News
Beverage firms, telcos lift revenues
Advertising companies generated $73.6 million in revenue during the first nine months of the year, a 28 percent increase compared to the same period in 2010, according to data released by marketing research firm Indochina Research. Beverage and telecommunication companies led the way, spending $12.75 million ...
Cambodia's top investor sits at bottom of bribery list
For the fifth time in a row, Cambodia’s top investment partner, China, has been ranked among the most likely to pay bribes, according to an international corruption perception report published yesterday. Transparency International’s Bribe Payer’s Index classed China as second-to-last among 28 of the world’s biggest ...
Subpar sanitation, high food prices curbing growth, UN says
Economic growth in Cambodia is being hampered by poor sanitation and hygiene, and rising food prices are leaving people struggling to afford basic produce for a balanced diet, according to a report released yesterday by the UN Development Program (UNDP). The UNDP’s 2011 Human Development Report ...
South Korean manufacturers eye Cambodia
South Korean investors were in Phnom Penh yesterday seeking opportunities in electronics manufacturing, an industry that experts have said could represent the next stage of growth for Cambodia’s economy. Eleven delegates from Changwon City, South Korea, a manufacturing hub in the country, met with 70 local ...
PPAP shipping numbers up
Freight shipments through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, Cambodia’s second largest port, increased more than 30 per cent year-on-year through October, according to official figures ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110352507/Business/ppap-shipping-numbers-up.html
Regulator sees growth
Camcontrol revenues for the first nine months of the year hit US$7.9 million, surpassing the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s revenue goal of $6 million for the year. Kong Putheara, director of the Ministry of Commerce’s statistics department, this week said the unexpected growth came from ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110352505/Business/regulator-sees-growth.html
WTO review of Kingdom trade policy expected
The World Trade Organisation today will conclude its first-ever review of Cambodia’s trade policies and practices and issue its concluding remarks. The trade review, which began on November 1, is the first time the Kingdom, which was the first least-developed country to fully accede to the ...
PM weighs in on China debt debate
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday added his two cents to the ongoing debate on what Cambodia’s debt to China actually is, declaring it stands at only US$2 billion. At a ground-breaking ceremony marking the beginning of construction on Phnom Penh’s Cambodia-China Friendship Bridge, the premier rejected ...
Private firms plan CSX IPOs
A logistics firm and two garment manufacturers planned to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange during the second half of 2012, underwriter Phnom Penh Securities said yesterday. The companies are the first known private businesses to confirm their intentions of listing on the Kingdom’s still-dormant bourse. Manufacturing ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110352509/Business/private-firms-plan-csx-ipos.html
Floods drive fishing sector
Increased fishing yields due to floods have led to an increase in rental fees for the Kingdom’s fishing lots compared to 2010, according to official data. Revenues from bidding on 52 fishing lots in Phnom Penh and four other provinces increased by US$735,000 year to date, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110252470/Business/floods-drive-fishing-sector.html
Chinese firm buys timber concession
Cambodia has granted Chinese timber company Shengda Wood a 22,600-hectare timber concession in Kratie and Strung Treng provinces, officials said. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange-listed company would export wood from the 70-year concession to supply a depleted market in China, Li Jie, a management official in Sichuan, ...
Caution: Children at work
Labour legislation in Cambodia is so weak and so often ignored that half the Kingdom’s children between the ages of seven and 14 participate in the workforce, the world’s largest federation of unions has told the World Trade Organisation General Council in Geneva. Children, women and ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110252486/National-news/caution-children-at-work.html
Food security in focus as floods recede
The government had set aside 3,000 tonnes of rice seeds to distribute to farmers whose crops were destroyed by flooding and had so far distributed 1,900 tonnes of rice to those affected by the floods in 18 provinces, the National Committee for Disaster Management said ...
Mega-projects lead to big growth in approved investments
Approved investments in Cambodia reached $5.6 billion during the first nine months of the year, a 305 percent increase compared to the same period the year before, according to data from the Council of the Development of Cambodia (CDC). Last year’s approved investments during the same ...
Borei Keila residents start fire, stone district office
About 200 residents of Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community burned tires and threw rocks at the Prampi Makara district office yesterday, demanding that the district governor solve a long-running housing dispute between them and powerful construction firm Phanimex, which they say has failed to abide ...
US, Cambodia to sign off on $20m in aid projects
The US is scheduled today to sign off on another $20 million in funding for aid projects in Cambodia, according to a US Embassy statement issued yesterday. One project will “strengthen the ability of civil society, the private sector, and the government to address food security ...
Raped maids sent back to labor agencies
The Cambodian Embassy in Malaysia returned abused Cambodian maids, including women who were raped by their employers, to work at maid recruitment agencies in that country, a new report by Human Rights Watch claims. The New York-based rights group also said Cambodian police colluded with labor ...
Construction spend nears $1bn
The total value of approved construction projects in the Kingdom soared 97 per cent year-on-year through September, according to official figures, reaching nearly US$1 billion. The number of projects fell to 1,689 for the first nine months of 2011, down from 1,718 in the same period ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110152452/Business/construction-spend-nears-1bn.html
Fund raising: Kingdom may borrow more in 2012
Cambodia could borrow US$1.1 billion from other countries in 2012, 75 per cent more than this year, to help repair infrastructure damaged in flooding and support efforts to increase rice exports to one million tonnes by 2015, a senior official said yesterday. Cheam Yeap, chairman of ...
Spirited reopening for Anful
Workers at a garment factory that was temporarily shut after more than 200 women collapsed in two mass fainting incidents last week gathered yesterday at the facility in Kampong Speu province for a Buddhist ceremony intended to rid the factory of evil spirits. Pheng Songoun, a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110152461/National-news/spirited-reopening-for-anful.html
S&P downgrades Acleda, keeps outlook stable
Hours after downgrading Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said it had also decided to lower the credit rating for Acleda Bank to B from B+, though it maintained its outlook for the bank as stable. The decision follows a similar decision ...
With broad mandate, group to represent migrant workers
As reports continue to flood in detailing rampant abuse of Cambodian migrant workers abroad, the Cambodian Migrant Workers’ Association (CMWA) said it would be registering with the Ministry of Interior today as the country’s first migrant workers representative organisation, according to its director. “The idea is ...
Talks yet to begin with Malaysia on maid ban
More than two weeks after a ban on sending maids to Malaysia began, work on a bilateral agreement that would protect Cambodian maids working in Malaysia has not begun, officials said yesterday. Ho Vuthy, deputy director general at the Ministry of Labor’s department of labor, said ...
Land dispute victims to protest crackdown
More than 2,700 families embroiled in 11 separate long-running land disputes in Kandal province are planning to hold a mass protest to draw attention to the continuing arrests and detention of villagers by the provincial court, villagers said yesterday According to Adhoc’s records, Kandal Provincial Court ...