Government

The Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts (MIH) has started a laboratory and a department to check on the quality and safety of local products to be exported, state news agency AKP reported yesterday.   ...

The government is to standardize water and electricity rates for factory workers and students in a bid to stop them being ripped off by unscrupulous landlords.   ...

Vice Chairman Chen Changzhi pledged that China would continue to extend loans to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government, provide development aid, and encourage investment.   ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng has urged political parties, politicians and activists to refrain from making controversial comments in the run-up to the commune elections. ...

State-owned Cambodia Post plans to launch a new e-commerce company in a move to latch onto the growth of online transactions in the Kingdom and diversify its revenue streams, a company executive said yesterday. ...

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts yesterday announced that they have submitted the Khmer martial art Bokator, as well as Lakhon Khol – the traditional masked dance theatre – to be considered for recognition on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list. ...

The Preah Sihanouk province land management committee is in the process of issuing land titles for 82 families in a recently converted forest area, as well as from an economic land concession (ELC) belonging to the Mong Reththy Group. ...

The state-run Cambodia Post generated about $9 million in income in 2016, according to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication, thanks to increasing foreign tourists and foreign investment.   ...

Amid a widening gulf in U.S.-Cambodia relations, the U.S. Embassy said on Monday that a Navy unit specializing in humanitarian work had been forced to leave the country, imperiling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of community projects, including the construction of maternity wards and ...

The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) will send demining experts and dogs to Israel today, as part of an apparent bid to improve relations between the two countries. ...

In the latest flare up in tensions between the two countries, Lao authorities temporarily shut a border crossing with Cambodia and dispatched more troops to an undemarcated area on the northern border after Cambodian authorities began renovating an old French border outpost. ...

The National Assembly will conduct a session on Friday to announce the new parliamentary representative for Takeo province, replacing Deputy Prime Minister Sok An who died last month.   ...

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology has predicted that the unseasonable storms will continue until this Sunday. ...

Though the export of cassava from Cambodia to foreign markets increased by more than 50 percent in 2016, compared with previous years, export earnings were still low due to below-market-prices offered by buyers in Thailand and Vietnam.   ...

Cambodia’s top election body will take legal action against groups that conduct or publish opinion polls in the two weeks leading up to June 4 commune elections, its spokesman said on Sunday, warning that the surveys could lead to “social instability.” ...

The Tax Department has announced a one-month extension to its traditional March 31 deadline for companies to submit their annual corporate tax filings – an unprecedented last-minute move that some legal experts argue could be sending the wrong message to taxpayers. ...

After claiming for weeks that a controversial party slogan was not actually official, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party decided to remove the phrase from its official party platform yesterday in an attempt at “reconciliation”. ...

The government should increase the annual budget of communes by $100,000 to increase the quality of life for ordinary Cambodians, an analyst has told VOA Khmer. ...

About 30 cart pullers at the Poipet International Border Checkpoint staged an hour-long protest yesterday demanding that Thai customs officials remove transit fees that have been in effect for about one month.   ...

Opposition lawmakers yesterday left a meeting at the Interior Ministry exasperated, as officials from the latter continued to deem the presidency of their leader, Kem Sokha, and the vice presidency of three senior lawmakers, illegitimate, but offered no clear path to a resolution. ...

The portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister Bin Chhin has grown again after he was handed a handful of new jobs on Tuesday, including advising the prime minister on anti-corruption efforts and overseeing the Council of Jurists and “one-window” service for foreign investors. ...

Passengers using the Phnom Penh city bus service will now have a choice of buying electronic tickets through Wing (Cambodia) Limited Specialized Bank – the kingdom’s leading mobile banking services provider. ...

The trade volume between Cambodia and the United States in 2016 reached about $3 billion, while nearly 240,000 American tourists visited the kingdom. Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry told reporters yesterday after a meeting between Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn and Mom Rady, a Democratic member ...

About $170,000 remains to be found for a coalition of watchdogs and civil society observers known as the “situation room” to successfully monitor all of Cambodia’s 2017 commune elections for irregularities. ...