ព័ត៌មាន
Asian Development Bank keeps growth outlook at 6.8%
New policies in agriculture, real estate and finance led the Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday to keep its outlook on Cambodia’s economic growth this year at an estimated 6.8 percent. The announcement comes even as the World Bank and the government have reduced their expectations, projecting ...
Welfare plan full of goals, short on details
Cash transfers to the poor and public works programs for the unemployed are spelled out in a new five-year plan the government launched yesterday in a bid to expand the country’s threadbare social welfare programs. Though full of ambitious targets and budgets, the ‘National Social Protection ...
Shipments at PP port more than expected
Shipment through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by more than 28 per cent in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing a government target for 2011. About 73,760 shipping containers passed through the port between January and November, data shows, up from 62,256 containers ...
First 10 months of year's exports up 32.9 percent
Exports from Cambodia increased 32.9 percent to $3.7 billion during the first ten months of this year compared to the same period in 2010, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce yesterday. Milled rice exports saw the biggest increase with a 161.5 percent jump ...
Vietnamese equity fund to open in Cambodia
Dragon Capital, a Vietnam-based private equity firm, has announced that it is planning to launch a fund in Cambodia next year, the second such fund to be announced by a Vietnamese company this year. The firm’s CEO, Dominic Scriven, said that the initial fund would close ...
Hun Sen rebukes World Bank
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday rebuked the World Bank for revising downward its outlook for gross domestic product growth in the Kingdom, claiming the bank’s projections could cause market panic. The premier also announced a new government projection of 6.4 per cent GDP growth this year, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011112452947/Business/hun-sen-rebukes-world-bank.html
World Bank cuts growth outlook to 6%
Devastating floods as well as the economic slowdown in Europe and the US have prompted the World Bank to lower its outlook for Cambodia’s economic growth this year to 6 percent, down from a previous projection of 6.8 percent. In its economic update for the region ...
Suspended funds stymie e-commerce law
The drafting of a law on e-commerce that would regulate electronic transfers in Cambodia has been postponed because the World Bank has suspended funds over the government’s handling of land evictions in Phnom Penh. In September, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said that the government should aim ...
Weak spots seen in Kingdom trade
While the World Trade Organisation yesterday lauded Cambodia’s economic achievements since joining in 2004, officials pointed to the lack of much-needed financing for the Kingdom’s burgeoning trade sector. Cambodia lacks the capacity to finance the manufacturing and agriculture exports that would allow the country’s industries to ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011110852601/Business/weak-spots-seen-in-kingdom-trade.html
State borrowing may spike
Cambodia’s draft budget law for 2012 will seek to increase concessional borrowing by about 75 per cent compared to 2011, according to a copy of the draft obtained by the Post. A lack of aid commitment may have led to the increase in proposed borrowing, experts ...
Government officials at odds over debt levels
Government officials are at odds over how much Cambodia’s national debt amounts to. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia’s debt stands at just $2 billion, contradicting information provided by CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap last week that the number is actually $7 billion, or 63 ...
S&P downgrades national sovereign debt rating
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 ...
Boeng Kak evictees deliver petitions to embassies to pressure government
Some 100 former residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community yesterday delivered petitions to 10 embassies and the offices of the World Bank and European Union asking them to pressure the government into increasing the compensation for their evictions. Sam Vanna, a representative of the residents, ...
No improvement in 'Doing Business' report
With few reforms made in the past year, Cambodia ranked 138th out of 181 countries for the second consecutive year in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report released yesterday, a ranking that put it behind countries such as Syria and Sudan. The report ranks countries based ...
A threat to Kingdom’s FDI
Tokyo: Cambodia needs more than an estimated US$13 billion in infrastructure works by 2020 if the country intends to continue attracting foreign investment, a joint survey by some of the world’s top financial institutions indicated on Wednesday. During a conference held by the Japan International Cooperation Agency ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011101452126/Business/a-threat-to-kingdoms-fdi.html
EU organizes a seminar on food security
The Delegation of the European Union to Cambodia in collaboration with the Council for Agricultural and rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and three of the EU-funded projects (CEDAC, HKI, WHH) on October 6 organized a Food Security Project Workshop “Improving Food Security—Lessons ...
Kingdom set for IT growth over next decade
Cambodia’s information technology sector is looking to leapfrog its current capacities in the next decade as the Kingdom chases other countries in the region, industry experts say. As much as 40 per cent of the country could be online within 10 years, Dell general manager of ...
World Bank highlights wage gains
The wages and working conditions of garment factory workers in Cambodia are at or above the national average, a report from the World Bank has found The minimum wage for garment workers in Cambodia rose to US$61 for regular workers in June 2010 and in March ...
Evictees urge ministry to take action
Eight families whose homes were demolished at Boeng Kak lake last week have called on the Ministry of Interior to take action against the private construction firm – Shukaku Inc, owned by ruling party senator Lao Meng Khin – and district officials who ordered the ...
Land-grabbing letter hits nerve
The government yesterday lashed out at a letter sent by opposition lawmakers to the World Bank that urged the bank to increase pressure on the government to end forced evictions, land grabbing and threats against community members involved in land disputes with well-connected companies. Council ...
Land Grabs Mar Cambodia’s Investment Boom
The evictions and so-called “land grabs” have angered aid donors, putting at stake hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid as well as a trade scheme that gives Cambodian produce tariff-free access to the EU. International donors and lenders such as the World Bank ...
ADB and World Bank Help Upgrade External Audit
ADB and World Bank have organized the training Audit workshop on the theme: “Strengthening quality of external audits of ADB and World Bank Funded Projects,” at Phnom Penh Hotel on 29 August 2011 aiming at increasing the auditors’ capacity to establish a good reporting statement ...
World Bank Influence Curbed by ‘New’ Donors
The World Bank is losing influence in Cambodia to “emerging donors” and making no major headway in stemming corruption, the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Groups said in a report released Wednesday. Specifically focused on the World Bank;s 2007 anti-corruption initiative through 2010, the report uses six ...
'Land Grabs' Mar Cambodia's Boom, Rattle Investors
Phnom Penh–Kong Song’s farmland was his family’s livelihood for three decades until the bulldozers moved in and tore down his home in rural Cambodia to make way for a multimillion dollar foreign-led business. His family was one of 253 forcibly evicted five years ago in southern ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/01/cambodia-evictions-idUSL3E8JD2DV20110901