ព័ត៌មាន
Xayaburi dam project proceeds as protest grows
In Laos, the construction of controversial hydroelectric dam in Xayaburi province is under way, despite disagreement from its neighbors, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Xayaburi dam project started when the Laotian government and Thailand’s giant construction company, Ch Karnchang Pcl, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in ...
PTT offers $960 mln to buy out Sakari to increase coal assets
Thailand’s top energy company, has offered to buy out Singapore-listed Sakari Resources Ltd for $960 million as the oil and gas firm expands into coal to meet rising regional demand for the fuel On Aug. 13, Sakari announced a joint venture with the Royal Group of ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/27/sakari-ptt-idUSL3E8JR02420120827
Indonesia Bonding With Cambodia in Trade
Indonesia was involved in advanced talks in Cambodia during the late 1980s. Known as the Jakarta Informal Meeting, Indonesia was trying to help put an end to Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, in what some observers called the Third Indochina War (1978-91). Despite these close ties, ...
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/indonesia-bonding-with-cambodia-in-trade/540441
Thai Insurgency Claims Outrage Cham Muslims
Cambodia’s Muslim community hit back on Friday at claims made in the media this week by Thailand’s army chief Prayuth Chanocha that members of the Cham minority group were joining the insurgency that has raged in Thailand’s southern provinces since 2004. Speaking at a press conference ...
Service sector eyes AEC's pot of gold
Thai small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the auto services, logistics, software and medical tourism sectors are tipped to see massive growth opportunities once the Asean Economic Community (AEC) is set up. Industry Minister M.R. Pongsvas Svasti said Thailand’s service sector, which accounts for 30% of ...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/309110/service-sector-eyes-aec-pot-of-gold
Southeast Asian Rice Exporters Eye Cartel to Boost Prices
Southeast Asia’s rice-exporting nations are in talks to create a formal alliance aimed at boosting prices and increasing export revenues, a move that could cause tensions with rice-importing nations. An alliance of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar will aim to share information and cooperate ...
Unionists at casino betting on a strike
Almost 500 Tropicana Casino staff from gambling hub Poipet have threatened to strike on Saturday if the casino’s Thai owner does not reinstate their union leader, Sath Ser, sacked by the company for supporting another terminated employee, workers said yesterday. A staff member who did not ...
Rice Exporters Eye Cartel to Boost Prices
Southeast Asia’s rice-exporting nations are in talks to create a formal alliance aimed at boosting prices and increasing export revenues, a move that could cause tensions with rice-importing nations. But any bid by the five countries to drive up prices will be a challenge, given previous ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB30000872396390444812704577606962232854218.html
Thai Press Gives Conflicting Reports on Chams
Thai media reports yesterday offered conflicting information on whether members of Cambodia’s Cham community were joining a long-running Muslim insurgency in Thailand’s southern provinces. According to the [Bangkok] Post, General Prayuth said most of the Cambodian Muslims were traveling on to other countries in search ...
Five ink deal to form rice cartel
Five Asean rice-producing countries are joining forces to form a regional alliance with the ambitious goal to boost rice prices by 10% annually. Trade ministers from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos are scheduled to sign the agreement later this year to establish the Asean Rice ...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/308931/five-ink-deal-to-form-rice-cartel
Thai-Cambodian border trade thriving
The border trade between Thailand and Cambodia from January to April this year is worth over 26 billion baht, which is an increase of 25.5 percent year-on-year. According to Mr. Sittiporn Bangkaew, Director of the Surin Provincial Office of Commercial Affairs, Surin province shares ...
http://www.pattayamail.com/business/thai-cambodian-border-trade-thriving-15833
Monitoring questions mount
Official from Cambodian immigration, law enforcement and diplomatic circles were either unaware of, or unwilling to talk yesterday about, an alleged request from the Thai government to help monitor Cambodian Muslims crossing into the country. News of the alleged monitoring surfaced on Monday when Thai ...
Laos Dam Construction Going Ahead, Company Says
Thai construction company Ch Karnchang has continued work on the controversial Xayaburi dam in Laos, even as the Lao government has assured other Mekong River nations that the project is postponed pending further environmental studies, the company’s CEO said yesterday. Ch Karnchang’s CEO Plew Trivisvavet told ...
'Ransomed' workers returned to Cambodia
All but three of a group of 20 Cambodians who were held against their will on a fishing boat in Thailand had returned after agreeing to pay a fee for “transportation”, a police official said yesterday. The men, believing they were heading to jobs in Koh ...
Trafficked fishermen released-for a price
A group of eight Cambodians held for ransom on a Thai fishing boat were freed over the weekend after their families paid 1,000 baht (US$32) per person to a human trafficker in Thailand who is still holding another nine victims, victims and police said yesterday. The ...
India Funds Three-Nation Road
$500-million loan from New Delhi to help build 3,200km highway through Myanmar and linking to Thailand The trilateral highway project will allow freight and container trucks to move across the borders from India to Myanmar and Thailand via Chiang Rai and border towns. It will play ...
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/India-funds-three-nation-road-30188145.html
Asean invests $178 Million in Cambodia for the first semester of 2012
Cambodia has gained the investments of 178 million U.S. dollars from its ASEAN member states in the first six months of 2012, according to a report from the Council for the Development of Cambodia said this week. From January to June this year, the country granted ...
Asia Rice- Thai Exporters Seek Vietnamese, Cambodian Rice To Meet Deals
Demand for low-quality white rice from African buyers has forced Thai exporters to purchase additional stocks from Cambodia and Vietnam to meet orders because domestic rice is in short supply due to government buying scheme, traders said on Wednesday. The price of 25 per cent broken grade Thai ...
Effects of Last Year's Flooding Still Being Felt by Scavengers
Large dump trucks with beds full of rusted, twisted metal and aluminium canss rolled in, one after another, to unload their cargo at Phnom Penh’s largest scrap yard in Dangkao district. “All the metal must be exported because there are no recycling factories here [in Cambodia],” ...
Mekong villagers wary of Xayaburi dam
Fishermen bring their boats to shore, pack away their traps and hand over the day’s catch to their awaiting families on the banks of the Mekong River in Kratie province’s Chitra Borei district. “When my husband arrives home each day, we eat some of what he ...
Casino building part of 'secret strategy' to protect Cambodia borders
Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia, has said allowing the construction of a spate of casinos on the border was part of a “secret strategy” to protect the country’s territory from its neighbours. In a five hour speech addressing border demarcation issues with Vietnam, he ...
Thailand Dam Deal Spurs Court Complaint from Thai Villagers
Villagers belonging to a Thai activist group filed a complaint to Thailand’s Administrative Court yesterday for the cancellation of an agreement form the country’s Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to buy power from a controversial mainstream Mekong dam in Laos, an NGO representative said yesterday. “According ...
Senator Tries to Settle Court Case With Cash
CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat visited families embroiled in a long-standing land dispute with a Thai-owned sugar company on Monday in an attempt to convince them to drop their complaints against the firm at the court, villagers and officials said yesterday. The visit comes as pressure ...
New home not where the heart is for Xayaburi locals
For the past several days, Boonma and seven other Houay Souy villagers have travelled back to their homes near the Xayaburi Dam building site on the Lao side of the Mekong River. Since the beginning of the year they have been relocated to a new ...