News

Government action is needed if Cambodia is to reach its potential for economic growth and address growing inequality, according to a new report from a leading local think tank. The recommendations were included in the Cambodian Development Resource Institute’s (CDRI) annual development review 2012 to ’13. ...

The European Union’s ambassador to Cambodia raised issues of judicial reform, land reform and the upcoming national elections in a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday morning. The European Commission’s directorate-general for trade is currently reviewing a report by the U.N.’s human rights envoy ...

Phnom Penh could have a public bus system operating under a single company before the end of 2013 at the earliest, Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema said yesterday. Global (Cambodia) Trade Development, a joint venture between Cambodian and Chinese investors, had originally been chosen alongside South ...

Cambodian-Japanese bank Maruhan Japan opened an office in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on Saturday, making it the second Cambodian bank and the first Japanese bank to come to that country. Maruhan’s presence in Laos would boost economic and investment ties between the two ASEAN member ...

Cambodia’s Tonlesap Airlines said Saturday that one of its scheduled flights from Taiwan to the Cambodian city of Siem Reap that day would be further delayed due to an engine failure, further enraging 167 already angry passengers who had been waiting for hours for their ...

Oil prices in Cambodia hit the highest of all time on Friday, with a liter of premium gasoline going for 1.45 U.S. dollars at all petrol stations in the capital. The price is the highest ever if compared with the peak price of 1.41 U.S. dollars ...

Toll Royal Railways, the company holding the 30-year concession to operate Cambodia’s rail network, has so far only spent a tiny fraction of the millions of dollars of investment it promised upon winning the deal, documents of the firm’s expenditure show. The operation of the railways ...

Young Cambodians must develop diverse workplace skills if they are to compete in an integrated Asean, a leading economist and adviser to the government says. “We have to make sure we are able to do multiple things if others are able to do just one,” the ...

Malaysia-based Hong Leong Bank, a subsidiary of Hong Leong Financial Group Berhad, is planning to open a branch in Cambodia sometime this year, which would make it the fourth Malaysian bank and the 33rd commercial bank in Cambodia’s crowded banking industry. Ngoun Sokha, director general of the ...

Ethnic minority villagers expecting to be displaced by a proposed Chinese-built hydroelectric dam in northeastern Cambodia are asking the country’s parliament not to approve a law providing financial guarantees for the project. Villagers living along three rivers that will be affected by the dam spoke ...

As the cashew-harvesting season in Cambodia’s northeastern provinces begins, farmers are expecting a good crop due to favorable weather conditions last year, an official said yesterday. ...

Asia Forestry Management, an integrated plantation-management company with a focus on cultivating Aquilaria crassna, aims to become Thailand’s biggest producer of oud oil this year and Southeast Asia’s in five years. The company’s plant in Trat province will be expanded to produce 280 kilograms of ...

While the ministries of health and agriculture are taking measures to stem the spread of avian influenza – which claimed its fifth victim in just three weeks on Thursday – a lack of compensation for poultry owners affected by culling is limiting their effectiveness, officials ...

Cambodia is considered “the most promising country” in the ASEAN community where Thai business entrepreneurs could set up trade and investment projects, according to a noted Thai academic and economist. Roongrote Benjamasuthin, director of the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce’s ASEAN Business & Economic Center, ...

A few years ago this scene would have played out in China. More specifically, it would have played out in a Chinese coastal region to which millions of rural folks had arrived looking for work. A huge hangar, piles of fabrics of all colors at both ...

Efforts to map the ancestral land of five ethnic Bunong communities that have long sought collective property titles in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district will finally begin later this month, with funding for the project coming from the U.N., officials said yesterday. “We are working in ...

Utilities giant Electricite de France (EdF) is preparing to en­ter negotiations with Cambodia over the construction of a power plant to use up natural gas locked up in disputed waters off the country’s coast, France’s ambassador-in-waiting to Cambodia said on Tuesday. Serge Mostura, who is still ...

Laos has stepped up plans for three hydropower dams on Mekong River tributaries, updating an eight-year-old deal with a Russian investor to build the projects for U.S. $1.5 billion. Lao authorities signed a project development agreement with Russia’s Regional Oil for the Sekong 4, Sekong 5, ...

More than 4,000 people attended a ceremony in December last year that saw Japan’s largest shopping mall developer and operator, Aeon, breaking ground on its three-storey mall in Phnom Penh, and the company says it is already considering building more in the capital. Aeon Mall ...

Cambodian Tourism Minister H.E. Dr. Thong Khon said: Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar had gained high growth of tourist arrival in 2012 for Asean region. “Cambodia is continuing its work including promotion to the outside world to attract tourists to see the country.” he said this week. ...

Old Place Seafood, a Chinese restaurant that cost $4 million, has opened in Phnom Penh. A representative of the restaurant, which is opposite the Chinese embassy, said the growing number of Chinese people in the Kingdom had justified such an investment. Luu Meng, president of the ...

Cambodia has asked India to provide more assistance in the development of human resources to promote economic growth and enhance bilateral co-operation. Deputy Prime Minister Sok An made the request during a meeting with Indian human resource development minister Mangapati Pallam Raju in Phnom Penh on ...

A delegation comprised of Japan’s top business leaders, known as Keidanren, began a six-day trip to Myanmar and Cambodia Monday, seeking new business and investment opportunities there. Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, is leading the delegation and said he hopes that meetings with ...

Cambodia will soon boast its first tractor assembly plant, with operations expected to begin by the third quarter of this year. The one-hectare plant, in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district, is a joint venture by Belarus-based Minsk Tractor Works, one of the world’s biggest tractor producers, ...