News

Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An has called for the greater use of local products in the tourism sector, as products from overseas that continue to supply the industry result in a 25 per cent loss in revenue for Cambodia’s US$2 billion-a-year tourism industry. ...

An EU scheme to boost trade with developing nations is fuelling land grabs in Cambodia, activists say, with thousands evicted from their property to make way for a booming sugar industry. Campaigners are taking their fight to European supermarkets, encouraging a boycott of Cambodian sugar, which ...

Despite heavy rains in parts of the country, a month-long drought has destroyed over 10,000 hectares of rice seedlings in other areas, agriculture officials said yesterday. Battambang province was the hardest hit, with 4,640 hectares of seedlings destroyed by the drought and another 10,000 hectares affected. In ...

The number of cases of foot-and-mouth disease dropped significantly in first six months of 2012 compared with the three previous years, according to new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). However, the report’s authors say the disease is still a problem for Cambodian farmers, especially owners of small farms, and can severely ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

The European Union should immediately remove trade preferences it gives to Cambodian sugar companies accused of human-rights violations including land grabs, representatives of the affected communities told a press conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. Community representatives from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces said ...

More than 170 villagers in Banteay Meanchey province locked in a land dispute with a local company protested yesterday in front of the provincial hall, seeking land titles in compliance with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s recent titling project. The families say they had been granted a ...

The Kandal Provincial Court ordered thousands of striking garment employees back to work for the second time yesterday, but they will continue fighting until their demands are met, a union president said. Workers at Ang Snuol district’s Tai Nan I, Tai Nan II and Camwell factorieshave ...

State power company Electricite du Cambodge (EDC) plans to increase the price of electricity to make up for a drop in revenue this year, according to a Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy official. “This year, oil prices went up, which meant the EDC did not ...

Heng Chheang, former deputy general director of the Anco Brothers Company, was brought by prison security guards yesterday for questioning to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over fresh allegations of defamation and fraud filed by Senator Kok An last year, officials said. “Although I have already ...

A public tramway system in Phnom Penh could be completed by as early as 2017, a representative of a French urban consultancy company said yesterday. The municipality announced in October that Systra, a railroad consultancy firm based in France, was conducting a feasibility study on a ...

The number of incoming business people from Wenzhou, a Chinese coastal city of three million known for manufacturing, has grown markedly in recent years. So much, in fact, that Wezhou opened an official chamber of commerce in Phnom Penh last week. Labour and land costs on China’s ...

Roughly 4,000 garment workers at a factory supplying clothes for U.S. brands Gap, Levi Strauss and Old Navy went on strike yesterday and threatened to march in Phnom Penh on Thursday to demonstrate against poor pay. The demonstration took place at Tai Yang Enterprises in Kandal ...

Thailand and Cambodia are making moves to repair trade relations as 30 of Thailand’s provincial commerce departments hold a three-day trade fair in Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island Convention Center this week, according to Jiranan Wongmongkol, director of the Foreign Trade Promotion Office (FTPO) at the ...

Twelve of the 29 excavators seized by military police in Kompong Thom province during Monday’s military police raids on illegal Tonle Sap reservoirs were confiscated from a farming collective run by a newly elected CPP commune chief. Peanh Poul, director of the Dry Rice Season Community, ...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead the largest delegation of American businesses ever to visit Cambodia when she arrives here next week to participate in the Asean Regional Forum, U.S. Ambassador William Todd said yesterday. ...

Revenues from the tourism sector increased 7 percent to $1.91 billion in 2011, though more could be made if hotels sourced more goods from local producers instead of importing from abroad, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said yesterday. Speaking at a conference in Phnom Penh, Mr. Khon ...

Mr. Ek Sokchan, head of Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority on June 30 retired from his position and he has been appointed as the secretary of state for Ministry for Industry, Mine and Energy. ...

The general director of the Energy Department at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy has defended Cambodia’s energy needs and its use of coal power as the country attempts to use modern technology to reduce pollution ahead of the ASEAN Senior Energy Officials’ 30th ...

Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun threatened yesterday to lead a march of more than 3,000 striking garment workers from Kandal province to the capital on Thursday if their employer refuses to meet their demands. “[Workers] have already made commitments with me to march to ...

Despite receiving applications from banks looking to enter Cambodia’s market, the central bank has said it will offer no more commercial banking licenses as the market already has enough players. The decision appears to follow advice offered by the International Monetary Fund earlier this year that ...

An abused Cambodian maid working in Malaysia has had her day in court – and won. Men Chan Veasna is the first Cambodian maid to successfully sue her employers in the Malaysian courts, rights groups said yesterday, calling the win a landmark victory for maids struggling ...

Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority saw 8.2 per cent revenue growth during the first quarter of the year, a welcomed disclosure after the retirement of the state-owned firm’s general director was announced last week. The firm took in US$7,725,500 between January and March, up from $7,140,473 ...

Revenues generated at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port increased 13.6 percent to $14 million in the first five months of 2012, compared to the same period last year, a port official said yesterday. Lou Kimchhun, director-general of the port, said that revenues came from a 9 percent ...