United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk will be in Siem Reap, Cambodia, August 30-31, to participate in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Ministers’ meeting and the ASEAN-U.S. Business Summit. The ten ASEAN countries are key economic and strategic partners for the United States, ...

After months of inactivity that has fueled questions about the company’s future, Boeung Kak lake developer Shukaku Inc has launched a recruitment drive, calling for at least half a dozen architects, engineers and other employees. When contacted yesterday, Sok Heng Ly, an administrative employee listed in the ...

Kasikornbank aims to expand its bancassurance business into neighbouring countries after finding that customers in Laos and Cambodia incur higher medical expenses. Pakorn Partanapat, executive vice president, said that the bank has prepared business plans to cope with the Asean Economic Community (AEC), and bancassurance is ...

Police targeting of sex workers for arrest has made them vulnerable to contracting or spreading HIV, according to a U.N. report released yesterday. The U.N. report, Sex Work and Law in Asia and the Pacific-Laws, HIV and human rights in the context of sex work, states that ...

In the latest bid for an increase in garment-industry wages, Free Trade Union (FTU) president Chea Mony yesterday called on the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) to come to the table and discuss a $120-per-month minimum wage. A few days after Cambodian Confederation of Unions ...

A new tourist promenade is to open in the heart of Phnom Penh’s old French quarter. Scheduled for a February opening, the tourist walk zone will provide an outdoor leisure area on street 13 that will be closed to cars and motorbikes on weekends from ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that the government has no role in setting the minimum wage, as Cambodia is a market driven economy, and shot down unnamed people who have been calling for the government to significantly raise the country’s floor wage of $61. “For ...

The first company to offer Cambodians life insurance will launch on May 21, an official at the company said yesterday, though experts said the firm could struggle to make good profits in a market where fraudulent claims and limited customers could become a stumbling block. Cambodia ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to the world to harmonize energy prices to food prices as food production shouldn’t outstrip the consumption of volatile fuels while food price remains stable, at the 4th workshop on food security and nutrition. Calling it “The Phnom Penh Initiative,” Prime Minister Hun Sen requested that the issue be ...

Forestry Administration officials in Banteay Meanchey province have confiscated and continue to hold equipment valued at $1.5 million from a troubled biofuel plantation without any legal backing, an official in the provincial governor’s office said. Bulldozers, steamrollers and dump trucks were confiscated last month from a ...

Sarorn Phi, 39, cautiously stops his moto 20 metres away from the large, signless boom gate blocking his path in Sesan district. He shuffles toward the security guard’s hut at the entrance to a sprawling Chinese rubber plantation and negotiates with the guard to enter ...

The Appeal Court yesterday began hearing now-incarcerated former Anco Brothers deputy general director Heng Chheang’s appeal against Senator Kok An’s requested Phnom Penh Municipal Court injunction over his property. Chheang, and his wife, Tep Kolap, former Phnom Penh International University director, were convicted and sentenced to ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday summoned three human rights workers and a journalist over allegations that hey incited indigenous ethnic minority villagers in Lumphat district to protest violently against a powerful agro-industry company in 2009. Deputy court prosecutor Chea Sopheak said he had requested Adhoc provincial ...

A new real estate joint venture between local Sonatra Group and Japan’s Grand Corp launched a $6.5 million condominium project in BKK1 yesterday. The 26-storey tower, with 50 units, will be built with high-quality, energy-saving Japanese equipment, according to the new firm’s chief executive, Jun Takeguchi. ...

Lying in a hospital bed at Phnom Penh’s Naga Clinic yesterday well-known tycoon Khaou Chuly said that he may appeal to the prime minister to intervene in an attempted murder conviction against his wife that was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday. Mr. Chuly, 83, ...

About 600 Tae Young factory workers are back on the job thanks to a court injunction – and the desire to pocket a little cash in time for Pchum Ben – but the return will only Be temporary, workers said yesterday. The decision followed a Kandal ...

After months spent surveying land for an ambitious land-titling project, thousands of student volunteers have been granted a short reprieve to return home over the Pchum ben holiday, the prime minister announced yesterday. At a graduation ceremony in the capital yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said ...

The inking of a €300 million contract for water turbines, and job advertisements marked “urgent” appear to be the latest signs that Laos is powering forward with the Xayaburi hydroelectric dam project on the Mekong River. Assurances the $3.8 billion project was on hold pending further ...

The Cambodian government is beginning to focus on fire security and intervention systems in skyscrapers, which are on the increase in Phnom Penh. Lieutenant Colonel Neth Vutha, chief of the Fire Station of the Phnom Penh Police Department, said the General Commissariat of the National Police ...

A Thailand-based technical university yesterday signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with technical training institutes in Cambodia to improve human resources in the technical sector. The MoUs were signed between the Thai Rajamangala University of Technology and the National Polytechnic Institute of Cambodia and the National ...