The Phnom Penh Post
Opposition urges China checks
Prime Minister Hun Sen has called investors from China’s Anhui province to invest in numerous sectors across Cambodia in an effort to spur two-way trade between the Kingdom and China in order accomplish their joint target of US$5 billion in trade by 2015. Meanwhile, Cambodia’s opposition party ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012081758136/Business/opposition-urges-china-checks.html
Forest patrol preps evidence
Villagers who have spent recent days patrolling Prey Lang forest would file a complaint to the prime minister alleging government officials and private companies are clearing parts of the forest, a spokesman said yesterday. The 70-strong citizen patrol team who scoured the forest this week ...
Xayaburi construction forging ahead
Construction of the main structure of the supposedly on-hold Xayaburi dam could begin by the end of this year, the Thai company contracted to build it said yesterday. Ch Karnchang chief executive Plew Trivisvavet said preparatory work at the site of the proposed US$3.8 billion, 1,285-megawatt ...
Forest battle rages on
After a brief détente, a fight over the Prey Trolach community forest in Battambang province that has its citizen guardians and the Forestry Administration pitted against the military is back on, those working to protect the area from illegal logging said yesterday. Since it was deemed ...
Second international machinery fair opens this weekend
The second Cambodia International Machinery Industry Fair 2012 (CIMIF 2012) will kick off this weekend from at the Diamond Island Convention Center in an effort to promote the industry development and foreign investment in Cambodia. It will run for four days from tomorrow to August ...
Preah Vihear to get new border crossing
The Cambodian government is seeking a new international border checkpoint in Preah Vihear province to link with Thailand’s Ubun province, officials say. Preah Vihear provincial governor Um Mara said officials from both countries had met to examine the possibility of opening a new international checkpoint. There ...
Crackdown yields major timber haul
Authorities in Stung Treng province have confiscated some 651 pieces of “luxury timber” from three communes in Se San district over the past week in an ongoing operation to crack down on illegal logging in the area, police said. The goods were confiscated just as a ...
Overwork, Exhaustion to blame for mass fainting
About 50 workers at the M&V manufacturing factory in Kampong Chhnang province fainted yesterday morning due to overwork and exhaustion in the factory’s third fainting incident this year, officials said yesterday. Noun Sam Ol, Free Trade Union representative at M&V, said that the collapse of a ...
'Ransomed' workers returned to Cambodia
All but three of a group of 20 Cambodians who were held against their will on a fishing boat in Thailand had returned after agreeing to pay a fee for “transportation”, a police official said yesterday. The men, believing they were heading to jobs in Koh ...
New twist in Cambodian sugar firm saga
Taiwanese food supplier Ve Wong, one of two sugar company owners locked in a long-running battle with villagers in Koh Kong’s Sre Ambel district, has made an eyebrow-raising offer – to give the disputed land back. The company’s offer, posted to the non-profit Business and Human ...
NGOs give support to summonsed worker
Charges against outspoken Adhoc head of monitoring Chan Soveth are baseless, politically motivated and threaten to undermine human rights work in Cambodia, a coalition of NGOs said yesterday. Soveth, who has been summonsed to court on August 24 over the vague charge of assisting “specific perpetrators”, ...
Riel stabilizes versus dollar
The stabilisation of the riel over the first half of this year is a reflection of increased confidence in using riel in the economy as well as improvements in the agricultural sector, according to economists and the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC). The slowdown in the US economy ...
Prey Lang patrol claims more evidence
Community activists patrolling the Prey Lang forest for a second day yesterday claimed to have found more evidence of illegal logging – in the form of hundreds of cubic metres of timber and several hectares of cleared land. Prey Lang network representative Hoeun Sopheap said villagers ...
Shuttered but still collecting
T & P, the notorious labour recruitment firm that was closed down last year because of its appalling record of abuse scandals, is continuing to receive and pocket remittances from maids stranded in Malaysia, a coalition of rights groups told a press conference yesterday. At the ...
Meters mean 'money down drain'
The sole provider of water and electricity in Koh Kong province’s Khemerak Phumin town, LYP group, was demanding that all rental buildings install water meters at exorbitant rates for the region, residents said yesterday. Building managers sent intervention papers to provincial governor Bun Leut on July ...
Bail granted for disgraced officials
Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction arrested last week on bribery charges involving millions of dollars would be freed on bail in the next few days, officials said yesterday. Kuy Bunson, director of the Ministry of Interior’s prisons department, said he had ...
Charges vague as court calls in ADHOC official
In a mysteriously vague citation, Adhoc monitoring head Chan Saveth has been called to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to face charges of “providing assistance to specific perpetrators”. Although the court’s summons, which asks Saveth to appear on August 24, provides no specifics as to the ...
Letter holds key for Tai Yang
It’s been marked by violence, fervent protests and a stream of recriminations, but now bureaucracy is hampering efforts to resolve the seven-week-long strike at the Tai Yang and Camwell factories, which supply Levi’s and Gap, a trade-union advocate said yesterday. Dave Welsh, country director of the American ...
Increase in tourists equals more operators
The number of tour operators registered with Ministry of Tourism increased by more than 10 per cent in the first half of this year compared to last year due to an upswing in the number of tourists visiting the Kingdom, insiders say. Figures from the tourism ministry showed ...
Senator Kok An's Case Back in
The Appeal Court yesterday began hearing now-incarcerated former Anco Brothers deputy general director Heng Chheang’s appeal against Senator Kok An’s requested Phnom Penh Municipal Court injunction over his property. Chheang, and his wife, Tep Kolap, former Phnom Penh International University director, were convicted and sentenced to ...
Approved investment drops
Latest figures show the total value of approved investment in the Kingdom declined by more than 70 per cent in the first half of this year compared to the equivalent period a year before. Economists and officials are unconcerned, however, saying that some big projects during ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012081457967/Business/big-dip-in-approved-investments.html
Trafficked fishermen released-for a price
A group of eight Cambodians held for ransom on a Thai fishing boat were freed over the weekend after their families paid 1,000 baht (US$32) per person to a human trafficker in Thailand who is still holding another nine victims, victims and police said yesterday. The ...
ADB maps Kingdom's needs
The private sector and industry professionals were engaged yesterday in the first consultation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the government in an effort to understand the factors affecting Cambodia’s economy, and ultimately determined that human capital, infrastructure, innovation and regulatory issues as the key areas ...
Bank to study loan possibilities for rice
Delegates from the Import-Export Bank of China will visit Cambodia next week to discuss loans for the rice-processing and exporting sector, according to government officials. Son Kunthor, president of the state-owned Cambodian Rural Development Bank, said yesterday that Chinese delegates will come to study the feasibility of ...