The Phnom Penh Post

Export to Vietnam climbed more than 57 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2012 as farmers looked for alternative destinations for products that went to Thailand last year. The primarily agricultural exports to Cambodia’s eastern neighbour were worth US$201.5 million, up from ...

Cambodia has urged Laos to halt construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in the country’s north, a letter obtained by the Post yesterday reveals. “Preliminary construction on Xayaburi dam has continued despite the lack of regional agreement,” Minister of Water Resources and Cambodia National Mekong Committeechairman Lim ...

A joint investigative committee will be established to re-examine the killing of activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana, the head of the armed forces told the Post yesterday, after providing his own version of the incident to radio. Pressure from the families of victims and ...

Agricultural experts are urging Cambodian rice growers to choose seeds that can withstand drought and submersion in deep water in an attempt to make the country’s rice industry more competitive. Awareness of rice-seed selection was limited among farmers in the Kingdom, despite the importance of the ...

Kampot Port Co will break ground on a Kampot port in September, company officials said yesterday. The port will be an important part of a long-delayed Kampot Special Economic Zone (KSEZ), which is hoped to revitalise trade and commerce in the province. Vinh Huor, president of the ...

Investors in Cambodia’s northeast on Monday announced an investment in a cassava-processing plant in Battambang province. Prak Phoung Kesoa, assistant CEO at Battambang Agro-Industry, said yesterday that the plant would be 100 per cent Cambodian owned ...

The unclear future of Cambodia’s national railway, following Toll Royal Railways’ suspension of operations on March 31, has cast doubt not only on the oft-delayed redevelopment project but also on a larger build-out expected to connect much of Asia. Toll Royal, a joint venture by Australian ...

The director and employees of a maid recruitment agency were handed sentences of up to five years by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday and ordered to pay compensation for illegally detaining an under-aged girl. Presiding judge Duch Kimsorn said Century Manpower’s director Oung Sakirin, chief of administration ...

Criticism of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos is mounting in Thailand – the country set to enjoy most of the electricity if the project is completed. Representatives from 130 Thai civil-society organisations yesterday published a statement backing a report that outlines an ...

International tourist arrivals to Cambodia increased nearly 28 per cent during the first quarter of the year compared with the corresponding period of 2011, Ministry of Tourism data shows. The country drew more than 995,000 tourists from abroad during the three-month period, up from 778,467 a year earlier, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on unions, employers and the Ministry of Labour to take a collaborative approach to stamping out violent protests in the garment industry, a unionist said yesterday. During a Saturday conference involving 4,000 people from more than 60 union groups, Hun ...

The government needs to enforce legislation on protecting the environment, even as it gives away masses of land and resources in concessions, or risk jeopardising its economic future, the UN assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction said yesterday. “The most critical impact of disasters today is ...

With his slaying yesterday in the jungles of Koh Kong province, Chut Wutty becomes one of the highest-profile members yet on a dark list of Cambodian activists who have been killed for making a stand against greed and corruption. Although the details of his death remain ...

The wife of slain environmental activist Chut Wutty today rejected early police accounts of the circumstances around his shooting death, saying she believed he had been targeted for death for his work in protecting Cambodia’s endangered forests. Speaking to the Post by phone, 40-year-old Sam Chanthy, ...

Government officials have joined forces with Japanese experts to formulate a new plan for economic diversity in Cambodia. Foreign direct investment in Cambodian industry has largely gone to garment manufacturing during the past 10 years, putting the country at risk of economic shock in the event ...

The Cambodia Securities Exchange has seen a sharp decrease in action this week, with trading volume yesterday falling to 3,453 shares, down nearly 100 per cent from Monday. Despite the drop, which was accompanied by a strong shift from institutional to retail investors, experts have stressed the time ...

Fuelled by downward pressure on internet pricing, state-owned Telecom Cambodia had dramatically increased its fibre-optic link with Vietnam, officials and experts said. The new 10-gigabyte connection would further lower prices and boost the speed of Cambodian internet connections in a market where demand for bandwidth was driven by ...

Protests over construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos could spread from Thailand to Cambodia as communities along the Mekong River begin to feel its negative effects, an International Rivers programme director said yesterday. About 70 Thai villagers who rely on the ...

As the end of this year’s cashew harvest nears, the yield in two major producing provinces has fallen compared with last year, officials and farmers said, while traders said that the price of the nuts had also dropped since last year. In Kompong Cham province, this ...

Despite interest in participating in the stock market, confusion as to how and where to invest in the Cambodia Securities Exchange still persists among many Cambodians without close ties to or backgrounds in trading. After the much-anticipated and long-delayed launch of CSX trading last week, Soun Sokret, an ...

Share prices on the Cambodia Securities Exchange yesterday fell for the first time since trading began a week ago, as technical problems reportedly caused a 90 per cent drop in the amount of shares traded. Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority shares dropped 4.9 per cent to 9,700 riel (US$2.44). The ...

Japan’s Sumi Wiring Systems Co Ltd launched production of automobile wiring this month, a company official said yesterday. Japanese companies such as Sumi and Minebea, a ball-bearings maker, have helped Cambodia’s manufacturing industry diversify away from garments, the country’s main manufacturing product and export, and Prime Minister Hun Sen ...

The tonnage of the Kingdom’s milled-rice exports jumped nearly 50 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, according to the Ministry of Commerce, with export revenues soaring as much as 82 per cent. Total exports of milled rice for the first three months of 2012 hit ...

More than 700 workers at the SH International factory in the capital’s Po Sen Chey district have vowed to keep striking, despite the Ministry of Labour saying it could not help solve their dispute because their demands were “excessive”. The workers protested again yesterday outside the ...