Myanmar Airways International (MAI) is slated for a November 2 launch of bi-weekly flights between Phnom Penh and Myanmar’s economic hub and former capital, Yangon, Cambodian Aviation officials said yesterday.
The flights – on 162-seat A320 jets – will transfer in Siem Reap before continuing on to Phnom Penh, Tep Sun Tary, director of air transport for the State Secretariat for Civil Aviation, said…
Two new Asian airlines will begin regular flights to Cambodia this winter in an airlines sector increasingly dominated by regional passengers, a Cambodia Airports official said on Friday.
Tiger Airways, a Singapore-based airline, will operate daily A320 flights between Singapore and Phnom Penh and Singapore and Siem Reap, Emmanuel Menanteau, Cambodia Airports CEO, said during a press briefing on the winter flight season, which began yesterday…
Nearly 100 residents from about 50 families in Sihanoukville town’s commune 1 blocked National Road 4 yesterday to protest against a Supreme Court verdict ordering their eviction on Friday in favour of a local official…
Insurance companies have operated at a loss through the first nine months of the year, paying out a total of $32.5 million over $20.4 million in generated revenues, according to data released by the Cambodian Reinsurance Company on Friday.
Ty Atith, a senior underwriter at the Cambodian Reinsurance Company, said that the largest payouts came from two fires that occurred in March at June Textile Factory in Phnom Penh, which was permanently closed down, and River Rich Textile Factory in Kandal province…
Two new claims of abuse of Cambodian maids employed in Malaysia have emerged since Friday, including one case of a woman who returned home with severe mental trauma following alleged mistreatment by her Malaysian employer, the victims’ families said.
Iy Thar, a villager from Kompong Thom province’s Stung Sen City, said yesterday she had picked up her daughter Oam Eak, 28, at Phnom Penh recruitment agency Human Power Co Ltd last week after she had worked almost two years in Malaysia. To her horror, Ms Eak – who is married and has a young child – was in a state of severe trauma and did not respond to her family. “When I went to get her… she didn’t even recognize me,” she said…
After years of trying to find suitable staff, the Ministry of Commerce on Friday released a list of 44 arbitrators who will be in charge of running the National Arbitration Center (NAC), a body designed to offer businesses a commercial dispute mechanism alternative to Cambodia’s corrupt court system.
The end of the selection comes after tussling between the government and candidate arbitrators who had argued with authorities over the fact that they were made to take an examination to prove their skills…
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia approved yesterday a license to IRIS Securities to be the 13th securities investment advisory firm in the Kingdom’s budding capital market…
Cambodian crocodile farmers have blamed the falling price of the reptile on flooding, which they say has turned away Thai and Vietnamese buyers – the market’s cornerstone.
Prices for young crocodiles have dropped 25 per cent since August, Kandal breeder Kaing Sarin said. His reptiles fetched US$20 two months earlier but prices this month have hit about $15 per head and continue to fall, he said…
Trade between Cambodia and Vietnam surpassed a US$2 billion trade target for 2011 in just the first nine months of the year, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Phnom Penh.
Trade between the two countries hit the higher-than-projected $2.07 billion in September, up from about $1.3 billion during the same period in 2010, data from the Vietnam Trade Office showed.
Higher global food prices accounted for the more than 60 per cent increase, not the volume of goods traded, Tran Tu, trade attaché at Vietnam Trade Office, said yesterday…
The Royal Cambodian Government has given another slice of the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary to the agro-industry.
A report in the Royal book released on October 12 states that 1,410 hectares had been granted to two unidentified private businesses for development, particularly the planting of rubber trees.
Director of Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary Von Theoun said that there are now 10 companies developing about 100,000 of the 242,500 total hectares of land within the sanctuary…
About 170 garment workers fainted at a factory in Kampong Speu yesterday, the first day Anful Garments Manufacturing reopened after being hit by a mass fainting incident on Monday, workers and government officials said yesterday.
The second mass fainting at the Hong Kong-owned factory, which supplies global retailer H&M, follows the release of a report commissioned by the Swedish retailer that claimed the cause of fainting at another factory that supplies it was “a case of mass pychogenic illness”, or “mass hysteria”…
Three residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake community were temporarily detained by police and had a camera and phone confiscated yesterday while trying to take pictures of a list posted outside the Srah Chak commune office in Daun Penh district.
Two of the three are among the nearly 800 Boeng Kak families expecting to receive land titles following a sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen in August promising to let residents inside a 12.44-hectare stretch of land keep their homes. Prior to the prime minister’s order, the families were facing eviction to make way for a Chinese-backed real estate project headed by ruling party senator Lao Meng Khin…
Amid mounting concerns over labor recruitment agencies’ treatment of migrant workers, new links were discovered yesterday between agencies and the officials that regulate them, as a daughter of a senior Labor Ministry official was found to be running a major recruitment firm.
Nhem Chakrya, deputy director at Mey Yorn Services Co Ltd, a large recruitment agency of maids for Malaysia, said Nhem Kimhuoy, chief of the placement bureau at the Labor Ministry’s department of employment and manpower, is her father. Ms Chakrya stressed, however, that there was no conflict of interest in the fact that he was working in a government body that regulates companies like hers…
In one of Phnom Penh’s biggest land deals to date, Japanese shopping mall developer Aeon Mall Co Ltd has bought 6.7 hectares of prime real estate from South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction, a firm that was once slated to build the tallest building in Cambodia.
Sok Cheng, deputy director at the municipal land management department, confirmed that Aeon Mall had purchased land next to the recently opened Sofitel Phokeethra hotel in Chamkar Mon district and said that the deal had gone through with the help of a Cambodian investor, whose name he declined to reveal…
Total government spending in 2012 is set to reach $2.62 billion, an increase of 9 percent on the $2.4 billion the government had budgeted to spend in 2011, according to a copy of the 2012 draft budget law obtained yesterday.
As part of the new budget, more government spending will go toward national defense, social affairs, agriculture, industry and commerce.
Despite the rise in state expenditure, a senior economist warned that the increase was not enough to make up for inflationary pressures, and urged the government to invest more in the country…
In a landmark ruling, the Siem Reap Municipal Court yesterday ordered a luxury hotel to reinstate 67 sacked workers – a legally binding decision that unionists have hailed as a great moment for the judicial system.
The decision comes after more than two months of protests, mediations and court hearings involving workers who were sacked by the Angkor Village Hotel and Resort after unionising earlier this year, although the hotel’s owner has consistently argued the dismissals were for unrelated reasons.
Presiding Judge Sam Bunpov’s decision unequivocally states that the Angkor Village Hotel and Resort must reinstate all 67 workers within three months…
Food and beverage imports in the Kingdom fell more than 70 per cent in the third quarter, as high international prices and the growth of domestic production dragged on demand.
About 192,580 tonnes of food and beverage products entered Cambodia between July and September, down 72 per cent from 682,141 tonnes in the same period last year, according to Ministry of Commerce statistics.
Cambodia Institute for Development Study president Kang Chandaroth pointed to rising international food costs as the reason imports dropped, but said the decrease was an “opportunity for local production to increase”…
Tong Yang Securities (Cambodia) and ACLEDA Securities yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to partner the services they offer to the Kingdom’s budding financial markets.
To expand their footprint in the market, the companies aimed to provide a combination of advisory and underwriting services for companies planning to list on the CSX, officials said yesterday.
ACLEDA Bank president and chief executive In Channy pointed to Tong Yang’s experience with its home South Korean markets as a main reason for the partnership, while Tong Yang president and chief executive You Joon Ryeol noted ACLEDA’s reach within the Kingdom…
A ninth telecoms operator would enter the Cambodian market next year, officials said yesterday, surprising insiders who claimed the sector was already overcrowded.
Camintel, a joint Cambodian state- and Korean-owned company, would offer mobile services in 2012, CEO Kang Namkook said yesterday at a telecommunications conference in Phnom Penh.
“Although we are a fixed-line player now, ultimately our plan is to be in mobile,” he said, adding the service was linked to what would be a two-pronged business strategy combining fixed-line and mobile services. Our goal is to be the number-one telecoms operator in Cambodia.”…
The results of an investigation into two mass fainting incidents at a factory in Kampong Chhnang confirmed that M&V International Manufacturing had violated Cambodian labour law by forcing some staff to work overtime and failing to give them a full day off each week, according to the report on the investigation.
The occupational hygiene assessment report – commissioned by one of the factory’s customers, global retailer H&M – also concludes that the mass fainting incidents on August 23 and 25, in which about 250 staff in total collapsed, were a “case of mass psyschogenic illness (MPI)” triggered by work-related and personal stress.
MPI is also known as “epidemic hysteria” and “mass hysteria”, the report says, adding that it mainly affects women…
