News

The Philippines thrust the South China Sea dispute to the forefront of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting yesterday, causing the topic to dominate discussions. Myanmar by-elections and North Korea also featured prominently on the eve of today’s ASEAN summit, overshadowing the foreign ministers’ planned focus on ...

Two environmental organizations sent letters to Prime Minister Hun Sen and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Friday appealing for them to halt the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Stung Treng province. The Sesan 2, a Vietnamese-funded hydropower project, will cause ...

More than 150 residents evicted from Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district to make way for a railway rehabilitation project filed a complaint yesterday with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) office in Phnom Penh, one of two principal financiers for the project, saying their relocation site ...

Cambodia had made its first direct shipment of rice to China, an official revealed yesterday, but the test run, which was hoped to open the vast Chinese rice market to local exporters, was largely unsuccessful. Golden Rice Co Ltd shipped 48 tonnes of milled rice to ...

Hu Jintao had already left the day before, but five Boeung Kak villagers were undeterred yesterday as they attempted to leave a petition for China’s president, only to be turned back by police. The quintet, whose petition requests that Hu intervene in their land dispute with ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that establishing a regional instrument to protect migrant workers in Southeast Asia should be a priority for ASEAN this year. “The free flow of skilled workers is a key condition for the ASEAN Economic Community,” he said in an opening ...

Cambodia’s Heng Development Co Ltd, in co-operation with Thai and Chinese companies, plans to invest about US$200 million in a water-treatment project this year, according to the company’s general director. ...

Toll Royal Railways chief executive David Kerr is on track to leave Cambodia by the end of the month, according to his expected replacement. Bobby Luow, a 40-year veteran of the rail industry, mainly in South Africa, told the Post he had been brought in to ...

Families forced to move by the rehabilitation of the Phnom Penh stretch of the national railway petitioned the Asian Development Bank yesterday for help with their livelihoods. About 50 people gathered outside the ADB’s office to submit a petition representing more than 160 families relocated to ...

Representing more than 1,200 delegates from the 10 Asean countries, the Asean Peoples’ Forum issued a highly critical statement yesterday to visiting Asean leaders concerning issues such as land evictions, effects of large-scale hydropower projects and the opaque nature of drafting the Asean Human Rights ...

Cambodia’s garment sector yesterday looked more like a teacher to regional economies such as Myanmar than a student of China and other export juggernauts. With more than 500 garment and shoe factories – adding a new one every 10 days, according to the Garment Manufacturers Association ...

Cambodia’s Minister of Economy and Finance Cham Prasidh yesterday said the Kingdom would push forward with efforts to eliminate development gaps among ASEAN member states during its chairmanship this year. ...

More than 400 families in Kampong Cham province’s Chup commune had filed a complaint yesterday to local authorities over relocation orders issued last week, villagers said. Hom Hon, 55, a retired rubber plantation worker and former employee of Sopheak Nika Investment Group Company, said that on ...

Sorn Sokna, chief executive of Sonatra Securities in Phnom Penh, has been made chairman of the ASEAN Business Advisory Council’s ASEAN Business Awards. ...

Cambodia, the current ASEAN chair, has called for stronger financial cooperation among its member countries to promote economic growth. The main agenda is to ensure that Southeast Asia is on track to meet an ambitious goal of transforming in three years into a European Union-like ...

The Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) sent a letter to the Ministry of Labor yesterday requesting that all of the country’s factory owners pay workers their salary earlier than usual ahead of Khmer New Year. Workers are normally paid on the fifth to the ...

As Europe continues to navigate its way through a two-year debt crisis, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht yesterday sought to put Europe at the center of Southeast Asia’s future at the EU-Asean Business Summit in Phnom Penh, and urged EU investors to take advantage ...

A weekend meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Hun Sen concluded with millions in loans and aid agreed to and a clear message: neither nation is in a rush to deal with the prickly South China Sea dispute. At the Saturday one on ...

CAVFOOD, a joint venture between Cambodian and Vietnamese companies, launched the first phase of its US$8 million rice mill in Phnom Penh on Friday. The venture is an investment by Cambodian state-owned rice exporter Green Trade and Vietnam’s VNA Food 2 and Bank for Investment and ...

Cambodia’s exports to the European Union increased by 40 per cent to a total value of US$1.3 billion in 2011, according to European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, who is in Phnom Penh for the ASEAN-EU Business Summit. “I think it is fair to say ...

Two villagers from Koh Kong  province involved in a land dispute with a Chinese company were detained for questioning on Saturday afternoon, halting their plans to file a petition with the Chinese embassy during President Hu Jintao’s visit. Thirty-three other villagers who had planned to deliver ...

About half of the land concessions granted since 1994 are in the hands of Chinese companies, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. Ouch Leng, CCHR land reform project coordinator, said that from 1994 to 2012, the Cambodian government granted 4,615,745 ...

Members of the Asean People’s Forum, a coalition of NGOs that convened in Phnom Penh last week, declared yesterday that their rights had been violated after four workshops on sensitive issues were canceled by the venue where they met. In a statement representing more than 1,200 ...

Civil society groups from Thailand will boycott a meeting between NGOs and regional government representatives at this week’s ASEAN summit because their country’s delegate “does not represent Thai civil society”, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Premrudee Daoroung, a representative of Thai civil society groups, said her country’s ...