The Cambodia Daily

Cambodia’s most outspoken activist against illegal logging was shot dead today while escorting journalists near a protected forest in Koh Kong province, where he has repeatedly attempted to expose illegal logging rackets that include military officials. Chut Wutty, the director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was ...

Slow demand for office space in Phnom Penh is leaving the owners of high-rise buildings constructed in recent years struggling to find clients, according to real estate experts. But construction of the Vattanac Capital Tower, a $150 million, 36-story building slated to open its first ...

Villagers and police clashed Sunday after excavators moved in to prepare work on a disputed plot where authorities will build a CPP commune office in Stung Treng City’s Preah Bat commune, officials said yesterday. Hou Sam Ol, provincial monitor for local rights group Adhoc, said Stung ...

A draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) drawn up by Malaysia to regulate maids working in the country does not sufficiently protect their rights and needs improvements, an official at the Labor Ministry said on Thursday. Malaysian officials drew up the MoU between the two governments following ...

The Phnom Penh Municipality opened a new port for boat operators along the riverside in Daun Penh district yesterday in an effort to regulate operations, keep the river clean, and ensure customer safety. The new port comes three years after City Hall banned boats from docking ...

About 1.8 million Cambodians traveled to the coastal and northeastern provinces to celebrate Khmer New Year, a 50 percent increase compared with last year, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said yesterday. Mr Khon said Cambodians are starting to seek out other vacation spots besides the coastal provinces ...

Shareholders of Acleda Bank yesterday approved a plan to open an initial three branches in Burma, where a year of surprise political and economic reforms are raising expectations of a flood of foreign investment ...

The Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority will launch its initial public offering (IPO) today on Cambodia’s bourse, and investors and securities officials said yesterday that they expected the company to make a strong start to trading The Water Supply Authority is issuing 13 million shares, which ...

The leaders of seven major unions and labor confederations announced yesterday in a joint statement that they will form an inter-union committee to rally the government on raising the country’s minimum wage of $61, with the unions believe is too low. ...

While shopping for a brand-new television, 27-year-old Loek Bunhai recently bought a Sony flat-screen at the Sunsimexco retail outlet on Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard for $345. But with a monthly salary of $300 from his job as a microfinance officer in Phnom Penh, Mr. Bunhai was ...

Cambodia’s largest bank, Acleda, is looking to get in early on Burma’s economic reawakening with plans to open three microfinance branches in the country as soon as January, the bank’s CEO said yesterday. In Channy said he discussed the plan on Monday with a visiting Burmese ...

Farm mechanization is steadily on the rise, with the number of tractors and power tillers in the country nearly doubling to more than 67,000 between 2008 and 2011, according to figures released by the Ministry of Agriculture this week. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday told senior officials to stop investors from using land concessions as a pretext for logging and to discuss the possibility of reducing the amount of time such concessions can last. The government placed a moratorium on logging concessions in 2002 to ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday revised its prediction for economic growth in Cambodia down to 6.5 percent as it warned that weakening demand from markets in the US and Europe could affect exports leaving the country. The ADB’s biannual outlook report for 2012 also said ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday blasted local officials for not working hard enough to curb illegal fishing in and around the Tonle Sap lake, where fisheries crimes are still rampant despite 90,000 hectares of protected areas. “Don’t do illegal fishing, use illegal equipment to fish, or ...

Thai and Cambodian foreign affairs officials have pledged to step up their efforts to stem the fatal shooting of Cambodians who illegally cross the border into Thailand to cut down rosewood trees, which fetch thousands of dollars per cubic meter on the black market. At a ...

About 70 villagers in Pursat province’s Krakor district held a daylong prayer ceremony yesterday to request help from spirits to curse the powerful Pheapimex company for destroying their farmland, villagers said. Pheapimex, owned by the wife of CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin, has maintained a 316,000-hectare ...

About 40 former Borei Keila residents yesterday pushed back roughly 100 police and military police who threatened to demolish temporary shelters belonging to 16 families still clinging to their land, residents and rights groups said. Prampi Makara district police armed with riot shields, military police and ...

Telecom Cambodia, one of three state-owned enterprises with plans to list on Cambodia’s stock exchange, saw revenues decline by 3 percent to $31 million last year, an official at the company said yesterday. Lao Saroeun, director general of Telecom Cambodia, said that revenues at the company ...

Representatives from US sports brand Nike yesterday visited the company’s supplier factory in Kompong Speu province to investigate the cause of last week’s mass faintings, officials from the Ministry of Labor said. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety for the Labor Ministry’s health department, said ...

As Khmer New Year approaches, Phnom Penh Municipality has once again made its annual appeal to bus companies and taxi drivers not to raise fees during the holiday. But as usual, drivers and companies say they will be ignoring the request. Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema said ...

About 100 tuk-tuk drivers, motorcycle taxi drivers, vendors and other informal transportation workers protested against the high price of gasoline yesterday at the National Assembly, claiming the high petrol prices are cutting into their small profits. Vorn Pao, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy ...

Representatives from US sports brand Nike will arrive today to investigate last week’s mass faintings at their supplier factory in Kompong Speu province, officials from the Labor Ministry and an International Labor Organization (ILO) representative said yesterday. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety for the ...

The volume of goods passing through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by 11 percent in the first three months of 2012 compared to the same period last year, according to statistics released by the port yesterday. Between January and March, 17,386 containers passed through the ...