Tourists are still wary about travelling to Preah Vihear temple following border clashes in the area earlier this year, according to provincial officials. Visitor numbers had declined 15.5 per cent during the first seven months compared year on year, but had slowly begun rising in July, provincial Tourism Department director Kong Vibol said yesterday. Cambodia’s travel agents would hold meetings with their Thai counterparts in Preah Sihanouk province tomorrow, aiming to improve ties between the two nations’ tourism sectors, Cambodian Association of Travel Agents president Ang Kim Eang said.
The second mass fainting to hit a factory in Kampong Chnnang that supplies knitwear for H&M this week has prompted intervention from provincial labour officials and an investigation by the Swedish-based company. The International Labour Organisation, which monitors the M&V factory where as many as 198 people fainted yesterday, acknowledged that inadequate nutrition was a concern and that it was “discussing how the industry could provide sustainable solutions to this sad situation”. The ILO’s statement follows reports from garment workers and union representatives that workers cannot afford to feed themselves on the 30 US cents an hour they earn for working 48 hours a week.
A Cambodia migrant worker who was at times threatened at knifepoint, tied up or punched in the head by her employer yesterday revealed her chilling experience of the labour recruitment industry. Following her testimony via video link, broadcast at Sam Rainsy Party headquarters, opposition parliamentarian Mu Sochua slammed the Ministry of Labour for allegedly protecting recruitment companies that repeatedly sent employees into such “incredibly serious” situations. No labour recruitment firm has ever had its licence suspended or revoked in Cambodia.
Almost 200 workers received medical treatment yesterday following yet another mass fainting at the M&V International Manufacturing Ltd garment factory in Kompong Chhnang province. The International Labor Organization said that the factory was a supplier to the Swedish clothing brand H&M and that it was conducting an investigation into how the workers had fainted. On Tuesday, more than 100 workers fainted at the factory. And in August 2010, M&V experienced a series of mass fainting that involved about 300 workers.
Representatives from German, Finnish and Canadian development agencies were awarded honorary medals by Minister of Land Management Im Chhun Lim on Wednesday for their work in the country’s land sector. The awards ceremony comes just weeks after it emerged that the World Bank had frozen all new lending to Cambodia over the government’s mass evictions of the Boeng Kak families. In all, 10 medals were given out: six to German’s Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit; one to the project director for the Cambodia Land Administration Support Project, supported by the Canadian International Development Agency; one to the legal adviser of the Finnish government-funded Finnmap, and one to a Bangkok-based Finnish Embassy official.
Cambodia’s progress has been slow toward achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal of increasing rural access to sanitation to 30 percent by 2015, up from 8.6 percent in 1996, the World Bank said in a report released Wednesday. The World Bank report said that rural villages that invest in toilets can make savings of more than double their initial cost through improving sanitary conditions and avoiding spending money on medical costs resulting from poor sanitation. According to a separate report released in 2008 by the World Health Organization and Unicef, 77 percent of rural Cambodians are unable to access bathroom facilities.
Phnom Penh municipality is set to launch a campaign today at Daun Penh district’s Kandal market aimed at educating residents about disposing their garbage correctly in an effort to reduce flooding in the area. The campaign comes after the area experience several bouts of severe flooding recently, with floodwaters taking hours to subside. Som Sarith, Phsar Kandal I commune chief, said that following the campaign, people who disposed of their garbage improperly would face fines of up to 100,000 riel, or about $25.
Cambodia Angkor Air will launch a regular flight service between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville by the end of the year, an official at the Council of Ministers said yesterday. There are currently no flights to Sihanoukville, the country’s premier coastal resort, even though the airport was upgraded to international standards in mid-2009 and the private sector has pushed hard for Angkor Air to start scheduled flights to the coast to boost tourism. Angkor Air is primarily looking into flights between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, but the airline has not written off the possibility of starting a connection between Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh, he [Sekreth Samrach] said.
Cambodia’s foreign donors are staying largely mum about the government’s decision to indefinitely high-level aid meeting, though one donor conceded that the move had caught it off guard. Economists also said yesterday that a delay in holding the donor meeting would have little effect, but they worried about what might happen if the forum were put off for too long. Held roughly every 18 months, the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum is the most senior meeting between the government and its donors to assess Cambodia’s progress toward reform targets, to update those targets, and for the donors to make their pledges of aid to the country.
The second Cambodia-Vietnam Trade and Investment Fair opened in Kampot, Cambodia on August 24.
The fair has attracted more than 50 Vietnamese and Cambodian businesses to display their high quality products, such as garment, footwear, food, chemicals, electronics, plastics and handicraft products.
The aim is to help Vietnamese businesses develop their distribution network and improve their operational efficiency in Cambodia, especially in remote rural areas and also to encourage more Cambodian people to use Vietnamese products. Continue »
Setting a minimum price for paddy is one of the campaign promises that the Pheu Thai party made to its supporters during the recent election campaign in Thailand before it was elected to power. Now it’s a matter of waiting to find out whether this policy will actually be implemented by the new government, so farmers can sell their paddy at a higher price.
The party’s pledge of the policy aims to help farmers by pushing the rice reference price to 15,000 bhat (US$500) per ton, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
Charnchai Rakthananon, the president of the Thai Rice Millers Association, said at a recent Thai Rice Exporters Association meeting that retail rice prices were expected to increase by 25-50 baht (US$0.84-US$1.68) per 5kg pack while the newly elected Pheu Thai Party’s “minimum price of paddy” policy amounts to a commitment of 15,000 baht (US$504.37) a ton for white rice paddy, and 20,000 baht (US$ 672.50) for Hom Mali fragrant paddy.
About 1.3 million International visitors arrived in Cambodia in semester one in 2011 with an increase of 13.4 percent if comparing to the same period last year, Tourism Minister announced at a seminar this week. “It is expected that about 2.8 million tourists will pour in Cambodia in 2011,” H.E. Thong Kon said, adding that the number of tourists will increase to 3 million in 2012, 3.5 million in 2013, 4 million in 2014, and 4.5 million in 2015 respectively.
“Importantly, Cambodia plans to receive 7 millions tourists in 2020 which will garner US$5,000-US$$ 10,000 million in revenue as expected to be generated annually, lifting the Kingdom to be one of the world-class tourist destinations in the world, according to Cambodia’s Minister or tourism H.E. Thong Khon speaking at the sum-up meeting of the clean resort competition and the tourist communities improvement seminar on August 16.
About half a million establishments in Cambodia as of March 1, 2011 released the preliminary results of the Economic Census of Cambodia (EC 2011) released by H.E. Chay Than on August 8th in Phnom Penh. The final results of EC 2011 will be released in March 2012 at the national level and the dissemination at sub-national level will not be completed until June 2012.
H.E. Chhay Than, Senior Minister of Planning and Chairman of national Census Committee of 2011, said that Cambodia has 503, 008 establishments and the number of establishments per 1,000 persons is 34.6 establishments. As compared with other countries, Japan has 602 millions establishments with 48.4; Indonesia has 22.7 with 102.3; and Laos has 209 thousands with 37.4 respectively. “Among these four countries, Cambodia has relatively fewer establishments for its population size even though the establishment in the country is rising,” he stressed.
The biggest province in terms of the number of establishments was Phnom Penh, which has 95,467 establishments which is equal to 19% of the total number in Cambodia followed by Kampong Cham (55,903 or 11.1%), Kandal ( 40,359 or 8%), Battambang (33,982 or 6.8%), Siem Reap (32,034 or 6.4%). These five provinces are located in plain areas or on the lakeside of Tonle Sap Lake, occupying more than 50% of the total number of establishments in Cambodia, he emphasized.
The pending property tax could lead to declining residential property transactions in the Kingdom as residents fear rising house prices.
Although the property sector is currently stable after the country’s recovery from the financial crisis, it is expected to stall once the prakas is implemented, VMC Property Company General Manager Dit Channa said.
The taxation will also put pressure on multiple-property owners, especially residential landlords, who may reconsider purchasing further properties, potentially reducing transactions, she said.
Mahuran Japan Bank and the Seilanithih Microfinance Institution have signed an agreement to work together, according to a statement yesterday. Maruhan general manager Onishi Shizuo said the agreement would benefit both parties. “By joining forces with us, Seilanithih will be able to expand the size of its loan portfolio and customer base,” he said.
Good rains have boosted rice cultivation across the country, and nearly 90 percent of farmers have completed planting their paddies, although planting in Svay Rieng province is lagging due to drought, and agriculture official said yesterday.
Chan Heng, administration bureau chief of the Agriculture Ministry’s administration department, said rice cultivation this growing season was being completed earlier than last year, noting that 2,039,856 hectares of paddy had been planted by the third week of August, compared to 1,721,673 hectares at the same time last year.
“Rice cultivation is finished 87.5 percent. It is much faster if compared to the same period last year, because this year, the rains are good nationwide,” he said.
The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) approved 75 investment projects worth US$5.5 billion between January and July, according to council statistics.
This growth represents a 247 per cent, year-on-year increase in the value of approved investment projects, 60 of which were in the industrial sector.
The value of industrial-sector investments approved during the seven-month period totalled about $2.6 billion, compared with $752.4 million during the corresponding period last year.
The US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce signed an agreement on Monday that will guarantee loans offered for the purchase of US goods and services. The memorandum of understanding was signed as part of the US-Asean Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement, which came into force in 2006 in an effort to boost trade ties between the US and members of Asean.
Under the agreement, EXIM, the official export-credit agency of the US, will guarantee the repayment of medium- and long-term loans offered by banks to businesses looking to buy products make in the US. Loan guarantees by EXIM in the Asean region from 2009 to May 2011 totaled more that $1 billion.
In a statement issued by the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, EXIM committed “to increase outreach in Cambodia about the availability of financing support through the bank’s services and programs.” In Channy, CEO of Acleda Bank, said the deal would likely encourage more imports from the US than before.
China National Cereal, Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) is the latest mainland Chinese company to sign a deal to export Cambodian rice.
COFCO is one of a number of Chinese companies that have signed similar deals with their Cambodian counterparts, but direct rice exports to China are yet to begin in earnest.
“The Chinese are very strict on quality,” Phou Puy, president of the Federation of Rice Millers Associations and the Baitong Rice Export Company, said.
“So far, we haven’t received any updated information on the inspect-ions from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. But I know their delegation will come to test our quality soon.”
Plans for a Cambodian rice-testing laboratory, required by Chinese inspectors to allow Cambodian imports, are also under way.
The National Accounting Council, the Kampuchea Institution of Certified Public Accountants and Auditors and Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), co-organized to launch a National Conference on “Accountancy in Cambodia-Towards Global Standards” on August 12th in Phnom Penh to reflect what is being implemented in Cambodia toward the international accounting and financial reporting as well as the reflection of what is being done by many countries in the region and the world. Continue »
