News

The Australian government is committing $1 million to help families being forced out of their homes to make way for a railway rehabilitation project it is co-funding with the government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Australian Embassy said in a statement Friday. The embassy ...

Bridges Across Borders Cambodia yesterday accused the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid) of white-washing conditions at relocation sites for families being evicted by a $142 million railway rehabilitation project being funded largely with their money ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) met yesterday with the representatives of families evicted or facing eviction to make way for an ADB-funded railway project, and defended itself against complaints that the project was pushing some of them deeper into poverty. The ADB has billed the $142 ...

Families evicted or still facing eviction to make way for an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded project to rehabilitate the country’s railway system plan to petition the ADB today for help securing better compensation from the government. The ADB is putting up more than half the money ...

Government officials are at odds over how much Cambodia’s national debt amounts to. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia’s debt stands at just $2 billion, contradicting information provided by CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap last week that the number is actually $7 billion, or 63 ...

Five years after the government established the country’s special economic zones (SEZs), the Phnom Penh SEZ, Sihanoukville II SEZ, and Manhattan SEZ in Svay Rieng province are at last starting to attract more business. According to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), ...

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 ...

The Agriculture Ministry is preparing to distribute rice seedlings in an effort to replace more than 220,000 hectares of rice paddy that has been destroyed by flooding. However, by the time floodwaters recede, there won’t be enough time left in the rainy season to replant ...

Tokyo: Cambodia needs more than an estimated US$13 billion in infrastructure works by 2020 if the country intends to continue attracting foreign investment, a joint survey by some of the world’s top financial institutions indicated on Wednesday. During a conference held by the Japan International Cooperation Agency ...

Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon has failed to respond to a request made almost two months ago about the authenticity of a letter in which he allegedly urged Prime Minister Hun Sen to ban foreign NGOs from doing advocacy work in Cambodia, the Asian Development ...

Cambodian officials say the country’s economic growth rate is set to exceed seven percent this year. According to financial analysts even if the global economy slows, Cambodia is well prepared to deal with it, partly because of strong foreign investment. But the billions of dollars ...

The Asian Development Bank yesterday said it had never authenticated a June 17 letter from Finance Minister Keat Chhon that claimed an ADB consultant urged the government to target advocacy groups critical of an ADB-funded railway project. In a copy of the letter obtained earlier this ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen received a proposal from Finance Minister Keat Chhon in June seeking to bar “foreign NGOs” from advocacy work in Cambodia, as well as preventing foreigners from working with local advocacy groups because of activism around the rehabilitation of the nation’s railway, ...

Plans are in the works to rebuild 505.4 km of rural roads in seven provinces with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and South Korea. The first phase of the repairing of the roads will begin in December 2011. The project to rebuild roads ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday countered Prime Minister Hun Sen’s prediction that gross domestic product growth will reach 8.7% this year, citing a smaller projection in its annual Asian Development Outlook update. The premier quoted the growth figure in a speech given on Monday, but ...

KUALA LUMPUR — Cambodia’s economic growth for 2011 is expected to be 6.8 per cent, says the Asian Development Bank (ADB). This is based on the positive trends over the six months of this year and is an improvement over the ADB forecast of 6.5 per ...

The Asian Development Bank said yesterday problems with a railway rehabilitation project – funded by the bank and AusAID – identified by a local NGO that was suspended by the government last month “may require further investigation or analysis”. In July, STT released a report ...

A TAXPAYER-FUNDED development project is mired in controversy after the Cambodian government launched a crackdown against land rights organisations critical of the compulsory resettlement of families. The Cambodian government has cautioned a small group of foreign organisations against stirring up unrest among those being forced off ...

ADB and World Bank have organized the training Audit workshop on the theme: “Strengthening quality of external audits of ADB and World Bank Funded Projects,” at Phnom Penh Hotel on 29 August 2011 aiming at increasing the auditors’ capacity to establish a good reporting statement ...

The Cambodian National Petroleum Authority restricted vital information and failed to cooperate with consultants working for the Asian Development Bank who were deployed to the authority between 2007 and 2010 as part of a $1 million project to strengthen governance at the body, a new ...

Cambodia’s foreign donors are staying largely mum about the government’s decision to indefinitely  high-level aid meeting, though one donor conceded that the move had caught it off guard. Economists also said yesterday that a delay in holding the donor meeting would have little effect, but ...

The government has postponed a top-level meeting with its foreign donors scheduled for November, a move that comes just over a week after a displeased World Bank revealed its decision to freeze all future loans to Cambodia. In an Aug 17 letter to World Bank ...

NGO Forum confirmed yesterday it had received a “warning letter” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over its advocacy on behalf of communities affected by a railway rehabilitation project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and AusAID. The warning to the umbrella group of 88 ...

With growing uncertainty in the US economy and an unfolding fiscal and debt crisis in the Eurozone after the global recession in 2008, Asia is expected to continue leading the global recovery. Under such circumstances, the 21st Century is emerging as the “New Asian Century”, ...