News
Cambodia's rice exports up 125 pct in first half of 2013
Cambodia has seen a sharp rise in the exports of milled rice in the first six months of this year thanks to increasing demand on international markets, an official said Wednesday. The figures, from the single window secretariat for facilitating milled rice exports, showed that the ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-07/10/c_132529640.htm
Families complain over visas
Three families lodged complaints with authorities in Banteay Meanchey on Monday, requesting that action be taken against a recruitment firm that sent their family members to work in Thailand on tourist visas, a move that subsequently led to their arrest. Leng Yen, a monitor with ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/families-complain-over-visas
Rising Demand Boosts Organic Rice Industry
Production of Cambodian organic rice is rising rapidly as international demand for the product increases, experts said at a forum for growers and other industry members held Tuesday at the Phnom Penh headquarters of agricultural NGO Cedac. “In the first six months of this year we’ve ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/rising-demand-boosts-organic-rice-industry-34216/
Bribes remain rampant: TI
Despite facing a rampant graft problem that has seen Cambodians paying bribes far more often than their regional neighbors, they have growing faith in the government’s ability to fight it, a Transparency International survey has found. TI’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, which measures perceptions of corruption ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bribes-remain-rampant-survey
Cambodia Receives 1.79 Million Foreign Tourists In First Five Months
Cambodia attracted 1.79 million foreign visitors in the first five months of the year, up 19 per cent over the previous year. From January to May, Vietnam remains the main source of visitors with 341,000 tourists, up 11 per cent year-on-year, followed by South Korea with ...
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=962064
International Donors Call for Redesign of Sesan 2 Hydro Dam
International donors, including the U.S., Australia, the European Union and the World Bank, have urged the Cambodian government to redesign a massive hydropower project in Stung Treng province that environmentalists say will deplete fisheries and submit it to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) for consultation. In ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/international-donors-call-for-redesign-of-sesan-2-hydro-dam-33311/
Preah Vihear visits on the up
As tensions subside between Thailand and Cambodia over the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, site officials are welcoming a steady increase of international tourists. At 5,240, foreign visits are up 56 per cent in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013070366630/Business/preah-vihear-visits-on-the-up.html
Hong Kong calls for hike in imports
After a visit to Phnom Penh last week, John C Tsang, finance secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, took to his blog to call for more direct imports of Cambodian rice, which he says comes through a third country. In a post on June ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013070266597/Business/hong-kong-calls-for-hike-in-imports.html
Foreign investment rises 73 pct
A mid [sic] global economic fragility, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Cambodia grew a whopping 73 per cent in 2012 from the year before, a huge increase helping to fuel a record-setting amount of money pouring into least developed countries, according to the United Nations ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013070166579/Business/foreign-investment-rises-73-pct.html
Playing with a bad hand
It’s been more than a year since union leader Sat Sep was fired from the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Poipet town, a dismissal that sparked strikes and ended in senior members of the Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation being driven from the casino’s ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013070166584/National/playing-with-a-bad-hand.html
Lao dam unapproved yet under way: NGO
The construction of Don Sahong Dam, the second of 11 potential and controversial Mekong mainstream dams, is moving ahead without approval from Mekong River Commission members, according to a conservationist group report. Located less than two kilometres from the Cambodian-Lao border, the dam has been slammed ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013062766515/National/lao-dam-unapproved-yet-under-way-ngo.html
Cambodia, M'sia sign $80 mln agreement for telecom improvement in Cambodia
EZECOM and Telekom Malaysia has [sic] signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Tuesday to install a submerged cable system called the Malaysia-Cambodia-Thailand Cable System (MCT). A statement reported that Cambodia’s leading Internet service Telcotech Ltd — a part of Ezecom — will sign the MOU with ...
Cambodia's foreign trade worth over 6 bln USD in 5 months
Cambodia’s trade with foreign countries amounted to 6.25 billion U.S. dollars in value in the first five months of this year, up 20 percent from the same period last year, according to statistics from the Commerce Ministry on Wednesday. During the January-May period this year, the ...
Lao Dams, Mining Ruining Sekong Water Quality in Cambodia
Dam-building and gold mining in southern Laos are ruining water quality downstream on the Sekong River in Cambodia, where villagers are no longer able to drink or use the water, according to an environmental group. The activities undertaken by Lao and Vietnamese companies on the Sekong’s ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/sekong-06252013190742.html
Six Cambodian Loggers Killed in One Month
The Ministry of Interior has said six Cambodians were shot dead by Thai forces in the course of a month, in a rare report outlining the impact of the ongoing trade in luxury rosewood, and authorities’ efforts to curb it. The report also says that ...
Cambodia Drops on US Global Human Trafficking Ranking
The U.S. has downgraded Cambodia in its latest global Trafficking in Persons Report for showing no discernable improvements in its efforts to combat human trafficking over the past year, the country’s first demotion in five years. The 2013 report cites an increase in the number ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-drops-on-us-global-human-trafficking-ranking-31423/
Thai rice cuts pose problems
Thailand’s recent announcement of a 20 per cent price cut within the government rice-pledging scheme will have little impact for Cambodian exports, but farmers may feel the effects, say industry insiders. In an article published in the Bangkok Post on June 19, Thailand’s cabinet had agreed ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013062166407/Business/thai-rice-cuts-pose-problems.html
Cambodia posts sharpest increase in rice output among major producers
Cambodia posted the sharpest increase in production among the world’s major rice producers between 2000 and 2010, the Food and Agricultural Organization said in a report released Wednesday. The 2013 edition of the UN agency’s Statistical Yearbook showed that Cambodia was the world’s 12th largest rice ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=OTRlZjk2Yzg3OTd
Discount shops attracting crowds
Two thousand five hundred – for Mom Dalin, this is more than just a random number or the price of a coffee, it is her way of making a living. The 55-year-old sits at a small desk in her son’s shop on Sihanouk Boulevard, within sight ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013062066378/Business/discount-shops-attracting-crowds.html
Mekong Dams Threaten Extinction of Giant Catfish
The elusive Mekong giant catfish, which the U.S.-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called “one of the world’s largest and rarest freshwater fish,” can reach up to three meters (10 feet) and weigh up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). The Xayaburi dam would prove an “impassable barrier” ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dams-06192013184629.html
Foreign visitors to Cambodia's World Heritage Preah Vihear temple rise 39 pct in 5 months
Cambodia’s Preah Vihear temple, a World Heritage site, received 4,710 foreign tourists in the first five months of this year, up 39 percent compared with the same period last year, statistics by Preah Vihear province’s tourism department showed Tuesday. Kong Vibol, chief of the department, said ...
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013-06/19/c_132468531.htm
Thai and Cambodian trade fair on the road
In a joint effort to promote trade ties, government officials in Cambodia and Thailand have organised the first “Caravan Fair” in which producers within the neighbouring countries will showcase their products to one another. The Cambodia-Thailand Caravan Fair 2013, a travelling event starting on June 25 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013061966350/Business/thai-and-cambodian-trade-fair-on-the-road.html
Cambodia shrugs at Gambia’s import ban
Gambia’s recent announcement that it would ban rice imports in about three years to spur local demand will only have a small impact on Cambodia, which sends a portion of its annual output to the west African country and other nations on the continent, data ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013061866317/Business/cambodia-shrugs-at-gambia-s-import-ban.html
Cassava farmers rely on Thai seed imports
Cassava farmers in Banteay Meanchey province had to import seeds from Thailand this season in response to rapidly-changing weather conditions that interfered with seed growth. Te Haing, a cassava farmer in Banteay Meanchey who planted more than 1,000 hectares this season, told the Post yesterday that ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013061766299/Business/cassava-farmers-rely-on-thai-seed-imports.html