News

A draft law on the financing of a controversial dam project in Stung Treng province obtained yesterday shows that about $38 million will be spent on the resettlement of almost 800 families. This marks a significant decrease from the more than 1,000 families the companies ...

Representatives of a massive hydropower dam project in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district approached local authorities late last month informing them that the government had granted the company permission to clear 36,000 hec­tares of land for a reservoir, officials said on Sunday. The 400-megawatt Lower Se­san ...

Experts are recommending that a proposed dam on the Sesan River in northeast Cambodia be equipped with earthquake protection measures, after discovering a quake occurred in the area some 30 years ago. The proposed Lower Sesan II dam would be situated on a site in Stung ...

Despite the inaugural train traveling between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville by a new rail link a month ago, no goods have yet been transported between the capital and the country’s largest port. Toll Royal Railways, a joint venture between Australia’s Toll Group and local conglomerate Royal ...

Thousands of villagers who will lose their land to the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province later this year have not been told of the government’s plans for their resettlement and compensation, a new study released yesterday shows. Through interviews with ...

European companies contributed less to total foreign direct investment (FDI) in Cambodia in 2011 than in 2012 as Chinese investment rose, Eurocham chairman Dominique Catry said yesterday. According to data from the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC), 1.9 per cent of the total registered FDIs ...

A mining company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange has announced a plan to pay $14 million for a license to explore for copper in Preah Vihear province, in a deal involving local conglomerate Royal Group. In an announcement to the bourse last Thurday, Geopacific Resource ...

Former Adamus Resources executives Milan Bojanjac and Ron Heeks are plotting a return to the Australian bourse, through a deal with the Charlie Bass-backed Geopacific Resources. In a deal it said would give it access to a substantial land- holding in Cambodia, Geopacific announced plans for ...

The year 2012 has seen a number of changes of personnel within different companies in Cambodia, particularly in the telecommunications sector, but also in the insurance and banking industry. According to In Channy, ACLEDA Bank’s CEO and vice chairman of the International Business Chamber Cambodia, the ...

Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group will be the first authorized importer and dealer of BMW automobiles in the country, and has begun construction on a showroom and service center in Phnom Penh. Premium Auto Import Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Royal Group, aims to import roughly 200 ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday criticized the Cambodian News Channel (CNC) for broadcasting an interview with an NGO worker who had claimed on air that the large number of illegal Cambodian workers to Thailand was due to high cost of obtaining a Cambodian passport. Speaking at ...

A representative of Vietnamese state-owned electricity giant Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI) confirmed yesterday that their stake in a dam project in Stung Treng province has been bought out by their Cambodian and Chinese business counterparts. While Royal Group chairman Kith Meng has maintained that EVNI still ...

Following a dam breach in Pursat province, ruling CPP lawmakers yesterday defended the government’s primary plan to tackle its energy crisis by contracting Chinese companies to build hydropower dams on the country’s rivers. A section of concrete tunnel at the Stung Atai dam in Pursat province ...

Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), a subsidiary of Vietnam’s state-owned electricity giant EVN, is no longer involved in the Lower Sesan 2 dam, a Vietnamese Embassy official confirmed yesterday. Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group and China’s Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd. on Monday signed an agreement in Phnom ...

The massive and highly controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam project took a major step forward yesterday with the inking of government power purchase agreements and an investment deal between Royal Group and a Chinese company. But details about the contracts, their implementation or the fate of ...

Cambodia has decided to go ahead with the construction of a dam on a Mekong tributary, but conservation groups are concerned that not enough study has been done on the hydropower project’s environmental consequences. Construction on the 400 megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in northwestern Cambodia’s ...

A Chinese hydropower company, identified as Consultant CECCI, along with Royal Group and Vietnamese power giant Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), will be in charge of the Lower Sesan 2 dam construction project in Stung Treng province, as well as the relocation of the 5,000 affected ...

Construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Stung Treng province will begin in 2014 and the government will spend next year relocating some 5,000 people from villages that are located in the dam’s future reservoir area. Located near the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday signed off on the Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province, despite long-standing criticism leveled against the project by environmental groups who say it would adversely affect 100,000 people as a consequence of reduced access to fish. The ...

Thirty families uprooted by Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project have filed a complaint with Australia’s highest human rights body, alleging rights abuses as a result of the partially AusAid-funded rail project. The complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission was made on behalf of the families by NGOs Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive ...

Direct daily flights between Phnom Penh and Singapore started yesterday with the first Tiger Airways flight departing at 8:30am and landing in Singapore at 11:30am, kicking off a seven-days-a-week low-cost service. The company is offering a special price of US$38 one-way from Phnom Penh to Singapore ...

Toll Royal Railway signed an agreement yesterday afternoon with companies that will supply locomotives and parts for Cambodia’s railway network. As a result of the agreement, international tenders will be called in the coming months for the procurement of up to four new 2,000-horsepower locomotives and ...

Royal Media Entertainment Co. Ltd., a joint venture between local conglomerate Royal Group and Russian General Satellite Co., announced yesterday that it has launched the country’s first digital pay-television service, ONE TV. Offering promotional subscription rates between $3 and $12 a month, services will begin in Phnom ...

Fast food chain KFC lost more than half-a-million dollars in the first half of 2012, according to a statement to the Malaysian stock exchange last week by the majority owner of KFC Cambodia, QSR Brands. The statement said that the company suffered losses of $578,000 in ...