ODC English Site

The UN’s assessment suggests that Cambodia is one of the top five countries that have made significant progress toward meeting its MDGs by 2015. The poverty rate has dropped dramatically from 47.50 percent in 1993 to 34.70 percent in 2004 and 23 percent in 2011, ...

Three days after it went out, power had yet to be restored to large parts of Siem Reap province yesterday, badly impacting local businesses in the popular tourist hub of Siem Reap City and seeing a rush of people to buy generators. The power failure followed ...

Cambodia on Friday adopted the national policy and strategic plan for green growth 2013-2030, aiming at developing the economy with consideration for environmental and natural resources sustainability. It said the country has already adopted several legal instruments for the green growth implementation. Those included ...

Suppliers to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) agreed yesterday to pay about $145,000 in back wages and severance to about 160 workers at a Cambodian factory that closed in November, a labor activist involved in the deal said. The agreement, which ...

The head of the country’s National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution on Wednesday said his authority was unable to resolve land disputes and that the responsibility for settling such disputes rested with the ministries responsible for handing out economic land concessions (ELCs) in the first ...

The Mekong Migration Network yesterday ended a three-day symposium by urging countries in the Mekong basin to provide migrant workers with sufficient legal protections and to improve their working and living conditions. The network brought together 72 representatives of governments, academic institutions, INGOs, NGOs and migrant ...

More than 500 villagers from Stung Treng and Ratanakiri provinces held a traditional sacrificial ceremony yesterday, calling on a local spirit to help in postponing the construction of a 400-megawatt hydropower dam in Stung Treng’s Sesan district. Siek Megong, Srekor commune chief, said the villages ...

About 100 women forcibly evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak neighbourhood protested outside City Hall yesterday asking for upgrades to the compensation they accepted under duress to give up their homes. The women said they were representing 739 of the more than 3,000 families forced out ...

Since mid-January a group of illegally laid off Cambodian garment workers – mostly women – have been picketing the factory they worked in. Their objective was to stop the company, which closed down, owing the workers, collectively, about US$200,000 of unpaid wages, from removing the ...

Cambodia will earn about $50 million a year from exports of dried cassava to China through Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly said Thursday. Cambodia’s agricultural exports previously went through Vietnam and Thailand, amounting to between 7,000 and 8,000 tons a year. ...

The Finance Ministry has sent a letter to well-known businesswoman Choeung Sopheap thanking her for paying her taxes on the highly controversial filling in of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake, and holding her firm up as an example of corporate professionalism. Though Shukaku Inc., which is ...

Some 200 Koh Kong farmers locked in a long-running land dispute with two sugar plantations met Tuesday with a representative of the Thailand-based owners for the first time since the land dis­pute began in 2006. Khamrom Phochai, a Thai national and representative of Thai­land’s Khon Kaen ...

Property experts said the land prices in Kampot province have been “stable” in early 2013 despite trading more actively than last year. Nuon Rithy, managing director at the Bonna Realty Group, said the trading of land in Kampot province is quiet and nothing changes much because ...

Following six straight days of protests by hundreds of staff at NagaWorld Casino, casino management yesterday agreed to reinstate four senior workers and said they would consider increasing the entire staff’s minimum wage. Between 500 and 1,000 workers had been demonstrating over what they said were ...

Property experts say foreign companies are coming to invest in Cambodia’s property sector, as they see the growth and potential of the Kingdom. Sung Bonna, director of Bonna Realty Group, said that the number of foreign companies in the sector has grown, and most are from ...

About 50 families living on the site of the long-discussed Preah Vihear airport went to the provincial hall yesterday to request that local officials reconsider their earlier decision to refuse them land titles on the grounds that the airstrip would soon be rebuilt. Villagers attended ...

GREATER transparency along the garment supply chain, from producers to buyers, is required in order to strengthen the accountability of retailers, factories and governments in protecting the rights of workers, Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said yesterday. Speaking in Phnom ...

Representatives of nearly 200 ethnic Kreung families living in Ra­tanakkiri province’s O’Chum district on Tuesday filed a complaint with local rights group Adhoc, accusing a Vietnamese rubber company of clearing their ancestral land, local officials and a rights worker said. Chhay Thy, provincial investigator for Adhoc, ...

Cambodia on Wednesday launched a “one tourist, one tree” campaign, aiming to promote green tourism and environment protection, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said. “We have already prepared tourism gardens in 11 provinces including cultural Siem Reap province, coastal Preah Sihanouk province and eco-tourism side in Kratie ...

Chinese-owned Avic International plans to export 8,000 tonnes of dried cassava from Cambodia to the Chinese market this year. According to Chan Saron, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, there are currently 31 companies listed as exporting cassava to China from Cambodia, but only 17 ...

bout 100 chefs and kitchen staff walked off the job at the capital’s NagaWorld casino yesterday as a workers’ strike at the luxury entertainment venue entered its fifth day. More than 1,000 protesters — the majority of the casino’s workers — rallied outside the front entrance ...

WITH the passing of a law on farmers’ co-operatives, the government hopes to streng-then the country’s growing agricultural sector, Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a speech at the National Institute of Education yesterday. “In time, I believe that economic growth will be tremendous in rural ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has ordered staff at Telecom Cambodia to attend a meeting today in order to “educate” them about the country’s Anti-Corruption Law after they made graft allegations and held demonstrations against the firm’s director-general Lao Sarouen earlier this month, Minister of Posts ...

Lead Programmer Heng Huy Eng presents at Barcamp Angkor, with Editor Chunly Vicheth. (Sunday, February 24, 2012) (Photo: Project Coordinator John Weeks.) ...