Government

The Interior Ministry’s Central Security Department yesterday announced two hotlines for the public to report possible kidnappings after a spike in Facebook comments about parents losing their children. According to a statement issued yesterday, the purpose of the hotlines is to assist authorities with locating ...

The Finance Ministry is planning to raise the national education budget to more than $700 million next year in a bid to improve standards in schools. ...

Hundreds of corn farmers blocked a main road in Battambang province on Thursday, hoping the barricade would persuade Prime Minister Hun Sen to put pressure on traders to raise the dwindling crop prices that are hurting their livelihoods. ...

Cambodia and Myanmar have agreed to further enhance trade between the two countries by encouraging investment from small and medium enterprises and exchanging agricultural products, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. ...

The French government has thrown its backing behind Cambodia’s recent commune elections, saying the polls went smoothly and were free and fair. ...

Phnom Penh municipal officials and Chinese Embassy representatives yesterday commemorated the handover of 98 Chinese buses and two cranes to the city yesterday at a ceremony on Koh Pich. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has authorized a six-month extension of the government’s anti-drug campaign, an anti-drug authority official said on Thursday. ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has demanded that all new commune chiefs and councillors elected at the June 4 local elections submit asset declarations to the unit and reminded those who were re-elected to update their declarations. ...

The Financial Management Information System (FMIS), a reform initiative designed to improve the governance and transparency of national budget management, will be applied to 10 government ministries later this year after a successful implementation of the scheme at the National Treasury Department, officials said yesterday. ...

The National Committee for Counter Trafficking’s (NCCT) six-month report, released on Monday, identified two cases of child labour in brick-making factories in Siem Reap, though officials and a rights group monitor said the use of such labour had decreased in the province. ...

An international alliance of NGOs has started a campaign to urge two prominent U.K. clothing retailers and a Canadian brand to compensate 208 factory workers who lost their jobs when the Chung Fai Knitwear factory abruptly closed a year ago. ...

While highly contentious new rules were being passed in the National Assembly on Monday banning the CNRP from collaborating with its former leader Sam Rainsy, photographs were posted to Facebook of senior opposition lawmakers dining at a riverside hotel in Kampot province. ...

Against a backdrop of government criticism of local election watchdogs, Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong has been elected vice president of the standing committee of the election monitor ICAPP, which has frequently been criticised for indiscriminately offering its stamp of approval to otherwise controversial elections. ...

The Ministry of Environment has announced its support for a new 10-megawatt solar power development project in the coastal province of Kep to be spearheaded by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a South Korea-based organisation set up by the UN in 2012 to chart ...

As tourists’ itineraries veer toward nature resorts and jungle trekking, companies and conservationists are considering how they can define, develop and expand ecotourism and coastal tourism in Cambodia. ...

On a narrow side street on the outskirts of Phnom Penh on Tuesday, cars and tuk-tuks crept slowly along as hordes of pedestrians and motorbikes blocked their paths. Food carts and steady streams of customers lined the road. ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy has permanently banned sand exports from Koh Kong province – eight months after it imposed a temporary ban following controversy over large discrepancies found in sand export figures to Singapore. ...

Cambodian rice exports increased marginally during the first half of the year as export companies push to fulfill higher quotas destined for China. Rice exports totalled 288,562 tonnes in the first six months of the year, an increase of 7.6 percent compared to the same time ...

Cambodia has invested more than $1 billion on infrastructure, especially on transport, a senior official at the Ministry of Economy and Finance says. ...

The Cambodian embassy in Malaysia has repatriated 14 Cambodian fishermen who fled a Thai boat and are believed to be human trafficking victims, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.​​ ...

Child sex tourism is continuing to damage the lives of young Cambodians, while the internet is enabling perpetrators to carry out abuse, the Justice Minister has warned.​ ...

Activists and a fisherman yesterday claimed that a company has started sand dredging within a wildlife sanctuary in Koh Kong, despite a standing ban on sand exports from companies operating in coastal areas. ...

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said yesterday that next month’s Grade 12 high school exams will largely follow the same process as the past few years, though a spokesman noted that new subject “experts” will be introduced to help spot grading errors. ...

National Police Commissioner Neth Savoeun yesterday issued an order to have all police officials’ starting dates and ranks recorded in a computer database to avoid corrupt promotions.​ ...