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Five years after the government established the country’s special economic zones (SEZs), the Phnom Penh SEZ, Sihanoukville II SEZ, and Manhattan SEZ in Svay Rieng province are at last starting to attract more business. According to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), ...

Economic growth in Cambodia is being hampered by poor sanitation and hygiene, and rising food prices are leaving people struggling to afford basic produce for a balanced diet, according to a report released yesterday by the UN Development Program (UNDP). The UNDP’s 2011 Human Development Report ...

Increased fishing yields due to floods have led to an increase in rental fees for the Kingdom’s fishing lots compared to 2010, according to official data. Revenues from bidding on 52 fishing lots in Phnom Penh and four other provinces increased by US$735,000 year to date, ...

Cambodia has granted Chinese timber company Shengda Wood a 22,600-hectare timber concession in Kratie and Strung Treng provinces, officials said. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange-listed company would export wood from the 70-year concession to supply a depleted market in China, Li Jie, a management official in Sichuan, ...

Labour legislation in Cambodia is so weak and so often ignored that half the Kingdom’s children between the ages of seven and 14 participate in the workforce, the world’s largest federation of unions has told the World Trade Organisation General Council in Geneva. Children, women and ...

The government had set aside 3,000 tonnes of rice seeds to distribute to farmers whose crops were destroyed by flooding and had so far distributed 1,900 tonnes of rice to those affected by the floods in 18 provinces, the National Committee for Disaster Management said ...

About 200 residents of Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community burned tires and threw rocks at the Prampi Makara district office yesterday, demanding that the district governor solve a long-running housing dispute between them and powerful construction firm Phanimex, which they say has failed to abide ...

The US is scheduled today to sign off on another $20 million in funding for aid projects in Cambodia, according to a US Embassy statement issued yesterday. One project will “strengthen the ability of civil society, the private sector, and the government to address food security ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Malaysia returned abused Cambodian maids, including women who were raped by their employers, to work at maid recruitment agencies in that country, a new report by Human Rights Watch claims. The New York-based rights group also said Cambodian police colluded with labor ...

Cambodia could borrow US$1.1 billion from other countries in 2012, 75 per cent more than this year, to help repair infrastructure damaged in flooding and support efforts to increase rice exports to one million tonnes by 2015, a senior official said yesterday. Cheam Yeap, chairman of ...

As reports continue to flood in detailing rampant abuse of Cambodian migrant workers abroad, the Cambodian Migrant Workers’ Association (CMWA) said it would be registering with the Ministry of Interior today as the country’s first migrant workers representative organisation, according to its director. “The idea is ...

More than two weeks after a ban on sending maids to Malaysia began, work on a bilateral agreement that would protect Cambodian maids working in Malaysia has not begun, officials said yesterday. Ho Vuthy, deputy director general at the Ministry of Labor’s department of labor, said ...

More than 2,700 families embroiled in 11 separate long-running land disputes in Kandal province are planning to hold a mass protest to draw attention to the continuing arrests and detention of villagers by the provincial court, villagers said yesterday According to Adhoc’s records, Kandal Provincial Court ...

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating by one notch to B due to the country’s continued inability to diversify its economy and increase government spending. The decision by Standard & Poor’s comes after the agency said in September that constraints ...

Myanmar Airways International (MAI) is slated for a November 2 launch of bi-weekly flights between Phnom Penh and Myanmar’s economic hub and former capital, Yangon, Cambodian Aviation officials said yesterday. The flights – on 162-seat A320 jets – will transfer in Siem Reap before continuing on ...

Two new Asian airlines will begin regular flights to Cambodia this winter in an airlines sector increasingly dominated by regional passengers, a Cambodia Airports official said on Friday. Tiger Airways, a Singapore-based airline, will operate daily A320 flights between Singapore and Phnom Penh and Singapore and ...

Nearly 100 residents from about 50 families in Sihanoukville town’s commune 1 blocked National Road 4 yesterday to protest against a Supreme Court verdict ordering their eviction on Friday in favour of a local official   ...

After years of trying to find suitable staff, the Ministry of Commerce on Friday released a list of 44 arbitrators who will be in charge of running the National Arbitration Center (NAC), a body designed to offer businesses a commercial dispute mechanism alternative to Cambodia’s ...

Cambodian crocodile farmers have blamed the falling price of the reptile on flooding, which they say has turned away Thai and Vietnamese buyers – the market’s cornerstone. Prices for young crocodiles have dropped 25 per cent since August, Kandal breeder Kaing Sarin said. His reptiles fetched ...

The Royal Cambodian Government has given another slice of the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary to the agro-industry. A report in the Royal book released on October 12 states that 1,410 hectares had been granted to two unidentified private businesses for development, particularly the planting of rubber ...

Three residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake community were temporarily detained by police and had a camera and phone confiscated yesterday while trying to take pictures of a list posted outside the Srah Chak commune office in Daun Penh district. Two of the three are ...

Amid mounting concerns over labor recruitment agencies’ treatment of migrant workers, new links were discovered yesterday between agencies and the officials that regulate them, as a daughter of a senior Labor Ministry official was found to be running a major recruitment firm. Nhem Chakrya, deputy director ...

In one of Phnom Penh’s biggest land deals to date, Japanese shopping mall developer Aeon Mall Co Ltd has bought 6.7 hectares of prime real estate from South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction, a firm that was once slated to build the tallest building in ...

In a landmark ruling, the Siem Reap Municipal Court yesterday ordered a luxury hotel to reinstate 67 sacked workers – a legally binding decision that unionists have hailed as a great moment for the judicial system. The decision comes after more than two months of protests, ...