Government

Hundreds of registered voters are being called in to a tribunal set up at the Interior Ministry compound in Phnom Penh this week to face questioning about whether they are Cambodian enough to participate in upcoming elections. ...

Land titles were issued for nearly four million people involving 500,000 land plots last year, nearly two thirds of the total of seven million plots, the Land Ministry has reported. ...

Vietnam inked a deal with Cambodia on Friday to provide more than half a million dollars’ worth of training in encryption coding, prompting some to question the wisdom of accepting foreign help to protect state secrets. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) yesterday dismissed seven complaints made by the opposition CNRP alleging that 181 Vietnamese nationals were allowed to illegally register on the electoral roll. ...

Cambodia hopes to see Japanese investment in the light industry sector, which will help develop the kingdom’s labor force. Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak, in a meeting last week with Japanese Ambassador to Cambodia Hidehisa Horinouchi, asked Japan to consider investing in the light industry sector. ...

Efforts to introduce an effective, modern taxation system appear to be paying off as government coffers swelled last year, giving the state more revenue to use for development at a time when donor aid is drying up. ...

The Ministry of Commerce has finished the draft consumer protection law and will soon submit it to the Council of Ministers, according to a senior government official.​ ...

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) released its review of 2016 and outlook for 2017 this week, highlighting the continued large growth of the banking sector while warning that the Kingdom was still vulnerable to external economic factors. ...

The government yesterday decided to stop selling temporary permits to Cambodian citizens heading to Thailand’s Rong Kluea market through the Poipet border checkpoint. ...

Cambodian farmers may be able to cut export costs from the middle of the year if an agreement is signed letting them send their produce through the Thai port of Laem Chabang. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen and Lao President Bounnhang Vorachith met yesterday at the inauguration of a checkpoint on the border between both countries, subsequently reaching an agreement to allow residents on both sides to cross freely with only a special border pass. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen joined his Laotian counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith for a visit to the site of the controversial Don Sahong Dam just across the border on Tuesday, remarking that the trip was a reminder of Laos’ commitment to improving the livelihoods of Cambodians. ...

The opposition CNRP said on Tuesday it was preparing to submit complaints to the National Election Committee (NEC) about almost 5,000 Vietnamese voters it says were registered to vote without citizenship, a move criticized as continuing the party’s tradition of populist Vietnam-bashing. ...

The government has removed the fee for inspection services on milled rice slated for export, aiming to reduce the cost of Cambodia’s rice and increase its competitiveness in international markets. ...

Phnom Penh City Hall will add five new bus lines to the city’s public transportation system in an effort to increase ridership even though no profit has been made on the service. City Hall spokesman Met Meas Pheakdey told Khmer Times yesterday that the number of ...

The government is stepping up the fight against illegal mining in the country, cracking down on an illegal mine in Mondulkiri province last Friday and arresting two people. But local residents targeted by the crackdown protested after the raid, complaining that large mining corporations were allowed ...

Singaporean President Tony Tan Keng Yam’s visit to Phnom Penh on Monday yielded two agreements on education and health, but no words on controversial sand imports or migrant maids, an official said. ...

The government plans to abolish a range of fees for its services, including fees for issuing birth certificates, marriage certification and national identity documents. The Interior Ministry says the changes will ease the financial burden on citizens, improve public services and make the processes more transparent. ...

Affordable houses for low-income earners and state workers will go on sale within two  weeks after a groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday. The project, aimed at the lower middle class, low-income earners and state workers, will be restricted at first to low-income civil servants, said building contractor ...

Officials were tight-lipped yesterday about whether huge discrepancies in sand exports to Singapore would be discussed during a visit by the city-state’s president to the Kingdom later this week, though a Ministry of Mines official said a new export process was in the works. ...

The state-owned Cambodia Post will launch an online shopping platform in March in a move to tap the current rise in e-commerce activity. Ork Bora, director-general of the Cambodia Post, told Khmer Times yesterday that after about a year of studying e-commerce, the state-owned enterprise decided ...

At a press conference yesterday, NEC member and spokesman Hang Puthea said that in the process of posting the voter list to the website, the committee encountered two major problems – a slow access speed and an invasion by hackers. ...

Cambodia needs about $12 billion over a 10-year period to invest in the development of a skilled workforce and improved infrastructure in order to meet the goals of its Industrial Development Policy (IDP), Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak said recently. ...

Cambodia will join an international convention on the registration of industrial designs next month, furthering the scope of the county’s intellectual property protections, a government official said yesterday. ...