News
Government officials at odds over debt levels
Government officials are at odds over how much Cambodia’s national debt amounts to. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia’s debt stands at just $2 billion, contradicting information provided by CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap last week that the number is actually $7 billion, or 63 ...
PM weighs in on China debt debate
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday added his two cents to the ongoing debate on what Cambodia’s debt to China actually is, declaring it stands at only US$2 billion. At a ground-breaking ceremony marking the beginning of construction on Phnom Penh’s Cambodia-China Friendship Bridge, the premier rejected ...
Fund raising: Kingdom may borrow more in 2012
Cambodia could borrow US$1.1 billion from other countries in 2012, 75 per cent more than this year, to help repair infrastructure damaged in flooding and support efforts to increase rice exports to one million tonnes by 2015, a senior official said yesterday. Cheam Yeap, chairman of ...
S&P downgrades national sovereign debt rating
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating by one notch to B due to the country’s continued inability to diversify its economy and increase government spending. The decision by Standard & Poor’s comes after the agency said in September that constraints ...
Nonperforming microloans swell due to floods
Total outstanding loans in the microfinance sector reached $815.47 million in the third quarter, a 25.8 percent rise compared to beginning of the year, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) Despite growth in the sector, microfinance institutions said nonperforming loans were ...
SMEs call for better loan rates
The Kingdom’s small and medium enterprises have called on commercial banks and micro-finance institutions to lower interest rates on loans, as insiders have said they hamper SMEs’ potential for growth. Many Cambodian SMEs are concerned that the high interest rates offered by banks reduce productivity, according ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011092151765/Business/smes-call-for-better-loan-rates.html
NBC calls on MFIs to spread risk
The National Bank of Cambodia was pushing microfinance institutions to look to domestic banks for funding in an industry heavily reliant on foreign loans, experts said yesterday. Although the NBC is seeking to foster healthier relationships between MFIs and the Kingdom’s commercial banks, a dearth of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011090951563/Business/nbc-asks-mfis-to-diversify.html
ADB and World Bank Help Upgrade External Audit
ADB and World Bank have organized the training Audit workshop on the theme: “Strengthening quality of external audits of ADB and World Bank Funded Projects,” at Phnom Penh Hotel on 29 August 2011 aiming at increasing the auditors’ capacity to establish a good reporting statement ...
World Bank Influence Curbed by ‘New’ Donors
The World Bank is losing influence in Cambodia to “emerging donors” and making no major headway in stemming corruption, the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Groups said in a report released Wednesday. Specifically focused on the World Bank;s 2007 anti-corruption initiative through 2010, the report uses six ...
China, Cambodia Ink 29 Agreements for Economic and Trade Ties
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 Helps Cambodia Despite Difficulties
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 ...
China’s ‘No Strings’ Aid Increasingly Attractive
The timing couldn’t have been better. After a week in which one NGO was suspended and others warned to “readjust their work,” and the World Bank was finally forced to reveal that it had stopped loaning to Cambodia, the government announced over the weekend that ...
Cambodia and China Ink Aid, Trade Deals
Prime Minister Hun Sen and a visiting top Chinese official on Saturday presided over the signing of 29 letters and memoranda covering a broad range of business and military deals, including a $195.5 million loan for Cambodia to purchase Chinese-made military helicopters. A summary of ...
Microcredit Repayments
While rising inflation poses some financial challenges for rural farmers, it generally isn’t preventing them from paying off loans from microfinance institutions (MFIs). Farmers tend to be able to pay their loans off even though higher prices of food, fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, labor, and some ...
Japan Loans over $53 Million to Improve Agriculture and Education
Cambodia will receive a concessional loan package of $53.3 million US dollars from Japan to restore the irrigation canal system and another $700,000 dollars grant aid to enhance education materials for minerals resources and topology department of the Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC), the ...
More NGOs Scrutinised
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 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011081951151/National-news/more-ngos-scrutinised.html
Japanese Government To Loan $47M for Agro-Development
The Minister of Water Resource and Meteorology announced yesterday that the Japanese government’s international aid agency will provide his ministry with $47 million on loans for an agriculture development project near the Tonle Sap lake. During a donation ceremony for 144 Japanese-funded agricultural machines held ...
Bank of India looks ahead
The Bank of India will move to a larger location on Norodom Boulevard, aiming to attract increased business from both Cambodian and Indian clients, said Chief Manager Sripada Rao. The Mumbai, India-based bank first opened in the Kingdom in 2009 headquartered on the capital’s Monivong ...
World Bank fund halt irks officials
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 ...
Microfinance Deposits and Loans Grow
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 ...
World Bank stops funds for Cambodia over evictions
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 ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/09/cambodia-worldbank-idUSL3E7J920D20110809
Proposed changes to reserve requirement meets controversy
A proposed increase in the reserve requirement would decrease lending and slow Cambodia’s economic growth, according to some bankers and experts. The National Bank of Cambodia is set to hold a meeting later this month discussing a possible raise of the reserve requirement from 12 ...
Growth in vehicle sales fuelled by bank loans, dealers say
Commercial banks are providing more loans for vehicle purchases, leading to a jump in car sales this year, according to dealers. While the improved domestic economy and effects of the March disasters in Japan on its competitors had improved sales figures of Great Wall vehicles, ...
Growth in vehicle sales fuelled by bank loans, dealers say
Commercial banks are providing more loans for vehicle purchases, leading to a jump in car sales this year, according to dealers. While the improved domestic economy and effects of the March disasters in Japan on its competitors had improved sales figures of Great Wall vehicles, increased ...