News

Airports of Thailand (AOT) regards possible co-operation with Myanmar’s Airport Authority as a first step for engaging in airport operations and investment in Laos and Cambodia, the Bangkok Post reported AOT’s acting president, Somchai Sawas-deepon, as saying. ...

Until the arrival of large-scale development around her home in the northeastern province of Ratanakkiri, Sav Samourn, a member of the ethnic Jarai minority, was frightened of wild animals and ghosts. But as trees disappeared and industrial machinery razed the forestland, the old fears fell away. ...

Provincial authorities have reported an influx of people from Phnom Penh to the provinces over the three-day Water Festival celebration, while vendors who set up shops on Koh Pich in the capital during the holiday said that they had barely broken even. This year saw ...

The growing market for timber in China is leading to widespread logging around the world, including in Cambodia, according to a report released yesterday. The report from London-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) – entitled Appetite for Destruction: China’s trade in illegal timber – outlines ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has reclassified 4,158 hectares of a massive land concession owned by the wife of Senator Lao Meng Khin from his own party for displaced families in Kampong Chhnang province. A jubilant representative of the 4,506 families who have long battled against ...

Though they held out hope for years that they would get communal land titles, hundreds of ethnic minority families in Mondolkiri and Ratanakkiri provinces have now opted to accept individual private land titles under Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling scheme. While individual titles offer immediate ...

A Cambodian NGO believes that investment by Thailand’s PTT oil conglomerate in petroleum projects in the region would promote competition and benefit consumers. Thailand’s largest petroleum firm said lastThursday it is currently studying options for petrochemical and oil refinery projects in three Asean countries — Cambodia, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen is to distribute land titles next month to 700 families squatting on 1,109 hectares of land in Domnak Chong’er district in Kep province, sources said ...

The planned construction of hydropowered dams on the Mekong River in South-East Asia could jeopardise livelihoods, water access and food security for 60 million people, across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a study. The study reports that dams will block fish migration routes and ...

Aeon Thana Sinsap (Thailand) plans aggressive business expansion both here and in neighbouring countries. The leading Japanese non-bank company is using Thailand as a centre to expand its businesses in other Asean countries. Aeon Thana Sinsap plans to offer more financial services in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and ...

Fish production in Cambodia’s great Tonle Sap Lake is on track to reach last year’s level, an official said Wednesday, despite concern from fishermen that yields are dwindling due to environmental problems. Nao Thouk, director of the Fisheries Administration under the Ministry of Agriculture, said that ...

Three projects of the six satellite cities around Phnom Penh that were originally approved by the government have been “significantly” developed, according to officials of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. Lao Tepseiha, deputy director of the construction department of the Ministry ...

Cambodia’s total rubber latex exports rose by 12 per cent in the first nine months of this year, according to new figures. However, revenues from the exports saw a dramatic 27 per cent decrease due to a fall in rubber prices in the international market, ...

Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), a subsidiary of Vietnam’s state-owned electricity giant EVN, is no longer involved in the Lower Sesan 2 dam, a Vietnamese Embassy official confirmed yesterday. Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group and China’s Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd. on Monday signed an agreement in Phnom ...

PTT, Thailand’s largest oil and gas conglomerate said it plans to conduct a feasibility study on petrochemical and oil refinery projects in three ASEAN countries – Cambodia, Indonesia and Myanmar, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Pailin Chuchottaworn, PTT chief executive said, however, that Indonesia and Myanmar ...

Land disputes are expected to be a hot issue in next year’s election, overshadowing perennial issues such as illegal immigration, destruction of forests, corruption, and unemployment. Prime Minister Hun Sen himself has acknowledged that the government’s failure to resolve the issue will mean handing ammunition to ...

Cambodia attracted approximately 2.86 million international tourists in the first ten months of this year, up 24 percent over the same period last year, a report of the tourism ministry showed Wednesday. The report said Vietnam remains the largest source of foreign visitors to Cambodia ...

A union representative in the Kandal province of Cambodia, said there had been no negotiations with management since workers struck Nov. 15 for better pay. The Phnom Penh Post reported Tuesday that the union estimates 1,000 workers are on strike, but management at the Global ...

The massive and highly controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam project took a major step forward yesterday with the inking of government power purchase agreements and an investment deal between Royal Group and a Chinese company. But details about the contracts, their implementation or the fate of ...

Rights groups said they will continue to advocate in land grabbing and eviction cases, and villagers involved in such disputes said they will continue to turn to NGOs for help despite a warning by Prime Minister Hun Sen for civil society to stay clear of ...

Cambodia is aiming to persuade all of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) least developed country members to propose a further suspension of the opening of their service sectors to the WTO’s rich members as the 2013 deadline for the proposal draws nearer. The least developed countries ...

More than 400 workers of the Next Apparel (Cambodia) factory in Kandal province protested for a third time Saturday and destroyed property while demanding the reinstatement of two workers fired for attempting to establish a union, the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) ...

The custodians of a community forest in Ratanakkiri have accused a company of illegally bulldozing their protected jungle. Sen Youn, a representative of the Jarai ethnic minority in O’Yadav district’s Lumchor commune, said yesterday an investigation with rights groups had uncovered that the Chea Chanrith Development ...

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) has requested the National Assembly to reduce by 75 percent the amount of new debt the government is allowed to take on next year under the latest draft of the 2013 national budget. Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay, who sent the ...