The Phnom Penh Post

Union leaders gathered in the capital yesterday to discuss strategies to curb the garment industry’s widespread use of temporary contracts for hiring workers, saying employers were using them to discourage unions and ensure their workforce remained docile and easy to exploit. They also accused employers of ...

Sihanoukville Autonomous Port saw a 10 per cent year-on-year shipment increase in the first 11 months of the year, according to data provided by the Port’s general director. The shipment of cargo across the port during the time period reached 2.2 million tons, a 9.94 per ...

Malaysia-based Air Asia will begin offering travel services in Cambodia, and may expand its flights to neighbouring countries, company officials said. The airline launched its first Air Asia Travel and Service Center in Phnom Penh yesterday. Air Asia will partner with tour operator Mekong Discovery. So Mara, ...

Investment approved between January and October surpassed those last year by  US$160 million, according to a report from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. The 126 local and foreign investment projects through October, worth about $6 billion, overshadowed the $5.8 billion in the whole of ...

Representatives from Cambodia and Thailand yesterday agreed to a 2013 completion date for a railway link from Phnom Penh across the Cambodia-Thailand border crossing at Poipet. Outdated agreements had delayed the project, Thai officials said. Insiders have also said disagreements over cross-border trade have kept the ...

Another 30 Cambodian men among 65 rescued in Indonesia after being trafficked into work on fishing boats in Thailand were repatriated to the Kingdom yesterday, following the return of 30 such workers last week. The remaining five workers are set to be repatriated next month, Chiv ...

Years after their eviction from central Phnom Penh, families continue to trickle back into the city from their relocation sites on the city’s outskirts. They search for cheap rental rooms instead of houses like the ones they were driven out of, in some cases, by ...

Year-end travelers have fully booked Sihanoukville province’s hotels and guesthouses for the first-ever Sea Festival, which is expected to attract thousands of visitors this year, tourism officials said. Tith Chantha, general director at the Ministry of Tourism, confirmed that all hotel and guesthouse rooms were booked ...

The government has approved Qatar as a destination for the growing number of Cambodian labourers seeking employment overseas. Workers will not be recruited for housekeeping services, however, private sector officials said. The abuse of maids in Malaysia – many of whom were reportedly under-aged – has ...

The International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories program is seeking funding for a campaign to prevent “future fainting incidents” at the garment factories it monitors, following the release on Friday of the results of its investigation into them, according to a document obtained by the Post. The ...

Human rights groups are warning that Cambodia’s new Prison Law will create financial incentives for violations of human rights within the Kingdom’s prisons and tarnish the image of the country’s most lucrative export industry: footwear and garments. They point to Article 71 of the new law, ...

A new government plan has set a goal for an annual 1.2 million tonnes of fish by 2019, but officials and environmentalist have said the construction of Xayaburi dam in Laos could stymie Mekong fisheries. The plan would push fish exports to 500,000 tonnes of fish ...

Three false alarms at a garment factory triggered another mass fainting incident yesterday morning, sending 59 female staff, including one security guard, to hospitals and clinics, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labour. The first alarm went off  about 7:40am in a sewing section, ...

Cambodia’s total foreign reserves jumped to US$3 billion in the first half of 2011, up from $2.7 billion at the end of last year, according to the National Bank of Cambodia. The reserves help to bolster the Kingdom’s financial standing, which in turn draws investor interest ...

Roughly 100 villagers were allegedly threatened by soldiers brandishing AK-47s yesterday, while attempting to block a company from bulldozing their farms in Kratie province’s Snuol district. Soun Vicheka, a representative of 136 families in Snuol commune’s Krasaing village, said villagers formed a human chain to prevent  Horizon ...

Foreign tourist arrivals in the Kingdom increased by more than 15 per cent between January and October compared to the same period in 2010, Ministry of Tourism data showed. Officials attributed the arrival of 2.3 million foriegn visitors during the first 10 months of the year ...

An ethanol plant planned for Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province would push local production of the crop, as well as decreased reliance on foreign markets, officials and cassava farmers said yesterday. Construction on the joint venture between a Chinese firm and Cambodia’s National Company for Development will ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged provincial governors to investigate the deaths of the about 250 people who died during the flooding disaster this year in order to develop a strategy to reduce deaths from flooding. If officials could identify the factors that caused the deaths ...

The owner of a fishing lot in Kampong Cham province, whose bid for his lot was cancelled more than a week ago, has been attempting to keep villagers from fishing the area he previously laid claim to by destroying their equipment and sinking their boats. On ...

A domestic migrant worker who returned to Cambodia on Saturday yesterday recounted two years of alleged physical abuse by her employer in Malaysia while she fulfilled a contract for a recruitment firm based in the capital. At a press conference held by Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker ...

Shipment through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port increased by more than 28 per cent in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing a government target for 2011. About 73,760 shipping containers passed through the port between January and November, data shows, up from 62,256 containers ...

Construction on a US$2 billion oil refining plant, the Kingdom’s first, will start in April, according to officials close to the project. The plant, which will be built on 365 hectares across Kampot and Sihanoukville provinces and is expected to be completed in 2014, is a ...

The Kampong Chhnang provincial labour department has agreed to mediate an ongoing dispute between workers at a garment factory in the province and their employer over alleged violations of the Labour Law. Pov Sitha, director of the provincial labour department, said workers at the M&V International ...

More than 100 workers from Cambo Handsome One garment factory gathered outside the home of Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday and Saturday, after urging him on Thursday to intervene in a dispute with the factory’s Korean owners. The move followed an appeal to the Ministry ...