News

Total loans and deposits at the Kingdom’s microfinance institutions jumped in the first quarter of 2012 despite what is typically a slow season for the industry, insiders said yesterday. Loans outstanding reached US$708 million for the period ending on March 31, climbing 9.8 per cent from ...

The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (Cedac) said yesterday that it was undertaking measures to change its status from an NGO to a cooperative, a move that will ease the organization of donor money and push it to become more profit orientated ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday issued a moratorium on economic land concessions, temporarily halting a long-standing policy of granting land to private companies and those with powerful political connections that has sparked growing concerns from national and international human rights groups. The prime minister’s announcement comes ...

The Cambodia representative for the world’s largest shipping company said exports from Cambodia to Europe grew by more than 60 per cent during 2011, but have since weakened. “Rice exports grew a lot during 2011 and a lot of it went to Poland and France,” ...

A Ministry of Agriculture official said yesterday he was aware of allegations of illegal logging by Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers within protected community forests in Oddar Meanchey province and was looking into it. “I am following this case, but I haven’t received their petition yet,” ...

Almost six months after the latest draft of the proposed trade-union law was sent to the Council of Ministers for approval, employers, unions and workers’ rights groups are left asking the same question: What’s happened to it? Confusion over the status of the landmark law, which ...

Human rights groups yesterday decried the result of the government’s investigation into the murder of forestry activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana, saying that there were many holes in the official finding. On Saturday, the government committee charged with investigating the killings in ...

Two journalists from the Cambodia Daily newspaper have been called to appear in the shooting case of activist Chut Wutty last month. Chut Wutty had been escorting the two journalists, Cambodian Phorn Bopha and Canadian Olesia Plokhii, to investigate illegal logging ...

Two journalists who were present when environmental activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana were killed last month have reportedly been summonsed to Koh Kong provincial court. Neang Boratino, Koh Kong provincial co-ordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said court sources had told him ...

The Thai Foreign Ministry has called on the Cambodian government to admit that its citizens are illegally logging for rosewood on Thai territory, The Bangkok Post reported yesterday. Cambodia should admit to the situation to preserve healthy bilateral relations between Phnom Penh and Bangkok, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said ...

It’s been done numerous times, comparing the “China miracle” to its emerging and frontier neighbours as a benchmark for development. Cambodia might seem an ill-fitted student of the world’s second-biggest economy. But a recent report from the Cambodia Development Resource Institute pointed to some lessons the Kingdom ...

The Australian government has pledged $3.02 million toward three provincial information departments, which it said would help “increase citizens’ ability to voice their opinions.” ...

The Laos government has said that all the necessary environmental assessments for the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River have been completed and that no damage will be inflicted on the fisheries in countries further downstream when built, an official at the Cambodia National Mekong Committee said yesterday. Watt Botkosal, ...

Chemical substances used in about 3,000 mining drills operating in the Prey Lang forest in Kratie and Kampong Thom provinces are wreaking environmental havoc and making people sick, a report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights released yesterday says. Substances used by a number of ...

Cambodia’s government, facing growing protests by villagers and warnings about disappearing wilderness, suspended the granting of land to domestic and foreign companies on Monday in a move to curb forced evictions and illegal logging. Rights groups in the impoverished but resource-rich Southeast Asian country said the ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, was in Ratanakkiri province yesterday as part of his weeklong visit to the country to investigate the impact land concessions have on local communities. Some rights groups have singled out land concessions as the premier human rights ...

The ASEAN Infrastructure Fund, the largest pooling of financial resources among Southeast Asia’s 10-member bloc, held its first board meeting in Manila last week, but the extent to which Cambodia will borrow from the non-concessional fund has yet to be determined, experts said. ASEAN countries and ...

Garment workers from Phnom Penh’s Lim Line factory will resume work today after reaching an agreement with the factory following 11 days of protest that culminated in a violent strike Friday, a union and a factory representative said yesterday. ...

The Export-Import Bank of China (Exim Bank) planned to invest US$235 million in two Cambodian mega projects, one of which was the modernisation of a TV station that one analyst said might not be necessary given the country’s level of development. During a meeting with Prime Minister ...

The government, this year, intends to transfer it’s budget to individual town district authorities, and to vouchsafe into their hands from 2013 onward, aiming to push forward decentralization, said an interior ministry official. The budget, of on average US$ 35,000 per year, is in process of being transferred to the individual 193 town-district authorities across ...

A Memorandum of Understanding aimed at protecting maids sent to Malaysia may make headway in the next two months, a government official has said. Secretary of State for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs San Arun said a meeting with Malaysian officials on an MoU is expected ...

Loran Import-Export Co Ltd, Cambodia’s largest milled-rice exporter, is scheduled to start construction on a new rice mill this month worth more than US$2 million, according to the company’s General Director Lim Bunheng. The mill will help reduce the flow of Cambodia’s paddy rice into neighbouring ...

An unintentional murder charge handed to security guard Ran Boroth on Friday for allegedly killing military police officer In Rattana has left rights groups asking why officials initially claimed the deceased man had committed suicide. Only three days after it was established by Prime Minister Hun ...

The joint committee established to investigate the shooting deaths of forestry activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana closed its investigation Saturday, saying the death of the environmentalist was due to a “misunderstanding” and the death of the officer, unintentional. Speaking at a conference ...