Urban administration and development

Surveillance cameras set up throughout the capital will be synchronized and monitored nonstop from a central control room as part of a coordinated crimewatch effort between City Hall and the National Police, officials said on Tuesday. ...

The Ministry of Land Management yesterday announced that the decades-old White Building in the capital will be demolished starting July 17 in order to make way for a new 21-storey structure.   ...

More than 430 of the 493 families who formerly resided in Phnom Penh’s White Building have vacated the premises, but around 15 families have yet to accept compensation packages for their apartments, according to a Land Management Ministry official. ...

UAE-based Emirates Airlines inaugurated a daily passenger flight on Saturday connecting Phnom Penh to Dubai, with a stopover in Yangon, Myanmar. ...

Malindo Air, a Malaysian low-cost carrier, will launch daily flights from Kuala Lumpur to Phnom Penh beginning on August 1, the airline announced on its website yesterday. ...

Defence Minister Tea Banh’s son has been appointed a deputy governor of Siem Reap province by Prime Minister Hun Sen. Major General Tea Seiha said he had not been told about the appointment officially so could not give a date for when he would take up ...

The government has tapped two officials to become new deputy governors in Phnom Penh, including former Pursat Provincial Deputy Governor Keut Che, and Nuon Pharath, a staffer at the Council of Ministers with close ties to the youth organisation led by the premier’s youngest son. ...

A planned temporary bridge north of the Cambodia-Japan-Friendship Bridge will be replaced by a large and permanent cable-stayed bridge once renovation of the latter bridge is complete, a City Hall spokesman said yesterday. ...

Phnom Penh’s city bus municipal public transit system will be adding five bus routes to its existing network in mid-July, City Hall spokesman Met Measpheakdey said yesterday. ...

Following the popularity of Cambodia’s first-ever container night market, the company behind the project said it is investing an additional $500,000 to expand the open-air facility with an annex scheduled to open next month. ...

The Land Management Ministry hosted a farewell party for residents of Phnom Penh’s iconic but crumbling White Building Saturday, serving up large quantities of noodles and bringing in Buddhist monks to bless the residents before they move. ...

Phnom Penh’s sole garbage hauler says it will need another week to collect thousands of tons of fetid garbage that piled up over the weekend when workers left the capital to vote in Sunday’s commune elections. ...

As residents began to move out of Phnom Penh’s iconic White Building on Tuesday, government officials were also present, handing out documentation to those leaving while microfinance staff offered their services.While some residents piled their possessions into trucks or blocked narrow hallways with unwanted goods, ...

The government has given more than 400 White Building families a six-week deadline to sign contracts and move out, allowing Japanese investors to begin redeveloping the property.   ...

More than 400 Phnom Penh families living along a canal in Meanchey district will be granted land titles after development to the area’s defunct drainage system takes place, officials said. ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has said it will hold a public forum within two weeks on plans to develop a road on a disused stretch of railway in Russey Keo district. Locals from six communities have been protesting the development plans for the past few months ...

After two years and seven months of construction, a new complex housing 26 provincial departments in Siem Reap was officially inaugurated on land that once belonged to the Apsara Authority. ...

Speaking at a pagoda inauguration on Saturday, Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong said City Hall is looking to move warehouses and automobile repair shops out of the city centre to the outskirts to reduce pollution and traffic congestion – a move Hun Sen’s sister Hun ...

Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) aims to begin construction work on a sidewalk at the Neang Kong Hing roundabout near the Olympic Stadium in the third quarter of 2017, in a move it says could cut traffic accidents. ...

Phnom Penh City Hall yesterday washed its hands of the decadelong contentious Boeung Kak lake issue, saying it was closing its conflict resolution process, leaving seven families who had refused to accept the government’s offers in the lurch. ...

Japan inked the $16 million deal through the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in February 2016. However Chou Kimtry, deputy director of the municipal department of transport, said yesterday the traffic lights will not be operational until February 2018. ...

About 85 percent of 493 families being asked to sell their White Building homes have dropped their asking price to $1,800 per square meter, but insist they will not negotiate any lower. ...

At the official inauguration of the Hun Sen Boulevard on Monday, the prime minister proudly and publicly acknowledged the go-ahead for the Thai Boon Roong Twin Trade Center – the 133-storey twin skyscrapers that, when announced in February last year, was largely doubted by industry ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has asked Defense Minister General Tea Banh to study whether Phnom Penh’s biggest boulevard could be used for emergency plane landings.   ...