News

Bus companies that are involved in crashes or break the law will receive two warnings before being summarily closed down by the government, a senior official said yesterday. Responding to a recent spate of serious tour bus crashes, Peou Maly, deputy director-general at the transport department ...

Six Cambodians suspected of entering Thailand last month to log trees were released by Thai authorities yesterday and repatriated to Preah Vihear province, local officials said. ...

Asean member countries were called on yesterday to work toward a “100 percent smoke-free” region, and Cambodia’s most famous smoker, Prime Minister Hun Sen, is behind the initiative, a government spokesman said. ...

A well-known Battambang businesswoman is on the run and her 18-year-old son is sitting in jail after the pair were charged with stealing millons from customers of their money exchange shop. “She had stolen moneys from many people who had transferred their moneys via her ...

The rehabilitation of Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network is nearly six months behind schedule, and with more than a year’s worth of work to do, the project is running out of money, a consultant for the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said yesterday. Paul Power, a ...

A Ford assembly plant in Preah Sihanouk province will supply Cambodia’s limited but growing car market, the American carmaker’s local representative RMA Cambodia announced yesterday. The US$3 million investment, wholly owned by RMA, has a capacity of up to 6,000 vehicles per year, and is expected ...

Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism is projecting sizeable growth for the industry this year, according to Director General Tith Chantha. ...

Echoing longstanding calls from conservation groups, the World Bank says in a new report today that governments need to look past low-level criminals to tackle illegal logging and to follow the money the illicit trade generates instead. That trade of illegal logging generates up to $15 ...

The Credit Bureau of Cambodia officially commenced operations at its Phnom Penh headquarters on Monday, according to CBC spokesman Steve Vaile ...

The Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions will hand out the first of more than 60,000 pamphlets to factory workers today as it encourages them to demand a significant wage increase and to strike if their plea is ignored. ...

Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay an official state visit to Cambodia between March 30 and April 2, a trip that will coincide with the Asean-European Union Business Summit and will finish just one day before the annual Asean summit commences in Phnom Penh, an ...

In a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation yesterday, the Japanese government officially granted aid of 974 million yen (about US$12.2 million) to the Cambodian government. The Honorable Masafumi Kuroki, Japanese ambassador to Cambodia, said his country had made the donation to ...

Phnom Penh: Myanmar president U Thein Sien today began his state visit in Cambodia for bilateral cooperation. Thein Sien’s visit this year will boost the trade exchange between two countries and also under the framework of ACMECS, and ASEAN integration. ...

The Republic of Congo has become the latest country to throw its support behind Cambodia’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2013-2014 term, Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said yesterday. Henri Djombo, visiting Congolese minister ...

Laos yesterday released seven of 23 Cambodians who have been apprehended across the border since the start of the year on suspicions of illegal logging, according to a military and district official. ...

An initiative aimed at boosting the level of child protection in five Cambodian provinces was launched in Phnom Penh yesterday. The Partnership Program for the Protection of Children, which brings together the Cambodian government, UNICEF, Friends International and nine grassroots NGOs, is aimed at better coordinating ...

Opening statements started yesterday in a trial pitting Kompong Chhnang province villagers against the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem over a long-standing land dispute. However, the plaintiffs and human rights workers monitoring the trial criticized yesterday’s proceedings, which were allowed to proceed despite ...

An aviation training centre was being planned that would allow the Kingdom to meet the demands of its surging tourism market, a State Secretariat of Civil Aviation official said yesterday. About 1.5 million visitors arrived in Cambodia by air in 2011, a 16 per cent jump ...

Two alleged labour brokers were nabbed yesterday after they were caught attempting to lead 10 Cambodian workers across the Thai border in Battambang’s Sampov Loun district, provincial police said. ...

One of five families facing eviction from their island home off the coast of Koh Kong province has written to the provincial governor, urging him to intervene to stop a Chinese company developing their land. “If the companies want to take over villagers’ land, they ...

A government lawyer has written to the Phnom Penh municipal court to again ask it to allow land belonging to fugitive former Cambodian ambassador to Brunei Nan Sy to be sold at auction. ...

The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...

The Chinese and South Korean governments have been granted permission to build 565 km of new railroad in Cambodia and have already conducted feasibility studies, according to a government report released yesterday. In its annual report, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said that plans ...

The long-awaited Cambodian Credit Bureau (CBC) launched yesterday, a move that is expected to increase the amount of information banks retain on the history of borrowers in the banking system. Despite loan disbursals in the banking sector growing by 25 percent last year, banks have so ...