News

Officials expressed optimism that microfinance institution Prasac would be able to attract more deposit placing clients, after the inauguration of its new headquarters in Phnom Penh’s Boeung Tompun district yesterday. Representatives from the National Bank of Cambodia  and Prasac expect the new 10-storey building to enhance ...

Provincial forestry administration officials in Ratanakkiri have dismissed allegations of illegal logging by community residents and chalked the deforestation up to legitimate clearing. A cursory examination of the land in question yesterday seemed to back the company’s claims, Ly Sophan, a team worker at the provincial ...

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines is eying flights to Kuwait, Turkey, and Cambodia starting next year amid its refleeting and expansion program, the Civil Aeronautics Board said Wednesday. PAL has filed petitions with the industry regulator for flights to Istanbul in Turkey, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and ...

Cambodia has great potential in hydropower development and the country could build and tap up to 10,000 megawatts from hydropower dams, said an energy official on Thursday. “At the present, about 10 percent of the hydropower potential is under construction,” Heng Kunleang, chief of the energy ...

About 1,000 workers at a bicycle factory in the Tai Seng Special Economic Zone went on strike Wednesday for a second day, sources said. The sources said the striking workers at Smart Tech (Cambodia) Co Ltd threw rocks at factory windows and threatened to continue ...

Christmas shoppers stand to be taken by surprise this month as campaigners take action in shopping centers around Europe to raise awareness of poverty wages of Cambodian garment workers. With these ‘fashion mobs’, they pressure H&M, Inditex (Zara), Levi’s and Gap to introduce a living ...

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Wednesday officially launched the country’s national clearing system in order to increase efficiency and expand clearing and settlement services for inter-bank transactions. A central bank statement said that the central system can clear and settle payment instruments such as ...

Residents of Tropang Thlong village in Ponhea Krek district say casinos near the border with Vietnam are polluting fishing grounds. ...

More than 1,000 families in four communes in Kandal province’s Lvea Em district submitted a petition Sunday to local officials demanding that a private electricity company either lower its rates or the commune switch to cheaper state-run power, villagers and commune chiefs said yesterday. ...

The Ministry of Commerce will host the 7th Cambodian Export-Import and One Product One Province Exhibition at Diamond Island from December 15-18. ...

Seven months after Prime Minister Hun Sen unveiled an ambitious plan to demarcate 1.8 million hectares of state land and formally acknowledge those who live on it, the completion of the first – albeit the smallest – of eight affected provinces has wrapped up. Marking the ...

The U.S. ambassador to Cambodia has sought to clear up supposed misinformation about Cambodia’s debt to the U.S., which was racked up during the early 1970s by the U.S.-backed military government of Lon Nol and has become a contentious issue between the country. Cambodia has refused ...

As Cambodia’s rice harvest gets into full swing, the government said yesterday that it expects this year’s crop to exceed last year’s, despite fears that drought would limit the yield. Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun said that farmers had already harvested more than 3 million tons ...

Last week, the crane on the top of Gold Tower 42 was removed, adding to the sense that the completion of the Korean-owned skyscraper is ultimately a distant hope. The owner of the unfinished skyscraper, sitting at the corner of Sihanouk and Monivong Boulevards entered into ...

Potential real estate investors in Siem Reap are being advised to look towards retail strips rather than hotels, according to Cambodian real estate professionals. Knight Frank’s Cambodia chief, Sunny Soo, said that while the hotel industry is well supplied, the town lacks an organised retail strip. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed yesterday for developers and landowners in Kep City to build fences around their neglected properties to prevent vines from creeping onto the street of the coastal resort. Since much of the land in Kep City is owned by investors who live ...

Siam City Cement and the Chip Mong Group will co-build a new cement plant in the Toukmeas district of Kampot by 2015 in order to take advantage of the “huge” demand in Cambodia. The plant will cater specifically to the Cambodian market, although they will also ...

The court system is still “chronically underfunded” and laws on its management are almost 20 years overdue, the U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi said yesterday. One year ago, during his sixth mission to Cambodia, Mr. Subedi described reform in the courts as moving at a ...

The Alliance of Rice Producers Exporters of Cambodia (ARPEC) will release US$2 million after December 15th to its members in nine provinces so they can buy paddy rice before the harvest season ends and stocks been depleted. He said the pay out is being drawn from ...

Cambodia’s energy sector acquired a new product yesterday with the introduction of solar powered lights from energy company Total, advancing it toward a longer term solution to meeting the population’s energy needs. An industry player described the products as a nice bridge toward seeing Cambodia supplied with ...

A final report from Thailand’s human rights commission on the alleged rights violations of a Thai company involved in two Cambodian sugar plantations is expected by late January, a member of the commission said. In July, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand said its investigation ...

Nineteen families from Svay Pak commune in Russey Keo district protested for a second day Wednesday after their homes fell into the Tonle Sap River. Twenty-four houses along the river have been affected, they said. Although five have already left, the other 19 refuse to accept ...

Ministers from the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) will review progress on the Regional Investment Framework (RIF) to boost implementation of the GMS Strategic Framework 2012-22, as they meet today and tomorrow for the 18th GMS Ministerial Conference in Nanning, People’s Republic of China (PRC). The ...

Idemitsu Kosan Co. said Monday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cambodian government to promote biofuel production in the Southeast Asian country. The move is part of plans by the Japanese energy firm to produce bioethanol out of cassava, a type of potato, ...