News

Cambodia on Monday launched a five-year policy and action plan for early childhood care and development with an aim to increase enrollment and enhance protection for children aged less than six years old. ...

Cambodia is the third most at-risk country to money laundering and terrorist financing in the world, according to a global index released last month, trailing only Iran and Afghanistan. The Anti-Money Laundering Index, first published by the Swiss-based Basel Institute on Governance in 2012, assigns the ...

More than 15 months after a Global Witness report revealed that Vietnam’s state-owned rubber giant had illegally cleared land and displaced communities in Cambodia, the company has announced that it will accept and respond to complaints from those whose lives it has damaged. Vietnam Rubber Group, ...

Cambodia’s GDP per capita is expected to reach 1,130 U.S. dollars this year, an estimated increase of 8 percent from 1,043 U.S. dollars last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday. ...

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has sold its 12.25 percent stake in Acleda bank to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in an undisclosed amount after having supported Acleda for over 15 years, said an IFC news statement ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that the country’s economy is forecast to grow by 7. 5 percent in 2014, driven by steady growth in agriculture, garment export, tourism, and construction. ...

The World Bank has debarred Cambodia’s CDW Construction Co Ltd for three years for fraudulent practices relating to the Ketsana Emergency Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Project. Announced in 2010, the $40 million project aimed to restore transport as well as water and sanitation services to the tens ...

Thailand will lose its beneficial tax treatment on exports to the European Union next year, and Cambodia’s manufacturing sector could be set to capitalise. Following three consecutive years of upper-middle income status as defined by the World Bank, Thailand will on January 1 lose its Generalised ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday applauded the recent creation of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), saying it could ease Cambodia’s dependence on institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). BRICS member nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa announced ...

The planned construction of 88 hydroelectric dams in the lower Mekong basin by 2030 will cause food security challenges in Cambodia, experts say. “Cambodia is going to pay the highest price for dam development basin-wide, to the point of affecting the food security of its 80 ...

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear ...

Villagers from Koh Kong province delivered petitions in Phnom Penh on Friday seeking international intervention in their land dispute with powerful businessman and CPP senator Ly Yong Phat, alleging that his Koh Kong Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was encroaching on their farmland. Five representatives of the ...

Phnom Penh’s first solar-powered building looks for all the world like a cube of colored Lego blocks dropped in a factory lot on the city’s industrial outskirts. Covered in some 1,350 solar panels — including large panes of multi-colored solar glass — the three-story building ...

The Chinese firm that was financially backing an ambitious project to develop Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood has pulled out, Chinese Embassy and company officials have confirmed, and no other investor appears to have taken its place. That makes the Erdos Hongjun Investment Corporation at least ...

A senior government official has accused authorities involved in the construction and repair of the nation’s roads of embezzling a significant portion of the money budgeted to them. Nhim Vanda, the first vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management, on Wednesday added his voice ...

The National Committee for Disaster Management said yesterday that the government has made provisions for this year’s rainy season. More than 10,000 tonnes of rice, emergency supplies and rescue vehicles have been prepared ahead of predicted flooding, committee deputy director Nhim Vanda said yesterday at a ...

More than one year after its fish products were banned from Europe, the industry and government has done little to ensure it will be lifted. The ban, instituted in early 2013, has hurt potential fish exports to a potentially lucrative trade partner. But EU officials say Cambodia ...

The Ministry of Industry and Handicraft will introduce an online registration platform for Cambodia’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) this year, a ministry official confirmed yesterday. Heng Sok Kong, secretary of state at the ministry, said the new software for web registration was built in partnership ...

Residents of three displaced communities in Phnom Penh on Friday submitted a petition to the office of the European Union delegation, urging it to monitor funds it gives to the government. More than 50 protesters from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Thmor Kol neighborhoods were met ...

More than 100 families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have filed a complaint with authorities, claiming a rubber giant – already accused of illegal logging – filled in two natural lakes, provincial officials said yesterday. Villagers, along with government officials, say Vietnamese company Hong Anh Gai ...

Developer Shukaku has sold off close to 1.3 hectares of land at the capital’s controversial Boeung Kak lake site to a Singapore-listed HLH Group company, according to a statement from HLH. HLH subsidiary D’Lotus Development purchased the land at Boeung Kak in Daun Penh district for ...

The Arbitration Council says the Ministry of Labor has knighted an Australian industrial commissioner for his long period of work as an honorary advisor to the council. In a statement posted on its website Friday, the council said Labour and Vocational Training Minister Ith Samheng awarded ...

With regional and international competition increasing, Cambodia’s workers could be falling behind. A new World Bank report says Cambodia’s labor force lacks the skills to advance the country’s economy, even as an increasing number of young people enter the labor market. Kem Lay, a sociology researcher, ...

Acleda Bank has reinvested $39 million of profits back into its operations instead of paying out dividends to shareholders, an announcement on its website states. It is the 11th time Alceda has opted to increase registered capital, with the latest top-up taking the bank’s total capital ...