The Phnom Penh Post
South Korean bank buys local MFI
South Korea-based Woori Bank has purchased Cambodian microfinance institution Malis Finance for $4.9 million. Hun Soopheak, general manager of Malis Finance, said the deal was finalised two weeks ago; however, the firm is still awaiting approval from Cambodian regulators. ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/south-korean-bank-buys-local-mfi
Arbitration’s cost and value
The Arbitration Council Foundation, credited with helping resolve about 1,700 industrial disputes, has reached verbal agreement with a Swedish aid agency to receive funding until the end of 2016, a spokesman said yesterday. But members of the labour-dispute resolution body desire a more permanent solution that ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/arbitration%E2%80%99s-cost-and-value
Lightning strike kills three men
Lightning struck three men dead as they stood under a tree in Kampong Cham province on Friday evening, police said. Sok Suon, 53, Vy Ponlork, 37, and Yam Khen, 27, died at the scene, said Long Thy, police chief in Srei Santhor district’s Prek Por commune. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/lightning-strike-kills-three-men
Life-saving diabetes program in limbo as state funds fall through
Every week, dozens of diabetics gather at a home in the Boeng Kak lake neighborhood to have their weight, blood sugar levels and blood pressure checked. They are among 12,000 impoverished people across the country taking part in the NGO MoPoTsyo’s peer support program, which allows ...
Holly Robertson and Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/life-saving-diabetes-program-in-limbo-as-govt-funds%E2%80%88fall-through-62063/
‘One-stop office’ to help migrants at border
Following an exodus of more than 200,000 Cambodian workers from Thailand in the past two weeks, the junta has urged Cambodia to expedite planned border offices that will facilitate legal labour migration. Responding to that request, Cambodia announced yesterday that the first “one-stop service office” would ...
Chhay Channyda and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98one-stop-office%E2%80%99-help-migrants-border
On the World Cup clock
It’s day seven of the FIFA World Cup, and the night staff at Phnom Penh’s popular Score Sports Bar and Grill are looking a bit sleep-deprived. Score is paying its staff “very well” in extra wages during the World Cup for the long nights they ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/world-cup-clock
Release our relatives: evictees
The families of four people from Pailin province’s Krinh village who have been incarcerated since March for allegedly living on state land are calling for their release. Fifty-year-old Nheb Nharn said that he and his wife, Om Som Ath, had lived on the land in Stung ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/release-our-relatives-evictees
Chinese firm acquires large stake in Kampot $100m cement factory
Chinese firm Huaxin Cement Co has purchased a 40 per cent stake in Cambodia Cement Chakrey Ting Factory Co, a cement-making factory currently under construction in Kampot province. Huaxin’s $24 million investment Cambodia Cement lifted the local factory’s working capital to $60 million, up from $32 ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/chinese-firm-acquires-large-stake-kampot-100m-cement-factory
Will the World Cup hurt productivity?
Once every four years, when the FIFA World Cup rolls around, business surveys and studies are inevitably released telling us that all those hours spent watching football, thinking about football and talking about football have a tangible effect on the global economy. During the 2010 World ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/will-world-cup-hurt-productivity
Slow start for GTI as public firm
Grand Twins International (GTI) ended trading yesterday with a slight decline. The newly listed company was changing hands at 9,480 riel ($2.36) per share at the 1pm close, down from 9,640 riel ($2.40) at the morning’s opening. ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/slow-start-gti-public-firm
Police end Prey Lang event
Police in Kampong Thom province shut down a forest-protection training session yesterday, citing fears that it was encouraging residents to protest against logging in Prey Lang, activists and residents have said. Sar Mory, a deputy of the Cambodian Youth Network (CYN), said that his group organised ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-end-prey-lang-event
NGO says work on Don Sahong dam under way
A conservation group has said its recent trip to Laos revealed that construction on a controversial hydropower dam decried by neighbouring Mekong countries is already under way. International Rivers representatives visiting the proposed site of the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Hydropower Project earlier this month say they ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ngo-says-work-don-sahong-dam-under-way
Activists call for transparency at Buddhist Institute
The activist Independent Monk Network has called on the Ministry of Cult and Religion to release paperwork proving that an agreement it struck with NagaCorp to help construct an electricity substation at Phnom Penh’s Buddhist Institute does not involve the selling of any of the ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activists-call-transparency-buddhist-institute
Supply drives office rentals to highest in region
Demand for top-quality workspace in Phnom Penh is increasing, so much so that property firm Knight Frank has labelled the capital as the fastest-growing city for rented prime office space in the entire Asia Pacific region. The firm’s June 3 quarterly report, which marks the first ...
Annie Lee
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/supply-drives-office-rentals-highest-region
At border, gov’t bill mounts
The financial burden inflicted by hundreds of thousands of returning Cambodian migrant workers has already reached $5 million in government-mobilised emergency services alone, according to official estimates. In less than two weeks, nearly 200,000 mostly undocumented Cambodian migrants have spilled through the Thai-Cambodia border, fleeing what ...
May Titthara and Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/border-gov%E2%80%99t-bill-mounts
Prey Speu tales conflict
Following last week’s street sweep, children as young as 7 years old were kept in Phnom Penh’s notorious Prey Speu social affairs centre, eyewitnesses, staff and those targeted by the initiative have told the Post, directly contradicting government denials offered earlier this week. Standing at the centre’s ...
Alice Cuddy and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/prey-speu-tales-conflict
‘Tiger’ falls prey to linguistics
Tigers and black bears look nothing alike, but their identical names in some Khmer dialects left some thinking that one of Cambodia’s most endangered species may be attacking people in the Cardamom Mountains. Sitting outside his Santre commune home in Pursat province’s Kravanh district, with bandages ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98tiger%E2%80%99-falls-prey-linguistics
Violence ‘cost economy $1.5B’
The consequences and containment of violence cost the Cambodian economy over $1.5 billion in 2013, just under 10 per cent of its estimated GDP for the period, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace’s Global Peace Index released yesterday. According to IEP executive chairman ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/violence-%E2%80%98cost-economy-15b%E2%80%99
Banking on technology in capital
The Cambodian finance industry is to celebrate the sixth Banking and Finance Conference a week from today, at a meeting that will focus on developing technology in the country’s financial sector. ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/banking-technology-capital
Activists put blame on local police
Activists working in Prey Lang forest have accused military and police officers of being behind two illegal timber hauls they have intercepted. In the first case, an estimated 50 cubic metres of timber being transported through Kampong Thom’s Sandan district on homemade tractors was found last ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activists-put-blame-local-police
Feed plant in Pailin to aid farmers’ stockpiles
Pailin province’s $5 million animal-feed processing plant and warehouse is to finish construction in the next three months and it is a welcomed development for the local farming community. The plant’s owner, Chea Kea, who also owns Diamond Crown casino on the border with Thailand in ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/feed-plant-pailin-aid-farmers%E2%80%99-stockpiles
Solo act taking its toll
It was difficult enough for Savoeurn Dimang when, until a month ago, he was one of just three teachers running the local primary school in Kors Kralor district’s Samrong Leu village. But now, with one teacher having left for South Korea and the other bowing out ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/solo-act-taking-its-toll
Better protection entertained
Workers in an industry where obnoxious, drunk customers and 12-hour shifts are common could gain legal safeguards if a subdecree brought before a Ministry of Labour committee yesterday passes into law. The set of prakases for entertainment workers – which appeared before the Labour Advisory Committee ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/better-protection-entertained
Ad spending sees hike in budget for tourism
The Cambodian government has budgeted $3.5 million for tourism-related advertising and promotions in 2014, Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said yesterday. “This year the budget has reached $3.5 million dollars, half of the total budget for the ministry as we will host PATA Travel Mart 2014,” ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/ad-spending-sees-hike-budget-tourism