News
Cambodia sees 22 pct rise in garment export in 11 months
Garment industry, Cambodia’s largest foreign currency earner, reported a 22 percent surge in exports in the first 11 months of 2013, according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday. The Southeast Asian nation exported apparel products in equivalent to 5.07 billion U.S. dollars during ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-12/19/c_132981486.htm
Cambodian dam feeding false hopes
RATANAKIRI PROVINCE, Cambodia – “I prefer the dam to the fish,” says middle-aged farmer Ton Noun, when asked his opinion on a proposed 400 megawatt dam on the Sesan river near his home in northeastern Cambodia. Then he chuckles and asks, “What fish?” That’s because ...
Michelle Tolson
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-02-181213.html
Rainsy Takes to Tuk-Tuk for Latest Opposition Protest Rally
CNRP President Sam Rainsy nearly exhausted all manner of wheeled, motorized transport during his opposition party’s latest protest procession through Phnom Penh on Wednesday, at one point even getting behind the handlebars of a tuk-tuk. It was the fourth straight day of what the CNRP says ...
Khuon Narim and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rainsy-takes-to-tuk-tuk-for-latest-opposition-protest-rally-49474/
USAID Review of Health NGO Finds Litany of Irregularities
A financial review by USAID, the U.S. government’s development arm, into local health NGO Reproductive and Child Health Alliance (RACHA) has found financial mismanagement coupled with a lack of transparency and oversight within the organization that may point to evidence of fraudulent activity. Well-known for its ...
Simon Henderson and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/usaid-review-of-health-ngo-finds-litany-of-irregularities-49464/
CAMBODIA: Better Factories programme renewed
The Better Factories Cambodia programme has been renewed after a new, three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was agreed. The new agreement, aimed at furthering the initiative’s mission to improve working conditions in Cambodian garment factories, was signed by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Cambodian Ministry ...
Richard Woodard
http://www.just-style.com/news/better-factories-programme-renewed_id120127.aspx
Yearender: Cambodia's economy remains strong in 2013 despite political row, flood havoc: officials
Cambodia’s economy is expected to maintain the robust growth of over 7 percent this year even though the country is still trapped in political dispute and recovering from the aftermath of recent floods, senior officials and bankers said. But some analysts predicted that political trouble, coupled ...
Nguon Sovan and Wang Qibing
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-12/19/c_132979125.htm
Rights Group Reaffirms Stance on Use of ‘Yuon’
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) on Wednesday released a statement seeking to clarify an open letter it issued on December 12, which accused CNRP President Sam Rainsy of making comments that are “both derogatory and discriminatory, againstpeople of Vietnamese origin.” The original letter, signed ...
Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rights-group-reaffirms-stance-on-use-of-yuon-49477/
Labor Unions agree to one time hike in wage
Around 40 Labor Unions in Cambodia have all agreed to pursue the third formula given by the Ministry of Labor, of a one time hike in minimum wage for footwear and garment factory employees in 2014. The Labor Unions agreed to pursue the hike in salary ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=MWNmYzg4Yjc2YjJ
Special Economic Zone Strike in Svay Rieng Ends—For Now
An estimated 30,000 garment factory workers will resume work this morning after three days of strike action ended Wednesday when Svay Rieng provincial officials promised to help the strikers achieve their demands from factory owners. The mass strike led the owner of the Tai Seng Special ...
Aun Pheap and Phann Ana
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/special-economic-zone-strike-in-svay-rieng-ends-for-now-49469/
Despite Ban, Operators Offer Bonuses
Two of the country’s largest mobile phone operators are again offering attractive deals on calls, despite the Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia’s (TRC) recent order to mobile operators to follow the government’s minimum prices for calls and to scale back customer promotions. On Sunday, Smart, which is ...
Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/despite-ban-operators-offer-bonuses-49483/
GMS Countries To Explore Tourism Linkages In Annual Meeting
Member states of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) will meet at an annual meeting in Hanoi on Dec 19 to explore measures to embrace tourism linkages, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported. Cao Van Ban, development assistance committee head of Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Association for Economic Cooperation Development (VILACAED), ...
Bernama News Staff
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1001973
Myanmar, Cambodia Sign Visa Exemption Agreement
Myanmar and Cambodia have signed an agreement on visa exemption for ordinary passport holders travelling between both countries, Xinhua news agency reported. The agreement was signed by Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Tin Oo Lwin and Cambodian Ambassador to Myanmar Sieng Burvuthin Nay Pyi Taw on ...
Bernama News Staff
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1001919
Cambodia's Angkor heritage site attracts nearly 2 mln foreign tourists in 11 months
Cambodia’s Angkor Wat Temple, one of the world heritage sites, had received some 1.98 million international visitors in the first 11 months of 2013, up 8 percent from 1.83 million tourists over the same period last year, a tourism report said Wednesday. During the January-November ...
Global Times News Staff
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/832841.shtml#.UrJemdIW2ls
CPP to Make Move Over Boycott of Parliament
The CPP-controlled National Assembly will soon send the National Election Committee (NEC) a letter officially informing the body of a boycott of parliament by the CNRP’s 55 members of parliament, in what appears to be the first step in the ruling party’s threat to have ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cpp-to-make-move-over-boycott-of-parliament-49416/
Dam may be behind mass fish deaths
More than 10 tonnes of fish have been collected from a canal in Banteay Meanchey where the dead catch has been washing up since Sunday. Heng Seng Krey, fishery administration chief of Banteay Meanchey’s Mongkol Borei district, said more than 200 people have come to collect ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/dam-may-be-behind-mass-fish-deaths
Three New Districts in Phnom Penh Approved
The Ministry of Interior has approved the creation of three new districts in Phnom Penh following a proposal from City Hall to create five new districts before district and city council elections are held in May. Sak Setha, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/three-new-districts-in-phnom-penh-approved-49424/
Pursat Villagers Get No More Compensation
A representative of the Try Pheap Group said Tuesday that villagers in Pursat province who attempted to march to a public forum on Monday to ask authorities to intervene in a land dispute would not receive any further compensation after losing the right to the ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/pursat-villagers-get-no-more-compensation-49418/
Hun Sen’s Niece Opens Tax Consulting Firm
Local law and consulting firm HML, whose chairperson and founding partner is Hun Kimleng, a niece of Prime Minister Hun Sen and wife of National Police chief Neth Savoeun, has teamed up with Tokyo-based XAT Tax Corp. to form a consulting agency focused solely on ...
Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/hun-sens-niece-opens-tax-consulting-firm-49420/
Garment workers told to go back to factories
About 30,000 garment workers from 40 factories in Svay Rieng province yesterday were told to return to their jobs after being sent home Monday amid fears a strike over the minimum wage would turn violent. Has Bunthy, a provincial department director at the Ministry of Labour, ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/garment-workers-told-go-back-factories
Official Says ‘Strategic Partnership’ With Japan Won’t Irk China
Returning from a state visit to Japan on Tuesday, a member of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government dismissed the possibility that newly upgraded ties with Japan and Cambodia’s decision to join its Asean neighbors in a “freedom of overflight” pact with Tokyo might strain its ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/official-says-strategic-partnership-with-japan-wont-irk-china-49410/
Economic zone may go public
The Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ) plans to raise money to fund an expansion through an initial public offering, a senior official from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) said yesterday. If successful, PPSEZ could become one of the few companies to list on ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/economic-zone-may-go-public
Prison oversight lags: UN
Five years after first ratifying the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), Cambodia remains delinquent in honouring some of its commitments under the treaty, UN representatives said yesterday. Under the OPCAT, Cambodia was obliged to create an independent National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/prison-oversight-lags-un
Boeung Kak awaits justice
More than 30 families in the capital’s Boeung Kak community are still waiting for official land titles six weeks after City Hall officials measured ground at the site of a years-long land dispute, villagers have said. The Phnom Penh Municipality began measuring land in villages 6, ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/boeung-kak-awaits-justice
Court Picks Up Land Dispute Involving Senator
The Kompong Speu Provincial Court has summoned for trial a married couple accused of encroaching on land excised from a plantation belonging to CPP Senator and businessman Ly Yong Phat, and has issued more than two dozen other summonses and arrest warrants in the past ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-picks-up-land-dispute-involving-senator-49414/