News

Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged public institutions to provide clear terms of reference for the services they provide, as part of an effort to attract investment in the Kingdom. Institutions that did not implement this policy would be punished under the law, he said. ... ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen lashed out at unnamed critics yesterday, saying there was no corruption in large-scale development projects backed by foreign aid. “[For example] as for the Neak Leung bridge or Kizuna bridge Japan runs its bids in Tokyo. Therefore, only Japanese companies have the ...

The US Congress has averted the “fiscal cliff” by passing a number of budget agreements, and Cambodian politicians and observers say the experience is a good example of compromise between two sides. ... Cheam Yiep, a lawmaker for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and head of ...

Cambodia will spend about 21 million U.S. dollars to cover for the [sic] proceedings of the general elections on July 28, a senior official at the National Election Committee (NEC) said Friday. "The budget for the forthcoming elections is about 21 million U.S. dollars, up from ...

After 28 years in the capital, eating like "a king" and enjoying the perks one receives as the son of high-ranking CPP officials, Sophal's* move to the countryside was as jarring as it was eye-opening. Until the day in June when he traded his designer threads ...

There was so much noise blasting from the loudspeakers that the occasional rallying cry from striking workers at the demonstration in Phnom Penh's Dangkao district last week could hardly be heard. One 2-meter high stack of amplifiers had been set up outside the Nex-T factory and ...

The Cambodian government collected $683 million in taxes over the first 11 months of this year, according to data from the General Department of Taxation released last week. An economist said the increase in domestic tax revenue emphasised that Cambodia still has room for improvement in ...

Cambodia is the one of the least competitive countries in the region, hampered by corruption, a poorly educated workforce and inefficient government, according to a recent study. The annual Global Competitive Index, conducted by the World Economic Forum, showed a large uptick in reported corruption for ...

Casinos are first and foremost for protecting Cambodia’s border, not for making money, government lawmakers insisted in parliament yesterday when drilled about their opposition to raising gambling taxes. Seizing on an off-the-cuff comment made by Prime Minister Hun Sen during a speech in August, Finance Minister ...

Workers applying for jobs at a fertilizer factory in Kandal province claim they were passed over in favour of applicants who were members of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Prey Treng II village chief Hang Suon and two job applicants told the Post yesterday that Five ...

THE ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is used to fending off “interference” by the West in the internal affairs of some of its members. In recent years the human-rights record of the regime in Myanmar has been the tenderest of these sore spots. ...

As Asian and European leaders gather for high level meetings this month in Cambodia and Laos, the luxury living quarters and extensive security arrangements made for their arrivals have come at considerable human and environmental expense. Government authorities went on a building spree ahead of this ...

The Australian Senate yesterday urged the Cambodian government to run free and fair national elections next year without the “harassment or intimidation” of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who remains in self-imposed exile avoiding an 11-year jail sentence. The appeal comes only days after the European Parliament ...

The American Center for International Labor Solidarity has set its sights on the Herculean task of unionizing Cambodia’s civil service, a move that, were it successful, could have profound implications for the country’s political landscape. The term civil service in Cambodia has unusually broad application, referring to bureaucrats, ...

The country cannot afford to further increase the salaries of civil servants such as teachers and members of the armed forces, as to do so would require tax increases—a move that has already sparked protests across Europe, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. Speaking at a ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen mockingly declared that opposition pledges to increase the salaries of civil servants marked the arrival of “the season of promises” ahead of next year’s elections, during a speech yesterday. The premier deemed boosting salaries by reducing tax losses attributed to graft unfeasible  because ...

Political activists and watchdog organisations say Cambodia’s US$13 million revenue from the mining sector over the last five years is exceedingly low and that the government must be more transparent. The claims come after the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy (MIME) released its figures on the mining ...

The US ambassador at large for Global Women’s Issues – an office in the US State Department – met with five of the Boeung Kak lake female activists on Saturday in a sidelines meeting of a Lower Mekong gender policy dialogue. “It was a full ...

Tek Nim is well versed in dealing with adversity. In year nine, she dropped out of school, began working on the family farm and finally became resigned to the belief that her brightest prospect was to leave Omlaing commune, in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, ...

In Washington yesterday, Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Mu Sochua lobbied US government officials to withhold military funding to the Cambodian government if it does not meet two political demands ahead of her meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday. Mu Sochua said she would ...

The CPP yesterday declared victory in Sunday’s commune election, saying it had taken 72 percent of the country’s commune councilor seats and all but 41 of the country’s 1,633 powerful commune chief positions. The SRP in turn said it took 19 percent of the available councilor ...

With Sunday’s commune elections quickly approaching, the five main political parties are all predicting substantial gains over how they faired in the last election in 2007, though none deny that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will continue to dominate the polls. And with the entrance ...

Cambodia's 2012 budget passed through the National Assembly yesterday unopposed, without a single question asked and no parliamentary debate in a situation the government, opposition and observers all said was unfortunate. It took just over three hours for the law to be passed, 86 to 0, ...

As reports of the death of yet another Cambodian maid in Malaysia surfaced, opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua said yesterday that a bilateral agreement between Cambodian and Malaysia was necessary if the two countries were serious about protecting the rights of Cambodian domestic workers living in ...