Nine non-governmental groups issued a statement late last week urging the country’s National Election Committee (NEC) to enforce laws that bar political parties from using state resources. “The NEC has to punish the politicians and parties who use the state resources,” said Yong Kim Eng, ...

Setting a minimum price for paddy is one of the campaign promises that the Pheu Thai party made to its supporters during the recent election campaign in Thailand before it was elected to power. Now it’s a matter of waiting to find out whether this ...

National carrier Myanmar Airways International plans to launch flights to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh by October, an airline spokesperson said. Flights will operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays, via Siem Reap, using a new Airbus A-321 that can accommodate 220 passengers. “We will add one Airbus A-321 ...

At the turnoff of Sihanoukville outside Phnom Penhmetal shop owner Kuch Sareun watches the sparks fly as his emplyees join pieces of steel. This year, he installed a diesel-run generator at his business since the frequent electricity outages were hurting his bottom line. Electricity is ...

The site of Koh Pur village’s new bridge may still be nothing more than pillars in a dusty crevice in the road, but when the link is finished – some time in December, authorities say – it will be a welcome relief for the village ...

In less  than a week, 18-year-old Heng Tina, who has just finished his high-school exam, will take another test that determines whether he’ll get a scholarship to go to technical school, a development that would put him one step closer to his dream of becoming ...

The disputes over sovereignty in the South China Sea are approaching a tipping point. As former ASEAN secretary-general Rodolfo Severino said last month: “The disputes cannot be resolved anytime soon, if at all. The most that can be done is to prevent them developing into armed ...

With GDP growth averaging around 9% for the past decade, Cambodia is certainly attracting interest from potential investors. It has possibly the most investor-friendly environment in Asean with no exchange controls, no restrictions on repatriation of profit, and no discrimination between foreign and local investors. Moreover, ...

High-profile Phnom Penh businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary has called on Prime Minister Hun Sen to return 33 hectares of prime land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district to her company, which lost the rights to it when the government claimed the land in July. Sokountheary said she ...

Cambodians like pork. The average Cambodian consumes almost 9.29 kg of the meat each year, and local farmers supplied about 2 million pigs, more than 90 percent of the domestic demand, in 2008. But the market for small-scale pig farmers has flown. Live pig prices have fallen ...

UK-based BIW automotive company on Friday signed a US$2 billion join venture investment with ACICA Automotive (Cambodia) to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province for a Cambodian-made vehicle within the next three years. The agreement was made between BIW’s director Robin Bowyer and ACICA’s Group ...

The government and its foreign donors are preparing for their next high-level aid meeting Wednesday, their first sine the government surprised donors in August 2011 by indefinitely suspending the meetings, citing the global financial crisis. However, officials at the Finance Ministry and the Council for the ...

A week after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he would be cancelling an unknown number of economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest, activists called for details on the annulled concessions, saying such revocations would be meaningless unless they could be policed. On September ...

Aeon Thana Sinsap (Thailand) plans aggressive business expansion both here and in neighbouring countries. The leading Japanese non-bank company is using Thailand as a centre to expand its businesses in other Asean countries. Aeon Thana Sinsap plans to offer more financial services in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and ...

Christmas shoppers stand to be taken by surprise this month as campaigners take action in shopping centers around Europe to raise awareness of poverty wages of Cambodian garment workers. With these ‘fashion mobs’, they pressure H&M, Inditex (Zara), Levi’s and Gap to introduce a living ...

Rajah & Tann, Southeast Asia’s largest law firm, has expanded to Cambodia through a tie-up with local law firm Sok & Heng, which has taken on a new name, RT Sok & Heng Law Office. Rajah & Tann’s deputy managing partner, Patrick Ang, estimates that there ...

Tek Nim is well versed in dealing with adversity. In year nine, she dropped out of school, began working on the family farm and finally became resigned to the belief that her brightest prospect was to leave Omlaing commune, in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, ...

All but three of a group of 20 Cambodians who were held against their will on a fishing boat in Thailand had returned after agreeing to pay a fee for “transportation”, a police official said yesterday. The men, believing they were heading to jobs in Koh ...

Toll Royal Railways (TRR), the current operator of Cambodia’s dilapidated rail network, restarted freight services to Kampot province yesterday, four months after it suspended its work. TRR’s resumption comes on the heals of a rival proposal to manage the train network by a consortium that includes one ...

Cambodians like pork. The average Cambodian consumes 9.29 kilogrammes of the meat a year and local farmers have long supplemented their incomes by selling an average of two pigs a year. In 2008, Cambodian farmers supplied around 2 million pigs, more than 90% of domestic demand. ...