News

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating by one notch to B due to the country’s continued inability to diversify its economy and increase government spending. The decision by Standard & Poor’s comes after the agency said in September that constraints ...

Myanmar Airways International (MAI) is slated for a November 2 launch of bi-weekly flights between Phnom Penh and Myanmar’s economic hub and former capital, Yangon, Cambodian Aviation officials said yesterday. The flights – on 162-seat A320 jets – will transfer in Siem Reap before continuing on ...

Two new Asian airlines will begin regular flights to Cambodia this winter in an airlines sector increasingly dominated by regional passengers, a Cambodia Airports official said on Friday. Tiger Airways, a Singapore-based airline, will operate daily A320 flights between Singapore and Phnom Penh and Singapore and ...

Nearly 100 residents from about 50 families in Sihanoukville town’s commune 1 blocked National Road 4 yesterday to protest against a Supreme Court verdict ordering their eviction on Friday in favour of a local official   ...

Insurance companies have operated at a loss through the first nine months of the year, paying out a total of $32.5 million over $20.4 million in generated revenues, according to data released by the Cambodian Reinsurance Company on Friday. Ty Atith, a senior underwriter at the ...

Two new claims of abuse of Cambodian maids employed in Malaysia have emerged since Friday, including one case of a woman who returned home with severe mental trauma following alleged mistreatment by her Malaysian employer, the victims’ families said. Iy Thar, a villager from Kompong Thom ...

After years of trying to find suitable staff, the Ministry of Commerce on Friday released a list of 44 arbitrators who will be in charge of running the National Arbitration Center (NAC), a body designed to offer businesses a commercial dispute mechanism alternative to Cambodia’s ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia approved yesterday a license to IRIS Securities to be the 13th securities investment advisory firm in the Kingdom’s budding capital market ...

Cambodian crocodile farmers have blamed the falling price of the reptile on flooding, which they say has turned away Thai and Vietnamese buyers – the market’s cornerstone. Prices for young crocodiles have dropped 25 per cent since August, Kandal breeder Kaing Sarin said. His reptiles fetched ...

Trade between Cambodia and Vietnam surpassed a US$2 billion trade target for 2011 in just the first nine months of the year, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Phnom Penh. Trade between the two countries hit the higher-than-projected $2.07 billion in September, up from about ...

The Royal Cambodian Government has given another slice of the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary to the agro-industry. A report in the Royal book released on October 12 states that 1,410 hectares had been granted to two unidentified private businesses for development, particularly the planting of rubber ...

About 170 garment workers fainted at a factory in Kampong Speu yesterday, the first day Anful Garments Manufacturing reopened after being hit by a mass fainting incident on Monday, workers and government officials said yesterday. The second mass fainting at the Hong Kong-owned factory, which supplies ...

Three residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake community were temporarily detained by police and had a camera and phone confiscated yesterday while trying to take pictures of a list posted outside the Srah Chak commune office in Daun Penh district. Two of the three are ...

Amid mounting concerns over labor recruitment agencies’ treatment of migrant workers, new links were discovered yesterday between agencies and the officials that regulate them, as a daughter of a senior Labor Ministry official was found to be running a major recruitment firm. Nhem Chakrya, deputy director ...

In one of Phnom Penh’s biggest land deals to date, Japanese shopping mall developer Aeon Mall Co Ltd has bought 6.7 hectares of prime real estate from South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction, a firm that was once slated to build the tallest building in ...

Total government spending in 2012 is set to reach $2.62 billion, an increase of 9 percent on the $2.4 billion the government had budgeted to spend in 2011, according to a copy of the 2012 draft budget law obtained yesterday. As part of the new budget, ...

In a landmark ruling, the Siem Reap Municipal Court yesterday ordered a luxury hotel to reinstate 67 sacked workers – a legally binding decision that unionists have hailed as a great moment for the judicial system. The decision comes after more than two months of protests, ...

Food and beverage imports in the Kingdom fell more than 70 per cent in the third quarter, as high international prices and the growth of domestic production dragged on demand. About 192,580 tonnes of food and beverage products entered Cambodia between July and September, down 72 ...

Tong Yang Securities (Cambodia) and ACLEDA Securities yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to partner the services they offer to the Kingdom’s budding financial markets. To expand their footprint in the market,  the companies aimed to provide a combination of advisory and underwriting services for companies ...

A ninth telecoms operator would enter the Cambodian market next year, officials said yesterday, surprising insiders who claimed the sector was already overcrowded. Camintel, a joint Cambodian state- and Korean-owned company, would offer mobile services in 2012, CEO Kang Namkook said yesterday at a telecommunications conference ...

The results of an investigation into two mass fainting incidents at a factory in Kampong Chhnang confirmed that M&V International Manufacturing had violated Cambodian labour law by forcing some staff to work overtime and failing to give them a full day off each week, according ...

The Forestry Administration has teamed up with the Cambodian Wildlife Conservation Society and Forest Carbon to develop a large-scale REDD project in eastern Cambodia, officials said yesterday. REDD – or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, a UN initiative – is one of the ...

Total outstanding loans in the microfinance sector reached $815.47 million in the third quarter, a 25.8 percent rise compared to beginning of the year, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) Despite growth in the sector, microfinance institutions said nonperforming loans were ...

Total exports during the first nine months of the year rose 41 percent to $3.5 billion compared to the same period in 2010, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce. Of the total amount, $3.1 billion was in garments, $10 million in paddy rice, ...