on Friday. Matt Kriya, a representative ...

Cambodia has cultivated 1.93 million hectares of land, only 82 percent of its 2.36 million hectare target, due to a delay in monsoon rains which hampered rice sowing in the country, according to a media release from the Ministry of Agriculture on Sunday. The report said ...

More than 100 workers from the Horus Industry garment factory in Phnom Penh Meanchey district protested outside the Ministry of Social Affairs on Friday, demanding that the government order their employer to provide answers as to why hundreds have lost jobs at the factory. Workers say that of ...

Renaissance Minerals announced Friday it has discovered a high-grade gold deposit in an area in Mondolkiri province that lies within the Australian firm’s Cambodian Gold Project. The new find is located about 500 meters to the northeast of the company’s Okvau exploration zone. The announcement comes ...

International human rights groups continued to rally around the local rights worker Chan Soveth on Friday, two days after it emerged that the Adhoc staff member summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator with an unidentified crime. In a ...

Two men from Kratie province who were removed from a vehicle on Tuesday while traveling to Phnom Penh to demonstrate at Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house over a land dispute, have been arrested by internal security police and charged with fraud, an official said yesterday. Sless ...

The Bank for Investment and Development of Cambodia (BIDC), a subsidiary of the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV), has been named as one of the five biggest banks in Cambodia after three years of operation BIDC general director Nguyen Van Hien said ...

A Cambodian-Thai delegation visited the cross-border railway site in Stung Bot Wednesday to examine the old line and a metal bridge which is being replaced, officials said. In addition to Stung Bot, where a new international border crossing is planned for Banteay Meanchey province, the officials ...

A Chinese academic with close ties to China’s state security apparatus has claimed that Beijing coordinated with the Cambodian government to influence the outcome of the Asean meeting in Phnom Penh, according to the Financial Times. In an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday, Chen ...

The Cambodian government has approved 53 new garment and footwear factories, worth an estimated US$338 million, during the first half of this year, compared with 38 last year valued at $180 million, despite the increase in the number of strikes affecting the industry. Officials and industry ...

More than 180,000 hectares on 28 of Cambodia’s 64 islands were reclassified as state private property for 31 companies seeking land concessions between 2008 and 2010, government sub-decrees reveal. The reclassification sub-decrees, compiled by investigators at the rights group Adhoc, pave the way for firms to ...

Aviation revenues have been released by government officials who were hesitant to reveal details but said yesterday the figures had increased by about three per cent. Mao Havannal, secretary of state for the Civil Aviation Secretariat, said after yesterday’s opening of a seminar on aviation insurance that ...

Thai construction company Ch Karnchang has continued work on the controversial Xayaburi dam in Laos, even as the Lao government has assured other Mekong River nations that the project is postponed pending further environmental studies, the company’s CEO said yesterday. Ch Karnchang’s CEO Plew Trivisvavet told ...

An investigation into the February shooting of three female garment workers by the former governor of Bavet City, Chhouk Bundith, will be completed and sent to a prosecutor for review by the end of the week, a Svay Rieng Provincial Court official said yesterday. Despite the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called investors from China’s Anhui province to invest in numerous sectors across Cambodia in an effort to spur two-way trade between the Kingdom and China in order accomplish their joint target of US$5 billion in trade by 2015. Meanwhile, Cambodia’s opposition party ...

Villagers who have spent recent days patrolling Prey Lang forest would file a complaint to the prime minister alleging government officials and private companies are clearing parts of the forest, a spokesman said yesterday. The 70-strong citizen patrol team who scoured the forest this week ...

Exactly one year after the Finance Ministry indefinitely postponed its last top-level meeting with the international aid donors, there is still no sign that the government is ready to set a new date to engage face-to-face with the country’s development partners. The forum is held once ...

Construction of the main structure of the supposedly on-hold Xayaburi dam could begin by the end of this year, the Thai company contracted to build it said yesterday. Ch Karnchang chief executive Plew Trivisvavet said preparatory work at the site of the proposed US$3.8 billion, 1,285-megawatt ...

With the number of tourists visiting the country increasing rapidly, hotels are coming under strain due to lack of skilled chefs and waiters in the industry, according to hotel managers. In the first six months of 2012, international visitors reached 1.75 million, a 26.8 percent ...