ASEAN's newest look for cash
Younger Southeast Asian countries will look for a means of filling the financial gap between poorer mainland ASEAN members and more developed states this week during the 44th ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting, which kicked off today. At the five-day meeting which Prime Minister Hun Sen was ...
Government Approves Dam On Lower Sesan
The Council of Ministers on Friday signed off on the Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province, despite long-standing criticism leveled against the project by environmental groups who say it would adversely affect 100,000 people as a consequence of reduced access to fish. The ...
Protesters Want Obama’s Support Over Evictions
About 100 residents embroiled in land disputes in Phnom Penh submitted a petition to the U.S. Embassy yesterday requesting that President Barack Obama raise the issue of evictions and reform of the country’s land concession policy when he visits Cambodia later this month. The plea comes ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protesters-want-obamas-support-in-evictions-5252/
The arrival of the ASEAN Economic Community will likely be delayed
ASEAN leaders have proposed putting off the planned launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) until the end of 2015, instead of the beginning of that year, so each member state will have more time to prepare for the single market, according to Cambodian Commerce ...
Experts Put Forward Changes to Draft Agreement Protecting Maids
Officials from the government U.N. and human rights groups on Friday put forward amendments to draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) that is designed to impose safeguards for Cambodians to travel to work as maids in Malaysia. While the original draft by the Malaysian government sets out the responsibility of ...
Study Finds Land Concessions of No Benefit
Government-issued economic land concessions are making the country’s indigenous communities in the northeast provinces worse off, according to a study by the Mekong Institute of Cambodia. Presented yesterday at the 2012 Development Research Forum in Phnom Penh, the study comes on top of mounting criticism of ...
Microfinance Firms Look to Retail Lending
While shopping for a brand-new television, 27-year-old Loek Bunhai recently bought a Sony flat-screen at the Sunsimexco retail outlet on Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard for $345. But with a monthly salary of $300 from his job as a microfinance officer in Phnom Penh, Mr. Bunhai was ...
Land Concessions Signed After Hun Sen Ordered Moratorium
According to documents published in the latest Royal Gazette, Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on three land concessions covering more than 20,000 hectares last month, 11 days after a moratorium on the granting of such concessions was announced. On May 7, Mr. Hun Sen signed ...
Families cling to hope for land
Representatives of 44 families embroiled in a violent land dispute in Banteay Meanchey province say they are living like squatters and haven’t been granted long-promised property in the area. Kao Ty, a defence lawyer for the families, said that his clients are among the more than ...
News Analysis: Cambodia Viewed As "Best" Investment Venue For Thais
Cambodia is considered “the most promising country” in the ASEAN community where Thai business entrepreneurs could set up trade and investment projects, according to a noted Thai academic and economist. Roongrote Benjamasuthin, director of the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce’s ASEAN Business & Economic Center, ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-02/09/c_132162078.htm
Former anti-drug czar’s appeal begins
Disgraced anti-drug czar Moek Dara’s appeal against his life sentence for convictions in 25 separate cases of bribery and masterminding a criminal enterprise began yesterday morning in Phnom Penh. Co-accused, former Ministry of Interior anti-drug police department chief Chea Leng also appeared at the Court of ...
Kingdom’s crafts can be hit in Korea
Cambodian handicrafts and home decor products could take off with South Korean buyers if certain obstacles – conceptual design, development techniques, and slow delivery services – are overcome, business owners and merchants said yesterday. Speaking at a seminar on Korean Market Access for Cambodia’s textiles at ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/kingdom%E2%80%99s-crafts-can-be-hit-korea
Hun Sen Thanks Student Land-Titling Volunteers
Student volunteers from across the country yesterday took a break from their land-measuring duties to attend a pre-Khmer New Year ceremony at Phnom Penh’s Koh Pitch where they were presented with a thank-you letter from Mr. Hun Sen. Since Mr. Hun Sen launched the land titling ...
Opposition vows mass protest over Cambodian election deadlock
The result remains hotly disputed, but Cambodia’s recent general election has put long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen on a collision course with a resurgent opposition and revealed widespread unhappiness with his iron-fisted rule. While analysts aren’t writing off the chances of the politically ruthless Hun Sen ...
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/cambodia-election-idINDEE97503K20130806
Group Considers Complaint Against Sugar Giant
A London-based sugar trade association aiming to promote a more ethical and sustainable industry will meet early next month to consider a request from Cambodian farmers that it eject U.K.-based sugar firm Tate & Lyle from the group unless it gives them back their land. Some ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/group-considers-complaint-against-sugar-giant-32001/
Factory production sluggish
In the wake of last month’s election, production levels at Cambodian garment factories are still below the norm as lingering fears of political unrest keep workers at home and away from the capital. Shrugged off at the outset as a natural byproduct of the election that ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/factory-production-sluggish
Government salaries to no longer be paid in cash
The wages of 400,000 civil servants from 39 government ministries are to be paid via a new electronic banking system due to be rolled out next month. Secretary of State for the Ministry of Economy and Finance Chu Kim Leng announced the new payroll system on ...
Chan Muy Hong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/government-salaries-no-longer-be-paid-cash
No heads-up for ‘smugglers’
Forestry Administration officers sent two suspected wildlife smugglers to court in Stung Treng province yesterday after they were arrested while allegedly smuggling disembodied heads and hooves of the increasingly rare Chinese serow – a type of wild goat – into Cambodia from Laos, officials said. Provincial ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/no-heads-%E2%80%98smugglers%E2%80%99
CPP Lawmaker Says Election Monitor Could Face Legal Action
CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun said Wednesday that the National Assembly will take legal action against the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) for causing “chaos” in society by reporting the day before the national election that the indelible voter ink could be ...
Mech Dara and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cpp-lawmaker-says-election-monitor-could-face-legal-action-46712/
Families Protest Eviction by Chinese Company
Forty-two families from Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Sunday held a demonstration to protest their pending eviction in favor of a Chinese company that plans to establish a sugarcane plantation on the land the families have occupied for almost three years. Local authorities have told ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-protest-eviction-by-chinese-company-47808/