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Thailand and Cambodia to forge closer trade talks
After the fourth Joint Trade Commission (JTC) recently, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said that Thailand and Cambodia had the potential to drive two-way trade up by 30 per cent, due to strong growth in 2012. Last year, bilateral trade grew by 40.5 per cent year on ...
Special Thai-Cambodian cassava-corn trade zone set to be established
Thailand and Cambodia are on a path towards the setting up of a special trade zone that will see the two neighbors actively trade cassava and corn. Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom revealed on Monday that the 4th Thailand-Cambodia Joint Trade Committee meeting, held last week, saw ...
http://thainews.prd.go.th/centerweb/newsen/NewsDetail?NT01_NewsID=WNFOR5604290010003
Draft of New Public Land Policy Is Released
The government on Friday released a draft of a new public policy guide on the county’s contentious land sector, a move that was welcomed by NGOs, who also called for the government to hold further consultations on the draft. Local rights groups have singled out ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/draft-of-new-public-land-policy-is-released-20672/
Preah Vihear Authorities Destroy Airfield Homes
Authorities have demolished the homes of 25 families living on the site of an obsolete airfield in Preah Vihear province’s Choam Ksan district, a rights group and the families said Sunday. The families were ordered to move off the land on Wednesday, with the district governor ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/preah-vihear-authorities-destroy-airfield-homes-20688/
New Kampot Salt Farm Has Big Ambitions
TOEK CHHOU DISTRICT, Kampot province – A donor-backed project launched here on Saturday aims to produce Cambodia’s first export-quality sea salt and invigorate the struggling local salt industry. In a ceremony among Kampot’s vast fields of coastal saltpans and low levees, company representatives from Asia Salt ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/new-kampot-salt-farm-has-big-ambitions-20505/
Hun Sen Demands Answers to Sihanoukville Water Shortage
Prime Minister Hun Sen chastised local authorities in Preah Sihanouk province on Friday for their inability to prevent a water shortage in early April that crippled businesses in the tourist hub of Sihanoukville and left locals without running water for almost a week. The incident ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-demands-answers-to-water-shortage-20480/
Hun Sen Seeks Garment Factory Vote
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday asked some 4,000 garment factory workers for their votes in July’s national elections at a rally in Phnom Penh attended by members of several CPP-aligned unions, according to those in attendance. Cambodian Union Federation president Choun Mom Thol said ...
Forest Allegedly Cleared By Company
Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. “The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042965293/National/forest-allegedly-cleared-by-company.html
Arbitration Court Backs Government in Power Deal with US Firm
The government has won an arbitration case in a World Bank court, successfully countering a $300 million claim made by a U.S based company over a failed power plant project dating back to 1996. According to a statement from the Council of Ministers’ Press and Quick ...
Cambodia’s Crude Oil Imports Fall 12 pct in Q-1
Cambodia imported 412,190 tons of Crude Oil in Q-1 of Y 2013, a 12% fall compared with the 471,000 tons it imported at the same period last year, the Commerce ministry’s report showed Saturday. During the January-March period this year, the country spent US$ 397-M to ...
Workers not allowed to march on Labor Day
Around 20,000 workers from the garment, construction, tourism, banking, service and agriculture sectors want to march to present a petition to the National Assembly on International Labor Day, May 1, but Phnom Penh City Hall did not approve the rally. City hall asked them to wait ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=YWNjNWUyNzMwYmE
Adhoc defends Staffer in Incitement Claim
Human rights group Adhoc yesterday criticized a commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district for accusing one of its staff of incitement and spreading disinformation after villagers traveled to Phnom Penh in March to protest over a land dispute with well known businessman Try ...
ADB supports integration of regional energy systems
Countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region can save US$14 billion over the next 20 years if they integrate their power transmission systems, according to a senior official from the Asian Development Bank. A regional power grid connection would enable countries with hydro-power plants to export energy ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=ZGE3NWI5YWNjYTV
Families Foresee Rocky Road Ahead
Fourteen Phnom Penh families claimed yesterday that government maps showing their houses in the path of a road-widening project were inaccurate and would condemn them to eviction without adequate compensation. Ek Malin, 57, a representative of the community on Street 347 in Tuol Kork district’s Boeung ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042665262/National/families-foresee-rocky-road-ahead.html
40 hectares razed in R’kiri
More than 40 hectares of protected forest in Rattanakiri’s O’Yadav district was razed by a Vietnamese company over the course of six days before they were stopped yesterday by villagers and investigators from rights group Adhoc, a local official said. Sav Hlin, a village chief in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042665270/National/40-hectares-razed-in-r-kiri.html
Scale of Wildlife Sanctuary Destruction Denied
A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/scale-of-wildlife-sanctuary-destruction-denied-20366/
Rubber Firm Accused of Illegal Deforestation
A rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of encroaching on communal land belonging to an ethnic minority in Ratanakkiri province has cleared 150 hectares of forest outside of its economic land concession (ELC) in the past month, according to the senior investigator for local ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-firm-accused-of-illegal-deforestation-20367/
No Information on World Bank Bribery Allegations in Cambodia
More than a week after the World Bank blacklisted a Canadian construction firm over bribes allegedly paid in Cambodia and Bangladesh, it was still unclear Thursday whether the government, or the national anticorruption body, are investigating the allegations. SNC-Lavalin Inc. was banned from World Bank contracts ...
Incitement, Disinformation Suit Filed Against Rights Worker
A commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district has filed a lawsuit accusing a human rights worker of incitement and disinformation after villagers the NGO staffer spoke to traveled to Phnom Penh to protest over a land dispute involving a well-known businessman Try Pheap. Pursat ...
Long Rainy Season to Help Increase Rice Yields
Farmers can expect better rice paddy yields this year compared to last year after the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology yesterday predicted that the rainy season would run from mid-May until November with only a short dry spell. Chhomg Sopal, agriculture development ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/long-rainy-season-to-help-increase%E2%80%88rice-yields-20266/
Mortgage Lending Rises for New Home-Buyers
Cambodians, particularly young adults, are more often turning to banks to help them buy their homes, according to figures obtained from the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) yesterday. From $179 million in 2008, the total sum lent out to those buyers fell to $94.5 million ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/mortgage-lending-rises-for-new-home-buyers-20083/
Decision Pending in Dispute Between Villagers, Businesswoman
Farmers in Kompong Chhnang province locked in a land dispute with a local businesswoman are waiting for the government to make a decision on who owns the property after student volunteers measured the area earlier this month as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/decision-pending-in-dispute-between-villagers-businesswoman-20022/
Families Ordered to Leave Disused Airfield Land in Preah Vihear
More than 25 families living on the site of the long-disused airfield in Preah Vihear province have been ordered to move off the land, a district official said yesterday. “The authorities are forcing residents to leave without compensation and this eviction is illegal because they ...
Union Plan Massive Demonstration in Phnom Penh
Four of Cambodia’s independent and opposition-aligned unions have informed the Phnom Penh municipality that they plan to gather 20,000 people on May 1 to march from Olympic Stadium to the National Assembly. ...