The Kingdom’s 27 casinos are set to generate about US$20 million in tax revenue for the government in 2011, a 25 per cent year-on-year increase, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
At least one government official, however, said the lack of a regulatory regime for the casino industry prevented Cambodia collecting many times that amount.
That $20 million target was in line with estimates at the beginning of the year, May Vann, director of the ministry’s Department of Industry and Finance, said yesterday…
Crocodile farmers in Siem Reap are turning away from the export of hatchlings to Vietnam, choosing instead sell the reptiles for their skins.
Luon Nam, president of the province’s Crocodile Feeding Association, said yesterday the reliance on Vietnam was an unsustainable strategy for the industry.
Any change in demand from Cambodia’s eastern neighbour left farmers vulnerable to falling prices, he said…
A nationwide survey was under way by the Ministry of Commerce’s Rice Exporter Union to measure Cambodia’s milled-rice industry in order to give international buyers an accurate picture of the Kingdom’s current capacity, insiders said yesterday.
Although data for the survey was still being collected, those insiders pointed to Cambodia’s well-known problems such as a lack of agricultural processing capacity and inferior rice-seed quality.
Rice Exporter Union chairman Thon Virak, who also serves as general director of the state-owned Green Trade Company, said poor seed quality was a big impediment to attracting foreign buyers…
More than 130 families in Preah Vihear province who continue to defy eviction orders will not receive any compensation if they do not leave their homes by Friday, the Choam Ksan district governor has warned.
Choam Ksan district governor Sok Hai yesterday said police and military police will use force and knock down homes if villagers in Svay Chrom village do not follow orders issued early this month to vacate their homes to make way for a government office…
After a slow year in 2010, demand for office space in Phnom Penh is beginning to rebound as occupancy levels in new and existing units increase, real estate experts said yesterday. However, it is still unclear whether or not there is enough demand to fill high-grade office space due to come online next year, such as the massive Vattanac Capital tower.
Sunny Soo, country head at the global realtor Knight Frank, said that office buildings at the lower end of the market have seen an uptick in demand this year…
Spurred on by a rash of recent news about illegal logging activities around the country, and concerns about its public image, a government-led group on forestry issued a rare public statement yesterday urging its partners to help crack down on the illicit trade.
In a statement that appeared in local newspapers, the Technical Working Group on Forestry and Environment said recent reports of illegal logging were of “great concern”, but avoided drawing attention to any specific cases…
Deputy Prime Minister Sok An will meet Thai Energy Minister Pichai Naripthaphan on Thursday to discuss the possibility of extracting oil from disputed maritime areas in the Gulf of Thailand, Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said yesterday.
Mr Siphan said that Mr Sok An, who is also chairman of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA), would be preparing today for the meeting…
After a year of mounting concern over the treatment of migrant workers both within and outside Cambodia, the Ministry of Labor, NGOs and recruitment agencies yesterday reached an agreement on standardized contracts aimed at minimizing the possibility for exploitation.
The groups agreed on a contract between migrant workers and recruitment agencies, while a second contract between workers and their foreign employers will be finalized Friday. Both contracts will go into effect January 1, 2012, officials and NGOs said.
“We are trying not only to find jobs for maids, but to strengthen and protect their rights,” explained Ho Vuthy, deputy director of the Ministry of Labor’s general department of labor, adding that the ministry would issue a directive making the contracts mandatory…
Cambodia Association of Travel Agents president Ang Kim Eang yesterday released a statement denying all allegations of wrongdoing against him by some members of the association’s board who have called for his resignation.
Last Wednesday, 11 of CATA’s 15 board members signed and thumb-printed a petition requesting the removal of Ang Kim Eang for at least nine alleged wrongdoings, the Post previously reported.
Those charges included the improper use of association funds and disregard for regulations, as well as leading the association without transparency or structure, according to a copy of the petition obtained by the Post.
In yesterday’s statement, Ang Kim Eang pointed to CATA rules that require a vote of the association’s full body to remove a sitting president, emphasising that he would not resign from his position…
They thought the days of scenic sunsets ruined by the noise and pollution of dredgers on the Tatai River were over, but villagers and business owners in the popular tourism destination now say they were duped in a promise from ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat.
In October, the Post reported that Ly Yong Phat’s LYP Group had respected an agreement to stop sand dredging on the Tatai River in Koh Kong province by mid-October, to the relief of business owners and villagers in the area who had long campaigned against the dredging.
But Janet Newman, owner of the Rainbow Lodge ecotourism resort, said yesterday that rather than respect the written agreement from July 16, Ly Yong Phat had simply subcontracted out to another company.
When she confronted the new company, which began dredging alarmingly close to the bank late last month and on one occasion actually tied their boats to her property, she was told they were from International Rainbow Company Ltd…
Cambodia needs at least another $120 million of investment in rice mills if it is to meet the government’s 2015 target of exporting 1 million tons of rice, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said yesterday.
While rice exports from Cambodia this year have seen a significant increase – exports have so far exceeded 200,000 tons compared to 55,000 tons last year – there is still a shortfall in the amount of private investment going into rice milling and most of the paddy produced here is sent over the border into Vietnam or Thailand for production…
As predicted by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank earlier this year, growth in Cambodia’s garment sector has started to slow due to weakening demand from markets in the US and Europe.
According to the latest figures released by the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), exports reached $334.1 million in the month of October, down from a record $433.5 million in the month of July. In September, exports reached $379.9 million…
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered an end to all private land deals inside the country’s protected areas and warned local businessmen and officials against making such illegal deals.
“All official paperwork in connection with natural protected areas is invalid,” he said while speaking at the site of a future dam in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district. “I would like to announce that they are all rejected.”
“Please stop all kinds of transfers” inside the protected areas, he added. “In the end, it only destroys natural forests inside conservation areas. All authorities, cooperate with the environment and agriculture sectors to stop the deforestation, land encroachment and hunting.”…
The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has launched an investigation into an October 2010 incident in which three RCAF soldiers allegedly opened fire on Forestry Administration officials who had just confiscated a haul of illegal wood, one of the officials involved said yesterday.
An RCAF official, meanwhile, said the military had launched its own investigation into the incident.
Thorng Sokhay, chief of the Forestry Administration’s Srenoy triage in Siem Reap province, said ACU officials had questioned him about his original complaint to the local court yesterday morning but declined to discuss the proceedings…
Mr Sokhay claims that he and two colleagues had just confiscated a truck filled with illegally logged, luxury-grade wood and were driving it back to their office when the soldiers fired at his car and the truck…
Government authorities are investigating the death of a migrant domestic worker in Malaysia after her family and rights groups raised questions about the stated cause of death from a lung infection, a relative of the deceased woman said yesterday.
Na Rith, 42, said his cousin Ouk Sakan’s family “panicked” when they heard she had died on November 6. “I didn’t believe it until our family saw her dead [body] directly by their own eyes,” he said.
In the two years Ouk Sakan had worked in Malaysia after being sent there by the company VC Manpower, they hadn’t received a cent of her salary and had heard from her just once over the phone for about five minutes before she hung up, Na Rith said…
Families continuing to defy eviction orders in Preah Vihear fear police and authorities will use violence to remove them from their homes this week, villagers told the Post yesterday.
Representatives of Svay Chum village in Choam Ksan district’s Kantuot commune trekked to Phnon Penh on Friday to make a desperate plea for government intervention over the Samdech Techo land dispute.
The National Authority for Preah Vihear on December 19 ordered 132 families to leave their house by this Wednesday…
Union leaders are calling for 10 changes to be made to the draft law that will regulate them, including allowing civil servants to form unions, they said yesterday, following a letter calling for two ministers to intervene late last week.
The Cambodian Trade Union Coordination Council wrote to Ith Sam Heng, minister of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, as well as Vong Soth, minister of Labour and Vocational Training, asking them to make the changes to the legislation, now under review by the Council of Ministers…
The Kingdom’s inflation rate fell month-on-month in November for the first time all year, dropping 0.7 per cent from October, according to National Institute of Statistics data.
However, year-on-year inflation in November increased 5.7 per cent, the NIS reported.
“We see that we got a bigger supply of fish and meat, and at the same time a decline in the price of gasoline,” NIS official Sim Ly said, explaining the incremental dip last month…
Cambodia’s total exports surged 42 per cent through November to US$4.5 billion from $3.16 billion, official data from the Ministry of Commerce showed, as the Kingdom’s staple products of garments, textiles and agriculture led the move.
Rising global demand, new trade agreements with regional neighbours and tariff-free shipments to the European Union drove this growth, according to Kong Putheara, director of the ministry’s statistics department…
Cambodia’s total paddy rice output reached 8.4 million tonnes in 2011, up from 8.25 million tonnes last year, according an initial assessment by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Provincial MAFF officials from across the Kingdom met in Phnom Penh on Saturday, when data was collected for an early tally of the country’s rice crop.
Ngin Chhay, director of MAFF’s rice department, said the first-phase results showed an average of 2.97 tonnes to 3.1 tonnes of paddy rice per hectare, planted on 2.7 million hectares, for a total of 8.4 million tonnes…
