News

All families evacuated during the worst floods Cambodia has seen in more than a decade have now returned home, the floodwaters have receded and relief efforts are coming to a close, officials said yesterday. Two hundred and fifty people, at least half of them children, died ...

Cambodia’s milled rice exports increased by more than seven per cent year-on-year during the first 10 months of 2011, while international demand for the grain drove up rice prices by nearly 200 per cent, commerce officials said. The Kingdom exported more than 136,000 tonnes of milled ...

A fertiliser company that has been approved to do billions of dollars’ worth of business in Cambodia, and is presumed to be based in the United Kingdom, is in fact affiliated with domestic conglomerate Royal Group, an insider has confirmed. Nitrogen Chemicals and Fertiliser (Cambodia) Ltd ...

More than 100 Borei Keila villagers took to the streets yesterday to demand that Phanimex Company owner Suy Sophan honour a contract signed in 2003 that promised housing for 1,776 families in exchange for land. The protesters, holding banners, statues of the spirit and a pig’s ...

A new draft of the trade-union law included “huge changes” that removed all major controversial aspects of the legislation, including criminal sanctions, a union advocate said yesterday. Dave Welsh, country director for the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity, said the Ministry of Labour was to ...

A group of highly organized criminals have been installing devices into ATMs around Cambodia capable of copying card details and stealing thousands of dollars of cash from customer bank accounts. Canadia Bank and ANZ are among the banks that have been targeted by the gang, who ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it was cooperating with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to repatriate 30 men – part of a group of 65 Cambodians who are in Indonesia after enduring months of abuse and exploitation while working aboard Thai fishing ...

The Kingdom needs US$270 million to expand its three airports if the country is to meet its growing demand as a tourist destination, Cambodia Airport CEO Emmanuel Menanteau said yesterday. The total number of visitors passing through the Kingdom’s airports will approximately double every 10 years, ...

Canadian firm Manulife Financial plans to set up one of Cambodia’s first life-insurance operations, the company said yesterday. The Ministry of Economy and Finance had approved “in principle” the investment, which a spokesperson from the company said would be at least US$7 million ...

Refresh Mobile yesterday announced the purchase of mobile banking outfit WING from Australia’s ANZ, although the amount of the deal was not released. WING will join Refresh’s stable of electronic payment and cell phone top-up services, in addition to soon offering overseas mobile remittance capabilities, Refresh ...

The Kampong Thom provincial governor issued a letter on Tuesday to villagers living in Santuk district, ordering them to provide documentation confirming their ownership of land they reportedly “purchased” from brokers after it had already been assigned to relocated families, officials said yesterday. Deputy district governor ...

Representatives of 503 former railway workers protested outside the Ministry of Transportation in Phnom Penh yesterday, demanding the government pay them outstanding salaries ranging from US$2,500 to $5,000 per person. Railway workers from Battambang, Kampot, Pursat and Takeo who were formerly employed by the government, but ...

An official with the Fisheries Administration predicted yesterday that the annual fish catch would increase this year by about 20 percent over last year, saying that recent efforts to reduce illegal fishing practices around the Tonle Sap lake had contributed to the jump ...

Just months before Sihanoukville Autonomous Port is supposed to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange, officials said yesterday that the state-owned enterprise is still more expensive and slower at processing goods than other ports in the region. An investor said that the problems confronting the port ...

Bridges Across Borders Cambodia yesterday accused the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid) of white-washing conditions at relocation sites for families being evicted by a $142 million railway rehabilitation project being funded largely with their money ...

About 150 former Boeng Kak lake residents staged a protest at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park yesterday, demanding more compensation than they initially received when they were evicted from their homes to make way for a real estate project owned by the firm of a CPP ...

Kompong Thom provincial officials denied a media report yesterday that authorities had filed a legal complaint against two villagers and two human rights workers who campaigned in the province last week to demand protection for Prey Long forest ...

Malaysia wants to reach bilateral agreements with Cambodia and other labor-sending countries that would allow foreign maids to keep their passports, limit their work-day to eight hours and give them one day off per week, Malaysian news media reported yesterday. Malaysian Human Resources Minister Datuk Subramaniam ...

Cambodia plans to spend nearly US$200 million to rebuild after the worst floods in a decade hit the country in September and October. The floods require an immediate response, Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon said yesterday at a meeting of the Council for the ...

A 10 per cent rise in the number of garment and footwear factories this year showed the government’s commitment to solving labour disputes, and that its mechanisms to do this were working, a senior official at the labour ministry said yesterday, while admitting that a ...

A pair of Sandan district villagers who participated in last week’s Prey Lang forest protest against illegal logging, and two of the NGO workers who monitored them, were facing accusations of incitement and destruction of property in complaints filed against them in the provincial court, ...

Due to a lack of available tax collectors, the Ministry of Economics and Finance once again delayed collections on the 0.1 percent property tax on all immovable property worth approximately $25,000 or more, according to a ministry notice issued yesterday ...

The drafting of a law on e-commerce that would regulate electronic transfers in Cambodia has been postponed because the World Bank has suspended funds over the government’s handling of land evictions in Phnom Penh. In September, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said that the government should aim ...

Two men were arrested Monday in Kompong Thom province for illegally transporting nearly half a cubic meter of valuable rosewood, said a forestry official ...