News
As Cambodia’s financial sector grows, so do its challenges
The National Bank of Cambodia on Wednesday hosted its first annual macroeconomic conference, outlining the need to ensure Cambodia’s rapidly growing financial sector supports sustainable and inclusive economic growth while managing greater risks. Cambodia’s banking and microfinance sectors have seen enormous growth in recent years with ...
Kang Sothear and George Styllis
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/as-cambodias-financial-sector-grows-so-do-its-challenges-65414/
Remittances dip on exodus
Two of Cambodia’s largest financial service providers have reported declines in transactions stemming from key Thai border provinces as thousands of undocumented migrant workers continue to exit the neighbouring country. Third-party payments and remittance service Wing has seen a 3 per cent decline in the amount ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/remittances-dip-exodus
Price rules pulled due to election
The government in May held back on implementing widely unpopular rules that would have raised the price of mobile phone calls so as to not upset consumers – and potential voters – just months ahead of the national election, according to Cambodia’s independent telecommunications regulator. “Before ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/price-rules-pulled-due-election
Doing Business in Cambodia Becoming More Difficult
Cambodia ranked 137 out of 189 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2014 report released Tuesday, the first drop in at least two years that shows conducting business in the country is becoming more difficult. The report ranks countries in 10 categories, including starting a ...
Joshua Wilwohl and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/doing-business-in-cambodia-becoming-more-difficult-46243/
Garment Exports Booming Despite Concerns
Despite criticisms over safety, outbreaks of sometimes violent industrial action and a raise in the minimum wage that it was warned would scare off manufacturers, Cambodia’s garment sector is booming, according to government figures. A report on state newswire Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) on Friday said ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/garment-exports-booming-despite-concerns-34035/
Foreign investment rises 73 pct
A mid [sic] global economic fragility, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Cambodia grew a whopping 73 per cent in 2012 from the year before, a huge increase helping to fuel a record-setting amount of money pouring into least developed countries, according to the United Nations ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013070166579/Business/foreign-investment-rises-73-pct.html
Prakas Set to Control Tax Agents
The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) last month signed a prakas, a ministerial decision, to ensure tax agents’ professionalism, an insider told the Post yesterday. After the full implementation of Prakas 455, signed on April 12, agents have to pay one million riel to ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050265367/Business/prakas-set-to-control-tax-agents.html
Made in Cambodia: Foreign Industry Calls on Cambodia as the Next “Low-Cost” Alternative in All Things Manufacturing
About a decade ago, global manufacturing firms staged a mass exodus to Asia in search of low-cost alternatives to increasing domestic wage demands and operational costs. The consensus was the continued development of a regional supply chain that had formed in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, ...
Export Values Up 21 Per Cent
Cambodian export values increased more than 21 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, and officials said the rise was a positive sign for the Kingdom’s economic growth. According to the Ministry of Commerce’s export data ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042465194/Business/export-values-up-21-per-cent.html
Cambodia Lacks Research Enough To Tackle Its Problems, Analysts Say
Not enough priority is given to research in Cambodia, threatening its long term development, economists and other experts say. Larry Strange, executive director of the Cambodian Development Research Institute, says the country cannot plan for major reform, build its economy, or reduce poverty without proper analysis ...
Hun Sen Signed Off On Mfone Customers Deal With Mobitel
Prime Minister Hun Sen approved a decision in January to transfer hundreds of thousands of customers from bankrupt mobile phone operator Mfone to the country’s largest telecommunications firm, Mobitel, despite a court injunction preventing Mfone from offloading assets. According to the statement released yesterday by the ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-signed-off-on-mfone-customers-deal-with-mobitel-17533/
Slight rise in truck numbers
The total number of new trucks registered last year increased slightly, but industry insiders said that even though more trucks are needed to boost the Kingdom’s trading volume, the country’s export capacity is relatively unaffected because of trucks bought in previous years. The number of big ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032564655/Business/slight-rise-in-truck-numbers.html
Graduates lacking skills: report
EVEN though about 50 per cent of Cambodian university students studied business management, the banking sector has been hesitant to recruit them, insiders said yesterday. A 2010 report by the recruitment agency HRINC (Cambodia) projected that the supply of business, marketing, management, banking and finance, economics ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013030561746/Business/graduates-lacking-skills-report.html
Hun Sen Shares Vision of Rubber Plantation Boom
Reporting that the country had achieved better than expected economic growth last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday targeted a rapid expansion of the country’s rubber industry and predicted that almost 1 in 10 Cambodians would soon be working in rubber. “Agriculture continues to play ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-shares-vision-of-rubber-plantation-boom-11253/
Ministry Lists Fees to Help Firms Avoid Graft Claims
The government has publicly issued lists showing the costs of fees that businesses must pay to authorities for various services, in an effort to help companies avoid making informal payments made illegal by the anticorruption law. The lists were drafted during the past year after Cambodia ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ministry-lists-fees-to-help-firms-avoid-graft-claims-8434/
Bank Accounts Rare in Cambodia, Even for Rich
Despite an expanding financial sector, increasing access to credit and strong economic growth in recent years, fewer than 1 in 20 Cambodians has a bank account, according to a new policy working paper by the World Bank. According to the paper – released earlier this month ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/bank-accounts-rare-in-cambodia-even-for-rich-6957/
World Bank Report Predicts 6.6 Percent Growth
Cambodia’s economy will grow by an average of 7 percent in each of the next five years, the World Bank said yesterday in a report on the country’s economic outlook. In its periodic update on economies in the region, the World Bank predicted gross domestic product ...
Farmers biggest source of investment in agriculture
Despite attention from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and official development assistance, farmers are by far the largest source of investment in agriculture, the State of Food and Agriculture 2012 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization published last week said. Farmers in low and middle income ...
Opposition Wants Debt Lowered in 2013 Budget
The opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) has requested the National Assembly to reduce by 75 percent the amount of new debt the government is allowed to take on next year under the latest draft of the 2013 national budget. Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay, who sent the ...
New Mekong Port to Ease Overloaded Phnom Penh Terminal
With cargo traffic at the Phnom Penh Autonomus Port growing rapidly, a nearly completed container terminal just south of the city on the Mekon River should help ease the congestion. The 30-hectare port, in Kandal province’s Kein Svay district, was completed late last month, though cranes ...
Experts Question New Trade Goal with Vietnam
Officials and experts yesterday questioned the likelihood of Cambodia and Vietnam’s proposal to hike bilateral trade by more than US$2.5 billion by 2015. The pledge of $5 billion in total trade, made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung, last ...
Cambodian Per Capita GDP To Touch $1,000
Echoing remarks made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier last week, economic experts agreed that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita would reach US$ 1,000 ( Bt30,377) this year, up from the estimated $900 at the end of 2011. Managing director of Acleda ...
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Cambodian-per-capita-GDP-to-touch-$1000-30176744.html
Foreign banks eye Kingdom's prospects
Two more Vietnamese banks have announced they will apply for licences to operate in Cambodia, according to media reports. If accepted, Maritime Bank and Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Bank (SHB) would bring the number of Vietnamese banks in Cambodia to six, National Bank of Cambodia officials said yesterday. Experts ...
World Bank expects strong growth in 2012
The World Bank yesterday predicted gross domestic product to grow 6.5 percent this year, though it said that economic conditions could sour if the economies of Cambodia’s largest export markets in the US and Europe deteriorate. In an economic report outlining prospects for all of the ...