News

International NGO Bridges Across Borders and umbrella group NGO Forum met yesterday morning with officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who accused both of making “false” and “unfair” claims to the Asian Development Bank about the death of two children relocated by a railway ...

Cambodia has decided not to increase its reserve requirement for banks to tackle inflation, National Bank of Cambodia Director General and spokeswoman Nguon Sokha said yesterdayThe Kingdom’s reserve-requirement rate for banks stands at 12 percent, meaning 12 percent of total deposits at banks must be ...

Singapore-listed firm HLH Group is planning to expand its presence in Cambodia with 90,000 hectares of corn, rice and soybean plantations planned over the next decade in Kompong Speu and Koh Kong provinces, an official at the company said yesterday. HLH Group came under scrutiny ...

More than one hundred villagers dressed as the forest people from the hit film “Avatar” protested in the Cambodian capital Thursday against the destruction of the country’s Prey Lang forestThey say the forest, which is a source of livelihood for some 200,000 mainly indigenous people, ...

Conservation group WWF on Wednesday called for urgent action to prevent the extinction of freshwater dolphins in the Mekong River, including the creation of special conservation zones. Entanglement in fishing nets, low calf survival rates and a steady degradation of the creature’s habitat are threatening ...

In response to the vision of land policy in Cambodia, which is to administer, manage, use and distribute land in an equitable, transparent, efficient, and sustainable manner in order to contribute to achieving national goals of poverty alleviation, ensuring food security, national resources and environmental ...

Southeast Asia needs to push ahead with a regional free trade bloc and policies to cope with global financial crises, Indonesia’s government said yesterday. Indonesia’s Vice President Boediono, addressing trade ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said it was evident since the ...

Authorities are planning upgrades to effectively double the capacity of boats travelling from Phnom Penh Autonomous Port to Vietnam, according to port Director General Hei Bavy. A 2009 agreement with Vietnam authorities allows ships travelling down the Mekong from Cambodia to offload at Cai Mep ...

Cambodia saw significant percentage gains in regional trade in the first six months of the year, though the gap between imports and exports remained large, according to data released yesterday by the Ministry of Commerce. According to the figures, the country saw regional exports to ...

A resurgent economy and efforts to crack down on smuggling have led to a large increase in petroleum imports, according to experts. Cambodia has imported 756,139 tonnes worth US$692 million in the first half of the year, from 440,607 tonnes worth $296 million in the ...

Ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat has defied an order endorsed by the Prime Minster to halt his controversial sand dredging activities on the Tatai river in Koh Kong, prompting authorities to request intervention, documents obtained by The Post reveal. The dredging operation on the ...

THE government expressed disappointment yesterday with the World Bank’s announcement that it had halted new country loans due to the ongoing land dispute at Boeung Kak lake in Phnom Penh and vowed to raise the issue with the bank’s executive board. “We are very dissatisfied ...

Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court has ordered 40 families embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem to pay court fees of up to $155 each, or have their complaints dropped. The villagers, however, say they are too poor ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has estimated it could receive about $6 million in revenue next year from property tax collection, which started recently. City Hall released some tax calculation methods on its website last week and said that “based on the estimation of the technical ...

The government has brought into force a new law that makes all illegal payments to officials punishable by up to 15 years in jail for those who accept such payments and up to 10 years for those who make payments. Im Oudom, a member of ...

Government officials yesterday dismissed the World Bank’s recently revealed decision to freeze funding for new projects in Cambodia to protest a Phnom Penh real estate project that has forced thousand of families out of their homes. A housing rights group closely following the evictions said ...

Vietnamese rice exporters will face tough competition from foreign countries looking to exploit advantages that Cambodia presents as a beneficiary of the the EBA (Everything But Arms) initiative, says an Econet report. Under the EBA, Cambodia, as a least-developed-country, enjoys zero tariffs and no quotas ...

PROMINENT businessman Kith Meng was re-elected unopposed yesterday as president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce. Kith Meng, the only contender who declared his candidacy for the three-year mandate, received support from all 11 candidates eligible to stand. Kith Meng, who is also chairman and chief ...

The Ministry of Planning yesterday released the preliminary results of the 2011 economic census, which found that Cambodia has a total of 503,008 businesses nationwide, of which nearly 20 percent are based in Phnom Penh. The census, which began on March 1 and was financed ...

Outstanding loans among micro-credit institutions increased by 6.7 percent to $505.46 million in the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter, figures from the Cambodia Microfinance Association show. According to the data, deposits held by Cambodia’s 27 microlenders grew by 33.2 percent ...

The Cambodia Chamber of Commerce re-elected Royal Group chairman Kith Meng for his second three-year term as president yesterday. The presidents of 11 provincial chambers of commerce voted for Mr Meng, who is also president of the Phnom Penh Chamber of Commerce. ...

The World Bank has frozen funding to Cambodia, making good on its threat in March to reconsider aid levels to Cambodia in response to the ongoing eviction of thousands of Phnom Penh families from Boeng Kak lake, a Bank official confirmed yesterdaySome 3,000 families have ...

The World Bank said on Tuesday it had stopped providing loans to Cambodia and would not resume lending until the government did something to help hundreds of families facing eviction from land around a lake in the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. “The World Bank’s last ...

SOURSDEY Fashion occupies a small shopfront near the Russian Market. It looks similar to many of the small boutiques sprouting up across Phnom Penh, packed with  the latest in fashion aimed at young, trendy consumers. But the shop’s business plan differs from that of many ...