Transport infrastructure and facilities

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 ...

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 ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) met yesterday with the representatives of families evicted or facing eviction to make way for an ADB-funded railway project, and defended itself against complaints that the project was pushing some of them deeper into poverty. The ADB has billed the $142 ...

Families evicted or still facing eviction to make way for an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded project to rehabilitate the country’s railway system plan to petition the ADB today for help securing better compensation from the government. The ADB is putting up more than half the money ...

French engineering firm Systra is underway with a feasibility study to build a tramway from Phnom Penh International Airport to the Royal Railway Station, Governor Kep Chuktema said on Friday. The agreement to study a tramway was first made between Systra and City Hall in July ...

Ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat has kept a promise to stop his company’s dredging operations on Koh Kong province’s Tatai river, relieved business owners and residents living along the waterway said yesterday. But provincial officials confirmed that as the senator’s dredging boats moved on to ...

Industrial pollution ‘hot-spots’ have been identified in waterways in Phnom Penh, Kandal and Kompong Cham provinces following a five-month period of research as part of a UN-backed effort to encourage companies to adopt cleaner practices. The hot spots – defined as a source of pollution where ...

Freight shipments through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port saw year-on-year growth of 30 per cent in the first nine months of the year, according to official PPAP figures. The total number of twenty-foot equivalent units that passed through the port hit 60,810 between January and August, up from ...

Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon has failed to respond to a request made almost two months ago about the authenticity of a letter in which he allegedly urged Prime Minister Hun Sen to ban foreign NGOs from doing advocacy work in Cambodia, the Asian Development ...

The Asian Development Bank yesterday said it had never authenticated a June 17 letter from Finance Minister Keat Chhon that claimed an ADB consultant urged the government to target advocacy groups critical of an ADB-funded railway project. In a copy of the letter obtained earlier this ...

Gliding through the water almost soundlessly, the MS AmaLotus docked for only its second time in Phnom Penh last week At 92 meters in length and capable of holding 124 passengers, the AmaLotus is the latest cruise ship to start transporting tourists between Siem Reap and ...

Top government officials yesterday either declined to comment or said they had no knowledge of a letter from Finance Minister Keat Chhon to Prime Minister Hun Sen proposing to bar all foreign NGOs from “advocacy” work in the country, as well as stopping foreigners from ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen received a proposal from Finance Minister Keat Chhon in June seeking to bar “foreign NGOs” from advocacy work in Cambodia, as well as preventing foreigners from working with local advocacy groups because of activism around the rehabilitation of the nation’s railway, ...

Shanghai Construction Group has announced it will complete US$700 million in projects in Cambodia over the next five years, highlighting China’s dominant and still-growing presence in the Kingdom. The company presently oversees nine bridge and road construction projects in the Kingdom, according to government relations officer ...

Hours after arriving for his latest visit to the country, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Saturday urged Cambodia to increase state spending in infrastructure and education and to modernize the country’s financial system, according to media reports. Local reporters were quickly ushered out of ...

The Asian Development Bank said yesterday problems with a railway rehabilitation project – funded by the bank and AusAID – identified by a local NGO that was suspended by the government last month “may require further investigation or analysis”. In July, STT released a report ...

Road accidents claimed the lives of 1,816 people in 2010, a slight increase from the 1,717 killed in 2009, according to a report by the Cambodia Road Crash and Victim Information System. The total number of casualties from road accidents reached 18,287 in 2010, according ...

A TAXPAYER-FUNDED development project is mired in controversy after the Cambodian government launched a crackdown against land rights organisations critical of the compulsory resettlement of families. The Cambodian government has cautioned a small group of foreign organisations against stirring up unrest among those being forced off ...

NGO Forum confirmed yesterday it had received a “warning letter” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over its advocacy on behalf of communities affected by a railway rehabilitation project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and AusAID. The warning to the umbrella group of 88 ...

Cambodia agreed to acquire Chinese-made Z-9 helicopters for US$195 million in one of 26 memorandums of understanding agreed by the two countries on Saturday. Cooperation was pledged in sectors such as energy, mining, agriculture and road construction, as well as defense spending and aid. The ...

A simmering land dispute in Kratie province’s Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary flared up Friday as hundreds of desperate villagers blocked National Road 76A for four hours in an effort to prevent the clearing of their homes and farms by a rubber company, villagers and human rights ...

Officials in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district said yesterday that all transportation of sand across the old and new Preah Monivong bridges has been banned for the duration of the rainy season to protect the road surface and avoid accidents. According to a City Hall announcement ...

Hundreds of families at Boeung Kak lake would receive land titles next week, Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema announced yesterday, but one village has been excluded from the deal that all but ends Phnom Penh’s highest-profile land dispute. At a meeting with about 500 villagers ...

The Foreign Affairs Ministry met with to non-governmental groups yesterday and accused them of inciting families to oppose the rehabilitation of the Cambodian rail system, ordering the  NGOs to “readjust” their workForeign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said his ministry invited Bridges Across Borders Cambodia and ...