News
Cambodian rail delays, cost blowouts: leaked report
Australia’s Fairfax media has obtained a leaked official report into a troubled and controversial Cambodian rail project being funded by AusAID and the Asian Development Bank. The report outlines poor construction, botched surveys leading to the evictions of families ...
Bank Forecasts Drop in GDP Growth to 6.5%
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday revised its prediction for economic growth in Cambodia down to 6.5 percent as it warned that weakening demand from markets in the US and Europe could affect exports leaving the country. The ADB’s biannual outlook report for 2012 also said ...
Evictees’ plea: New petition chugging along to ADB
Families evicted from their homes by the rehabilitation of Phnom Penh’s stretch of the national railway said they had filed their second petition in two weeks to the Asia Development Bank yesterday, seeking help to improve living conditions at their resettlement site. ...
Donors Face Mounting Pressure Over Rail Project
A group of NGOs on Friday called on Australia and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to suspend work and funding for a government-led project to rehabilitate the country’s railway system should authorities in Poipet City follow through on an eviction notice delivered to 22 families ...
Violence Breaks Out at Railway Relocation Site
Three villagers who were evicted last year to make way for the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railway—part of a $142 million project paid for by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and AusAid—were hospitalized early Friday morning after they were attacked with rocks and sticks at a ...
Kingdom inks $60.3m loan for flood relief
The Ministry of Economy and Finance yesterday signed a US$60.3 million loan package with Asian Development Bank to aid in reconstruction efforts after the Kingdom last year suffered its worst floods in a decade. ...
Families Evicted by Railway Project File Complaint With Bank
More than 150 residents evicted from Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district to make way for a railway rehabilitation project filed a complaint yesterday with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) office in Phnom Penh, one of two principal financiers for the project, saying their relocation site ...
ASEAN infrastructure fund on track for May
The region’s finance ministers on Friday set a May launch date for the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund (AIF), a financing project expected to lend as much as US$4 billion to member countries through 2020. Speaking at the opening the ministers’ meeting, Prime Minister Hun Sen called ...
Worker Shortage Biggest Threat to Economy
A shortage of workers, particularly those with skills, is the biggest threat to economic growth in Cambodia today, Sok Chenda, secretary general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), said yesterday. Speaking at the Greater Mekong Subregion Investment Policy Forum organized by the Organization ...
Bank Backs Displaced Families’ Compensation
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), one of the two major financiers of the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railways, yesterday rejected criticism that they were providing insufficient resettlement packages to residents displaced by the project. On Friday, the ADB released a cost study that showed that the compensation ...
Railway project suffers a blow
The contractor in charge of rebuilding Cambodia’s national railway has been cutting corners on the health and safety of its workers, according to a report published yesterday by the Asian Development Bank. TSO-AS & Nawarath, a French-Thai joint venture, was reportedly found to have grossly violated ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355214/Business/railway-project-suffers-a-blow.html
ADB Won’t Pay to Finish Rail Project
Having already spent millions of dollars, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will not foot the additional $70 to $90 million in funds still needed to complete more than half of Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project, an official from the ADB said yesterday. Toll Royal Railways, a joint venture ...
Rail Project In Need of More Funds
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 ...
PPWSA stock offering slated to outperform
The Kingdom’s first initial public offering is fast approaching, and demand is expected to be robust. Book-building, the process during which bids for the IPO are taken and a price is set for shares, ended yesterday. The final offering price is expected before the subscription for ...
Cambodia expects 7 pct GDP growth in 2012
Cambodia’s Finance Minister Keat Chhon said Monday that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is expected at 7 % this year. The forecast is higher than that of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank — all forecast at ...
http://en.ce.cn/World/Asia-Pacific/201203/12/t20120312_23150134.shtml
Cambodia expects 7 pct GDP growth in 2012: Finance Minister
Cambodia’s Finance Minister Keat Chhon said Monday that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is expected at 7% this year. Cambodia’s forecast was based on the increases in garments exports, tourist arrivals, and agriculture as well as a gradually recovered real estate sector, the ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2012-03/12/c_131462003.htm
Asian Development Bank Takes Over Lead Foreign Donor Role
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is taking over from the World Bank as lead foreign donor in Cambodia following the departure of the World Bank’s country manager, the ADB said yesterday. The switch followed a year in which the World Bank imposed a funding freeze ...
ADB provides Cambodia $69 mil. to improve provincial roads
The Asian Development Bank has provided $69 million for Cambodia to make major upgrades of provincial roads in some of the country’s poorest provinces, according to an ADB statement Wednesday. The Provincial Roads Improvement Project, financed by a $52 million loan from ADB Special Funds and ...
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/business/news/20120223p2g00m0bu134000c.html
Export figures up 42% in 2011
Strong growth in garment, textile, and agricultural exports drove a 42.7 per cent increase in Cambodia’s total exports for 2011, official Ministry of Commerce data shows. The Kingdom exported $4.98 billion in goods last year, compared with $3.49 billion the year before. Market diversification and a relaxing ...
ADB offers $15m loan for financial-sector growth
Cambodia and the Asian Development Bank have signed their latest loan agreement of US$15 million for the development of the Kingdom’s financial sector, according to ADB. The money would be used for a number of development programs, including the improvement of regulatory regimes, creation of an ...
Asian Development Bank keeps growth outlook at 6.8%
New policies in agriculture, real estate and finance led the Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday to keep its outlook on Cambodia’s economic growth this year at an estimated 6.8 percent. The announcement comes even as the World Bank and the government have reduced their expectations, projecting ...
Railway impact reports nowhere to be seen
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has not made public the last two quarterly reports on the impact of resettling families who are being evicted for a $142 million railway rehabilitation project. The reports, which are required under an ADM loan agreement with the government, haven’t been ...
Group urges regional bank to press government on NGO law
A group of international NGOs urged the Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday to press the government on abandoning its plans for a law regulating the country’s non-governmental groups despite a recent pledge to drop its most controversial provision. “The ADB should convince the Cambodian authorities to ...
Land dispute villagers seek foreign aid
A group of about 100 villagers who have been embroiled in a long-running land dispute in Kandal province’s Kandal Stung and Takhmau districts gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday to file a petition with foreign donors seeking help in resolving the dispute. The villagers – part of ...