The Phnom Penh Post

The traditional supply chain dynamics for the renowned Kampot pepper are breaking down due to a market boom that has brought large-scale investment into pepper cultivation, while sidelining the small shareholders that rely on the benefits of being part of the association that represents them. ...

The National Election Committee said it will aim to register around 1.4 million of the nearly 2 million eligible voters it was unable to get on voter rolls last year, though the body’s chairman, Sik Bun Hok, refused to address yesterday whether the process would ...

Global credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Services said yesterday that while it has retained Cambodia’s B2/stable sovereign rating alongside Vietnam’s B1/positive rating, the Kingdom’s low diversification of exports has put it at higher risk from external shocks than its eastern neighbour. ...

Cambodian timber exports to Vietnam over the first six months of the year have almost surpassed the total amount for all of last year, according to Vietnamese customs data, despite an existing ban on the trade – which one analyst said had “entirely failed” in ...

Tep Vanny stood beside four effigies on a dusky evening last August, marshalling other Boeung Kak residents to light incense sticks, hold lotus stems and throw rice at the four life-size dummies while shouting curses.​ ...

At least three local NGOs have been called for questioning by the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s Taxation Department to clarify their tax payments, amid an aggressive tax collection campaign that has recently gone after media outlets the Cambodia Daily, Voice of America and Radio ...

The government announced yesterday that it would “intervene” to support the price that farmers receive for their paddy rice, though without instituting a price floor or direct subsidies that would jeopardise a free market. ...

Lao troops occupying territory south of the Sekong River withdrew on Saturday after Prime Minister Hun Sen gave them a six-day deadline to leave and dispatched two military brigades and members of his personal Bodyguard Unit to the border. ...

Popular media outlets Radio Free Asia and Voice of America have become the latest to draw the attention of the government for allegedly not paying taxes, one week after a letter to the Cambodia Daily demanding more than $6 million in back taxes was leaked. ...

A local television presenter is facing heavy criticism for an inflammatory on-air suggestion that rape victims should not resist their attackers, and should instead accept sexual assault to avoid being killed – a reference to a brutal rape and murder of an 18-year-old woman in ...

Khmer Power Party head and former convicted “terrorist” Sourn Serey Ratha was arrested yesterday over a Facebook post criticising the deployment of troops to the Laos border by suggesting that grunts in the field would suffer while the military’s leaders hung back to enjoy “money” ...

Despite killing some 800 people in the Kingdom each year, rabies has been largely off the public health radar. Plans are in the works for a nationwide response, but can funding catch up? ...

Political commentator Kim Sok was sentenced to 18 months in prison this afternoon on charges of incitement and defamation for appearing to suggest that the ruling party was behind the killing of popular analyst Kem Ley. ...

The Kingdom’s apex rice industry body has been meeting this week to discuss ways of nailing down a potentially massive deal with Bangladesh, which earlier this month inked a memorandum of understanding to purchase 1 million tonnes of Cambodian rice over the next five years. ...

Exports to the US saw a modest rebound during the first half of the year, benefiting in part from new trade privileges that allow Cambodian-made travel goods to enter the world’s biggest consumer market duty-free, a Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) representative said yesterday. ...

The Cambodian government has selected six agencies to facilitate sending domestic workers to Hong Kong – with one saying they will begin sending maids by the end of the year – though rights groups yesterday warned of potential exploitation and abuses. ...

Riversgold, an Australian gold exploration startup, will use the proceeds of its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) to acquire and develop mineral exploration projects in Australia, the US and Cambodia, according to a company prospectus. ...

The capital’s listed water utility, Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA), signed a construction deal yesterday with France’s Vinci Constructions Grands Projects to renovate the Chamkarmon Water Treatment Plan and enlarge its water production capacity from 20,000 cubic metres per day to 52,000 cubic metres. ...

In a decision roundly criticised by rights observers, the Appeal Court yesterday upheld a two-and-a-half-year sentence for Boeung Kak activist Tep Vanny for her alleged involvement in a 2013 protest outside Prime Minister Hun Sen’s residence in Phnom Penh that turned violent. ...

UN Special Rapporteur Rhona Smith kicked off an official visit to the Kingdom yesterday by raising concerns over ruling party officials’ increased use of violent rhetoric, singling out Social Affairs Minister Vong Soth’s recent threats to bludgeon protesters with bamboo rods, during a meeting with ...

Prominent opposition Commune Chief Sin Rozeth has been formally chastised by Battambang officials for seemingly minor violations – such as erroneously declaring certain services free and keeping her own records – in a case one analyst said reflected the harassment opposition officials have faced since ...

Cambodia’s banking sector enjoyed another strong performance last year as the Kingdom’s economy continued to expand, with banking credit moderating, deposits increasing and financial institutions remaining healthy as they further integrate into the global economy, the central bank said in its annual report yesterday. ...

Still more riverbank collapses have struck a community in Kandal province’s Sa’ang district where multiple houses have crumbled into the Tonle Bassac river a stone’s throw from where four companies are dredging the riverbed for sand. ...

The Cambodia National Rescue Party yesterday completed its task of removing pictures of its leadership from its billboards across the country in response to the passage of widely criticized legal amendments that effectively outlawed their former president’s association with the party. ...