News

Malaysia is optimistic Asean is ready to be integrated into a single economic block by December 2015 despite uncertainties over growth in the euro zone and the US. International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed said the 10 member countries would be able to cushion the ...

Asean leaders yesterday failed again to form a common front towards geo-political disputes with China over the South China Sea as the Philippines vowed to continue shouting while Cambodia tried to contain discussions to the two immediate sides. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations hoped ...

A NEW report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says GDP growth in Cambodia over the next five years is likely to hit 6.9 per cent, the highest of any ASEAN country apart from Laos. However, the report warns that Cambodia needs to ...

Kratie province – Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. Next week’s visit by Barack Obama, the fist by a U.S. ...

Government spending next year will total more than $3 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from the $2.6 billion set aside for 2012, according to a draft of the national budget obtained Friday. The budget states that the government will allocate some $400 million, or 13.32 ...

Construction investment rises sharply Investment in construction in the Kingdom during the first nine months of this year rose 83.6 per cent, according to data from Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning and Construction last week. The data showed that during the first nine months of ...

Cambodia, with a total population of 14,952,665 as of July 2010, is located in Southeastern Asia, bordering the Gulf of Thailand, between Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The country mostly has a tropical climate and covers a total area of 181,035 km2 Cambodia’s key natural resources include ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the Kingdom’s economic growth is forecast to grow at 7 per cent this year, according to news agency reports. “We still maintain our forecast of  7 per cent growth and the latest forecast showed that the inflation rate ...

The chief economist at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia says Cambodia needs to attract greater numbers of multinational companies and treat them well, in order to establish production networks that will transfer technology to smaller Cambodian businesses. In an interview with the ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and neighboring Vietnam grew by 17 per cent in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year, a decrease from previous years, the Vietnam Trade Office in Cambodia said yesterday. The data showed a total trade volume ...

Profits at Cambodia’s largest banks continued to grow through the first nine months of the year as loan disbursals across the sector increased by about 30 percent compared to the same period in 2011, bankers said yesterday. Acleda Bank, the largest bank in the country, this week posted ...

In order for Cambodia to maintain the same rate of growth it has enjoyed in the past few years, exports need to diversify from textiles and tourism to modern services, said the World Bank’s country manager yesterday in Phnom Penh. “Cambodian firms are already tentatively exporting ...

Cambodia has coped well in terms of exports despite the slowdown in some European economies, said the head of the IMF’s Asia-Pacific department last week. Anoop Singh, director for the department, said Cambodia has enjoyed many years of economic growth at about 6 per cent or ...

Cambodia’s growing economy and hunger for new brands, particularly among young people, contribute to making Cambodia a profitable market for the franchise business, industry insiders said at the Franchising Forum in Phnom Penh last week. [Rami Sharaf, CEO of RMA Group in Cambodia] said Cambodia is ...

While Cambodia’s insurance sector has made significant progress over the past few years, it is still relatively small compared to other countries in the region and faces several hurdles. That was the judgment of Bou Chanphirou, deputy director of the financial industry department in the ...

Cambodia’s branded Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) market might double in value to US$1 billion over the next seven years, according to Unilever Indochina. Factors influencing this are the increasing urbanization of Cambodian society and the desire for more choice, said Maks Mukundan, Unilever Indochina’s managing director. Cambodia’s open ...

The IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecasts that uncertainty surrounding growth in advanced economies will slightly affect the growth of some ASEAN nations, particularly low-income countries such as Cambodia. A senior IMF official told reporters on the sidelines of the fund’s annual meeting yesterday that some ASEAN economies relying heavily ...

Economic growth in the East Asia and Pacific region – covering 14 countries, including Thailand – may slow by a full percentage point to 7.2 per cent this year, before recovering to 7.6 per cent next year, according to a World Bank report Excluding China, the ...

Cambodia’s service sector has seen significant growth in recent years, but the sector remains hampered by challenges, according to a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The service sector’s real GDP share has expanded to 39 per cent in 2011, compared to 23.7 per cent ...

The effects of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 on the Cambodian economy showed how perilous having a narrow economic base can be. Since the Kingdom’s economy is dependent on a few “pillars”-garments, construction, tourism and agriculture-downturns in any of those sectors can ...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that Cambodia will have a very low inflationary rate to 3.5 per cent this year, which is 0.1 per cent below the goverment’s new revision but 0.5 per cent higher than the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Cambodia’s government in August also revised inflation ...

The Asia Development Bank has revised its growth expectations for the entire region down to 6.1 per cent for 2012 in an update to its annual development outlook released in April. This revision comes after the IMF increased GDP projections for Cambodia to up to 7 per ...

A new book by a Cambodian-born author, due to be published this month, is set to bring the debate over Cambodia’s dependence on foreign aid into the spotlight. Since 1992, Cambodia has received more assistance for its development than almost any other country on the planet. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) slashed Cambodia’s GDP growth to 6.4 percent this year, 0.1 percentage point lower than its April’s forecast of 6.5 percent, according to the bank’s Outlook 2012 Update released on Wednesday The bank predicted that Cambodia’s gross domestic product to grow by ...