News

Cambodia’s tourism sector has emerged from a “mystery disease” scare unscathed, industry insiders said yesterday, although some regional health authorities noted what the World Health Organisation called an outbreak of Enterovirus-71 (EV-71), which has killed at least 52 children in the Kingdom. “The disease has only ...

For the past decade, Cambodia’s economy has steadily grown with GDP growth surpassing 5% on a compounded annual basis for the past twelve years. Nearly 58% of the populace is engaged in agriculture, while the service sector employs 26% and industry accounts for the remaining ...

Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An has called for the greater use of local products in the tourism sector, as products from overseas that continue to supply the industry result in a 25 per cent loss in revenue for Cambodia’s US$2 billion-a-year tourism industry. ...

Inside a nondescript villa in central Phnom Penh, men and women in white lab coats peer through lenses, carefully studying the magnified objects in front of them. But these aren’t biologists researching cell division or bacteria; these are gem testers concerned with inclusions and refractive indices on rubies, sapphires and other precious stones. They are working ...

Phnom Penh Autonomous Port plans to buy a rice-polishing machine from China, and will also look to build a rice storage facility in Kandal province. These moves, officials said, were intended to push along Cambodia’s rice trade during a period of uncertainty for the industry. Facilities ...

Mobile payment company Wing was in talks on partnering with a US technology firm that plans to assemble Android tablets in Cambodia, in what could be another step away from the country’s staple manufactured good – garments. Although a final partnership agreement had yet to made ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on unions, employers and the Ministry of Labour to take a collaborative approach to stamping out violent protests in the garment industry, a unionist said yesterday. During a Saturday conference involving 4,000 people from more than 60 union groups, Hun ...

Government officials have joined forces with Japanese experts to formulate a new plan for economic diversity in Cambodia. Foreign direct investment in Cambodian industry has largely gone to garment manufacturing during the past 10 years, putting the country at risk of economic shock in the event ...

Cambodia will no doubt look to partners other than the US and the European Union to bolster its economic growth as those key export markets continue to struggle, a senior International Monetary Fund official says. One way in which Cambodia would forge new and growing relationships with higher-income ...

Cambodia’s gross domestic product grew 6.9 per cent year-on-year in 2011, and is set to increase to 6.5 per cent this year, according to preliminary projections from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Agriculture, which was hit hard by floods last year, climbed 3.3 per cent, ...

The Senate yesterday spent just 90 minutes ratifying the record $2.6 billion budget law for 2012, which will allow the government to borrow up to $1.1 billion from foreign lenders, according to a Senate statement ...

China’s Guangxi Nonferrous Metal Group announced on Friday that it is planning to invest $500 million to build a steel plant and industrial zone in Preah Vihear province’s Rovieng district, according to Chinese media reports ...

While the World Trade Organisation yesterday lauded Cambodia’s economic achievements since joining in 2004, officials pointed to the lack of much-needed financing for the Kingdom’s burgeoning trade sector. Cambodia lacks the capacity to finance the manufacturing and agriculture exports that would allow the country’s industries to ...

Total government spending in 2012 is set to reach $2.62 billion, an increase of 9 percent on the $2.4 billion the government had budgeted to spend in 2011, according to a copy of the 2012 draft budget law obtained yesterday. As part of the new budget, ...

While sovereign debt crises in Europe and a lagging US economy have yet to curtail cheap Cambodian exports, industry watchers said domestic producers should diversify their target markets to avoid a future slow down. Exports saw a more than 40 per cent increase year-on-year between January ...

Phnom Penh–The first Chinese animal feed mill officially inaugurated here on Sunday, bringing the number of the same kind of factories in the country to five, said Cambodian Minister of Agriculture. “The factory is a new achievement of good cooperation between the governments and the peoples ...

The relations between People’s Republic of China and Cambodia have become closer in the way of culture, in which China is the most important strategic development partner in improving Cambodia’s economic growth through both financial and technical grant aids,” Mr. Eang Sophalet, assistant to Samdech ...

Japan on August 15th loaned Cambodia a package of US$ 53.3 million for the West Tonle Sap Irrigation and Drainage Improvement and a grant aid of US$ 0.7 million to improve education equipment of the Department of Geo-Resources and Geotechnical Engineering of the Institute of ...

Ouch Borith, Secretary of State for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and Ri Myong San, Trade Vice-Minister of DPRK, signed an agreement where Cambodia and North Korea agreed to expand bilateral trade, technology, agriculture, industry, investment and the health sector on July ...

The use of short-term contracts by employers in the Kingdom’s garment industry is threatening workers’ rights and could lead to decreased productivity in the sector, researchers said at a meeting yesterday. Following the release of a report by Yale Law School last week based on ...

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 ...

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 ...

Cambodia and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have inked the agreements to expand bilateral trade, technologies, agriculture, industry, investment and the health sector, and both sides also are trying to boost close ties for mutual benefits while both nations’ trading has been reported to be ...