Senate Oks Sesan Dam Payment Deal
After a 60- minute debate, the Senate on Friday voted in favour of a payment guarantee for the private companies constructing the controversial Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province. At the Senate session, 43 out of 48 senators voted to approve the deal which ...
Recent Development and Economic Outlook
The UN’s assessment suggests that Cambodia is one of the top five countries that have made significant progress toward meeting its MDGs by 2015. The poverty rate has dropped dramatically from 47.50 percent in 1993 to 34.70 percent in 2004 and 23 percent in 2011, ...
Indirect trade with India unhealthy
CAMBODIA’S indirect trade and investments with India are possibly worth almost five times more than its direct economic activities, a situation deemed “unfavourable” to the country, an industry expert said yesterday. Direct trade and investments between the two countries hit a record $112 million last ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031461933/Business/indirect-trade-with-india-unhealthy.html
World Bank Says Credit Growth Still a Risk
The World Bank has warned that the rapid growth of lending by Cambodia’s Banks is still a concern, despite a recent slow-down in credit disbursals. “Credit growth, which has been driven largely by wholesale and retail financing, and starting in 2011 agriculture financing, has eased to ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/world-bank-says-credit-growth-still-a-risk-20690/
Non-Government Groups Take Stock of the Country’s Rights Records
The government’s abuse of land rights and indigenous minorities were among the top concerns raised Tuesday by non-governmental groups at a workshop in Phnom Penh on Cambodia’s progress toward achieving a long list of U.N. human rights recommendations. As part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/non-government-groups-take-stock-of-countrys-rights-record-21113/
Trafficked numbers rising
Their stories have become all too familiar – Cambodian fishermen enslaved on fishing boats after being promised lucrative jobs overseas. They’re also becoming increasingly common. Anti-trafficking NGOs told the Post this week that they have noticed an exponential increase in the number of trafficking complaints from ...
Danson Cheong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265773/National/trafficked-numbers-rising.html
Troubles for Tonlesap Air
About two months after Phnom Penh-based Tonlesap Airlines suspended its chartered flights, the local carrier’s future seems as cloudy as ever. Vann Chanty, the director of air transport with Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation, said yesterday that the airline had not resumed operations and that ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013061766300/Business/troubles-for-tonlesap-air.html
Paths to Parliament Cleared for CPP’s Powerful Sons
Despite failing to win enough votes in the July 28 election to become lawmakers, at least three sons of some of the ruling CPP’s most high-ranking members will still take up seats in Parliament when the next government is formed, senior CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap ...
Neou Vannarin
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/paths-to-parliament-cleared-for-cpps-powerful-sons-38716/
The price of land development in Cambodia
Phnom Penh, a city once fabled for its stately colonial buildings and boulevards, and its serene riverside setting, is becoming a city of glaring contrasts. An economy left in ruins by the years of war and violent revolution in the 1970s and 80s grew at a ...
Worse than Potholes, Street 63 Roadwork Hurts City’s Image
Skyscrapers, supermarkets and high-end clothing stores along Sihanouk Boulevard may reflect the increasingly affluent side of Phnom Penh, but turning down busy Street 63 toward Central Market the scene is more warzone than Asean capital, with air thick with dust and the road peppered with ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/worse-than-potholes-street-63-roadwork-hurts-citys-image-28799/
Hor Namhong Asks for More Cash for Rail Project
Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong made another appeal to Australia for additional funds to complete a behind-schedule project to rehabilitate the country’s railway network, this time to newly appointed Australian Ambassador Alison Burrows, according to a ministry spokesman. While work on the Southern Line of the ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hor-namhong-asks-for-more-cash-for-rail-project-30272/
Housing development on Cambodian islands not the right time yet
Although currently there are a lot of development projects for resorts and guesthouses on various islands off Cambodia’s coast, experts say it is not the right time for such developments. Po Eavkong, managing director of Asia Real Estate Cambodia, said the development activities on islands in ...
Bribes remain rampant: TI
Despite facing a rampant graft problem that has seen Cambodians paying bribes far more often than their regional neighbors, they have growing faith in the government’s ability to fight it, a Transparency International survey has found. TI’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, which measures perceptions of corruption ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bribes-remain-rampant-survey
In Campaign, Some Promises Clearer Than Others
AKEO Province – In Takeo province, three political parties are vying for votes in the July 28 election. In interviews with VOA Khmer, villagers in Rovieng district say they are listening to the campaign promises, but many remain skeptical that they will be fulfilled once ...
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/in-campaign-some-promises-clearer-than-others/1707642.html
Social media shows election day muscle
Illustrating a rapidly changing information network in Cambodia, social media played a major role yesterday, as images and videos that appeared to depict fraudulent election activity went viral on Facebook and Twitter. Videos of voters washing off the supposedly indelible security ink used to identify those ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/social-media-shows-election-day-muscle
New Governor Promises to Solve Land Disputes
Phnom Penh’s new governor used his swearing in ceremony to Friday to boldly vow to solve some of the municipality’s longest-running and most high-emotive land disputes. Pa Socheatvong officially took over on Friday from outgoing governor Kep Chuktema, who served as the city’s chief for 10 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/new-governor-promises-to-solve-land-disputes-21897/
Opposition Lawmakers Want ‘Social’ Land to Go to Farmers
Cambodian lawmakers have passed a new law on agriculture, but critics say the law does not go far enough to protect the country’s farmers. The law passed on Thursday evening, but not before debate at the National Assembly. During the debate opposition representatives called on the ...
Thai restrictions cap cassava exports
Cambodia’s cassava exports reached 245,438 tonnes in the first quarter this year, a 47 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter, from 465,640 tonnes in the final quarter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce released early this month. While most exports went to Thailand, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051565618/Business/thai-restrictions-cap-cassava-exports.html
Factory Dining Hall Collapses in Phnom Penh; 23 injured
The dining hall of a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district that supplies clothes to U.S. brand Gap collapsed into a pond Monday, injuring more than 20 workers who were eating lunch, workers and officials said. The hall, which is part of Top World Garment ...
Rising Demand Boosts Organic Rice Industry
Production of Cambodian organic rice is rising rapidly as international demand for the product increases, experts said at a forum for growers and other industry members held Tuesday at the Phnom Penh headquarters of agricultural NGO Cedac. “In the first six months of this year we’ve ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/rising-demand-boosts-organic-rice-industry-34216/