Public land lease

More than 200 villagers living on an economic land concession on Pursat province say they were unfairly left out of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide land-measuring program after local authorities on Saturday printed the names of families eligible for land titles. Chhuon Khurn, chief of Phteah ...

A group of Phnom Penh residents locked in a long-running land dispute with a real estate project owned by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin are pitching City Hall a plan they hope will prevent them from being evicted and keep them close to home. “We ...

A group of opposition lawmakers have written to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urging action against a sugar factory owned by a ruling party official accused of exploiting child labor and grabbing land from villagers. Six Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) parliamentarians sent a letter dated Jan. ...

China’s demand for natural resources is being felt in a big way in Cambodia. Illegal logging and economic land concessions are threatening Cambodia’s dwindling forests, which now echo the sound of chainsaws. Prey Lang forest — an eight-hour journey north and east of the capital, Phnom Penh ...

Laws protecting ethnic minorities’ communal land rights are good, but their implementation has a long way to go, said participants in a forum of minorities from Mondulkiri and Kratie provinces yesterday. After July’s parliamentary elections, legislators should take the opportunity of a newly constituted government to ...

More than 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province have accused a group of Chinese-owned sugar plantations of encroaching on their farms and community forests since mid-2012 and say they are still waiting for a resolution. Sen Som, a rice farmer in Chheb district, said Heng Rui ...

Ethnic Jarai families living in Ratanakkiri province’s Borkeo district have accused a Vietnamese rubber company of digging a channel to drain a lake the indigenous villagers use for fishing and irrigation, a local official and rights worker said yesterday. Rochom Vin, Yeak Som village chief, said ...

The National Assembly on Friday passed a law approving the government’s revenue and spending in 2011, drawing criticism from the opposition, which claimed the amount taken in by the government during the period was too low. All 77 CPP lawmakers present voted in favor of the ...

Cambodia’s export business is in the process of changing due to shifts in manufacturing in Asia. A business publication in the country has reported unexpected growth in the “machinery and transport equipment” sector and speculated it was as [sic] “probably bicycles.” But when Cambodia jumped ...

More than 200 people were arrested while defending their land in 2012 – a year human rights groups described yesterday as Cambodia’s “worst” for land disputes. Of the 201 people arrested – a figure that more than doubled the 2011 total – 29 were imprisoned, mostly ...

About 1,000 workers protested yesterday morning outside a Taiwanese electronics factory in Svay Rieng province’s Manhattan Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to demand better working conditions, a union representative said. Among workers’ demand is a salary increase from the current minimum monthly wage of $61 to $70, ...

UP AND down a 4km stretch of highway on the northern outskirts of Phnom Penh, about 3,000 of Cambodia’s Cham minority have built a life. Their distinctive Muslim culture thrives in conditions of close-knit community, a stark contrast to the shattering days the country endured ...

Members of the Prey Lang Community Network yesterday called on the government to approve a forest preservation sub-decree that has been in draft form since 2011. Hoeun Sopheap, representative of the Kampong Thom provincial Prey Lang community, said the sub-decree would help protect the biodiversity of ...

A Chinese conglomerate headed by an adviser to Senate President Chea Sim plans to begin extracting gold and copper in Siem Reap province in two months, the firm’s chairman said yesterday. Khmer Holding, a group of companies that claims vast mineral interests in Cambodia, opened an ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has arrested two employees of a local company linked to a British biofuel firm currently under investigation by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), an official said Friday. ACU President Om Yentieng said that International Green Energy (IGE) director Oum Sam­nang, and ...

More than 8,000 hectares of land was cut from economic and forest land concessions owned by some of the country’s biggest tycoons and awarded to villagers last month, according to documents from the Council of Ministers. Four sub-decrees signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen order that ...

Hundreds of families in Ratanakki­ri province have asked rights group Adhoc to intervene, saying local authorities in Bakeo district’s Laminh commune are illegally forcing them from their homes. Village representative, Ek Orm, 52, said that authorities were forcing villagers to relocate to make way for a ...

First, agricultural company DM group displaced them, now a recently arrived commercial farmer has threatened their lives and chased them off their new land, said representatives of 12 families engaged in a long-standing land dispute in Ratanakkiri province. On Wednesday, the 12 Tampuon ethnic minority families ...

A Vietnamese rubber company in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district yesterday agreed to pay $4,000 in compensation to an ethnic Jarai community whose traditional graveyard was bulldozed by the firm last week, local officials said. During a meeting at the Paknhai commune police station, representatives of the ...

More than seven months after government security forces violently evicted hundreds of people living in Kratie province’s Broma village to quell a so-called secessionist movement, more than 70 families are still being prevented by patrolling soldiers from returning to the site of their former homes, ...

Rights group Adhoc has requested that the government cancel economic land concessions held by two Vietnamese companies in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, on the grounds that the firms are logging and exporting wood illegally. “Adhoc calls on the Royal Government of Cambodia to immediately cancel the ...

Cambodian politicians have begun a public campaign to defend their records on land policies, as they prepare for the run-up to July elections. Politicians from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, as well as the opposition Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties, have said they will give ...

Ethnic Jarai villagers and a local rights worker yesterday discovered about 3,000 more logs that have been illegally cut by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, according to rights group Adhoc. The logs were found stockpiled in dense forest inside ...

Malaysian-owned Maybank, one of the largest banks in Cambodia, opened its 12th national branch in Phnom Penh on Friday. The bank aims to reach emerging businesses in the city’s Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ) with the new office. ...