Vietnam's investment in Cambodia has increased significantly in the last three years, but a mechanism to encourage and oversee investments in prioritized sectors is needed, according to diplomatic sources.
Tan Nguyen Tien, head of the economic section at the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, said Vietnam's investments... continue
Entertainment Gaming Asia will open up it’s second Dreamworld Club in Cambodia in the Thai-Cambodia border town of Poipet, in Banteay Meanchey province, according to a media release from the US-listed company on Monday. …
Cambodian export values increased more than 21 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, and officials said the rise was a positive sign for the Kingdom’s economic growth. …
According to the Ministry of Commerce’s export data obtained by the Post yesterday, exports reached over $1.65 billion in the first three month period this year, up from the goods exported during the same period last year, up from the goods exported during the same period last year, valued at $1.36 billion. …
The World Bank recently predicted that Cambodia’s GDP growth would reach 7.0 per cent for this year, up 0.3 percentage points from its last projection in December. …
Canada-based life insurance company Manulife has launched a product intended to provide parents with security for their children’s education, and officials at the firm say they are optimistic about its prospects. …
Manulife’s research found that even families who were financially struggling would take advantage of opportunities to secure funds for their children’s future.
The product was created to help parents set aside money and protect their finances for their children’s higher-level education. …
The US embassy in Phnom Penh intends to hold a webinar on doing business in Cambodia, providing information on the benefits and challenges of working in the country for US firms.
“This is the first webinar that will focus on investment opportunities and an overview of Cambodia’s current business climate,” Sean McIntosh, the US embassy’s publicaffairs officer, told the Post yesterday. …
In 2012, Cambodia’s exports to the US were worth about $2 billion, 36 per cent of the Kingdom’s total exports, according to figures from the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Furthermore, figures from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) show that from 2005 to 2011, US investment reached about $922 million. …
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has overturned two injunctions filed against bankrupt mobile operator Mfone, saying the decision will help the court-appointed administrator in charge of Mfone’s assets pay back creditors the money they are owed. …
The court issued Eltek’s injunction in October and Huawei’s injunction in January. Eltek is seeking $3.73 million it is allegedly owed in service charges and Huawei is claiming $65 million. At a meeting with creditors on April 11, administrator Ouk Ry announced that the judges were considering dropping the injunctions to pave way for him to sell off Mfone’s assets. But Eltek’s lawyer Kouy Thunna, yesterday called the court’s order “illegal.” …
Lawyer for Huawei Aron Zheng did not respond to requests for comment, though he has said in the past that the court must provide a legal basis to any decision to drop the injunctions against Mfone. …
A subsidiary of Indian firm Mesco Steel has arrived in Cambodia to begin developing a gold mine in Ratanakkiri province, according to an investor involved in the deal.
Mesco Gold has paid a fee of $1.2 million to Canada-listed exploration firm Angkor Gold to develop a 600-hectare mining exploration license in O’yadaw district, said Richard Stanger, a major stakeholder in Angkor Gold. …
Mr. Stanger said the Mesco project would be a modest sized, international standard mine, and that Angkor Gold has already identified slightly less than 500,000 ounces of gold. “It could be more,” he said. …
Government action will be needed to ensure that nearly two decades of impressive economic growth continues in Cambodia, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report published Wednesday.
In its 2013 World Economic Outlook, the IMF put Cambodia’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2012 at 6.5 percent.
While the IMF has a positive outlook on Cambodia’s economy, its growth figure falls below the government’s stated growth rate for last year of 7.3 percent, a figure with which the World Bank this week concurred. …
The IMF highlighted recent public-private partnerships in power generation and rural development—largely hydropower dams and irrigation canals built by Chinese companies using Chinese soft loans. And it said Cambodia’s open investment climate, combined with proximity to dynamic economies, had attracted new foreign investment. …
A U.S.-based energy company has announced that it is planning a biomass project using genetically modified rice in Cambodia, in a purportedly massive deal about which little information has been made public.
In a statement posted online Thursday, Sino Bioenergy Corp. said it had signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire Sky Energy Holdings Limited for $119.3 million, with the purchase set to take place 90 days after the signing.
According to the statement, Sky Energy Holdings Limited owns 51 percent of another company, Noble Success Limited, which has 20,000 hectares of agricultural land in Cambodia. …
The World Bank upgraded Monday its GDP growth forecast for Cambodia to 7.0 percent for this year, up 0.3 of a percentage point from its last projection in December.
“In Cambodia, a likely stabilization in high-income country conditions should support further improvements in garment production and exports,” the bank said in explaining the upgrade. …
Cambodia’s growth last year, estimated at 7.3 percent, was “faster than expected,” the update said, adding that it was “bolstered by the strong performance of agriculture, construction and tourism and a recovery in garments.”
In a separate statement, World Bank East Asia and Pacific Vice President Axel van Trotsenburg said the region accounted for about 40 percent of global growth last year. …
After years of immersion in a vicious price war, battle weary and capital-haemorrhaging [sic] mobile operators in Cambodia’s oversaturated telecommunications sector may finally have reason to breathe a sigh of relief; 2013 might be cited as the year the tide turned. …
Tarred by legal threats, unfair competition practices, trash-talking in the media and engagement in cripplingly expensive advertising campaigns, the industry’s ugly side has reared its head on several occasions since the market started overcrowding in 2006. Yet recent and long overdue consolidations in the market have some chief executives trading their swords for confetti, handshakes and electric-light breakdancers.
With over five million subscribers, Smart is now the second-largest operator in the country behind Metfone, owned by Viettel, a military-backed Vietnamese-owned telecommunications firm. Smart plans to expand its network and operational coverage throughout Cambodia and reinvigorate investors to develop infrastructure, says [Thomas] Hundt. [CEO of the repackaged brand ‘Smart’]. All the while the merger removes interconnection fees between Hello and Smart mobile users – a blessing in a market that operators claim is under-regulated and where complaints have been filed against companies that have not paid interconnection fees. …
With the industry reduced to six active operators, experts and mobile operators agree that the two developments have birthed new life into a market that, until now, has sustained multimillion-dollar losses each year. Revenues from phone usage in the Kingdom remain low, while an infant smartphone culture yields limited capital from data plans. …
The merger followed hot on the heels of Thaicom’s announcement that its lawsuit-laden subsidiary Mfone, which had been operating in Cambodia for two decades, was insolvent. …
“I think that this had to happen… The market can now begin to move at a level with more sustainable competition finally, and in the long term we won’t see any more of these crazy price wars,” said Marc Einstein, an independent telecom analyst. “I think in a market the size of Cambodia, in terms of population and GDP [gross domestic product], you can only have three, maybe four operators for the sector to be sustainable.”…
“I would say that because of the initial rush of entrants, the equipment was improved substantially, but… now quality is definitely toward the bottom compared to Thailand or Vietnam,” Einstein said. …
At first, services improved. But as huge promotions became the industry standard, the price of a domestic call dropped to just $0.01 per minute, far below Thailand’s $0.05 to $0.06 per minute and around $0.15 per minute paid in Hong Kong. …
“The problem is that, even at six players, there is still going to be a price war at a high level of competition,” said Dimitry Bushik, chief commercial officer at Excell, one of Cambodia’s mobile operators. …
The Thai owners of a pair of sugar plantations in Koh Kong province accused of forcing hundreds of farmers off their land will give the land back if it can be proved that those evicted legally own the land, rights workers and a village representative said on Sunday.
Thanakorn Borintarachat, the new general manager of Koh Kong Sugar, whose major shareholder is Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar, reportedly made the offer at a March 29 meeting in Koh Kong with NGOs and local families. …
The dispute dates back to 2006, when Koh Kong Sugar and Koh Kong Plantation, both majority owned by Khon Kaen, started forcing families out of their homes and off the land. Both the families and local rights groups insist the families’ farms and homes were taken over illegally, and claim that some of the families were shot and beaten by plantation guards in the process.
Khon Kaen is currently under investigation by Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission for its alleged human rights violations in Koh Kong. …
New car sales noticeably increased in the first quarter of this year, a contrast to the year earlier period when sales dropped compared with the first quarter of 2011, officials said. Major car dealers in Cambodia said yesterday the jump is due to improvements in the supply chain. …
The first quarter of this year, Toyota Cambodia had already sold more than 300 units, a 50 per cent increase compared to the first quarter of last year. According to Nuon the company plans to sell at least 1,300 items by the end of this year, compared to 800 last year. …
France said it plans to boost its exports to Cambodia as French foreign direct investment in the country – worth $3.18 million in 2012 – continues to rise, officials said on Wednesday. …
Among this year’s investments, concessions and construction company group Vinci, the largest building firm in the world by revenue, plans to invest $92 million in the Kingdom through its subsidiary Cambodia Airports.
Trade between France and Cambodia was limited last year, worth only 266.8 million euros ($349.16 million), though it had increased from 202.6 million euros in 2011, according to a report from the French embassy.
However, Cambodia’s exports to France accounted for the lion’s share, at 204.8 million euros. Eighty-one per cent of the products France imported from the Kingdom were clothes and shoes. Their value increased by 35 per cent compared with 2011, to 166.4 million euros last year. …
Not enough priority is given to research in Cambodia, threatening its long term development, economists and other experts say.
Larry Strange, executive director of the Cambodian Development Research Institute, says the country cannot plan for major reform, build its economy, or reduce poverty without proper analysis of its ongoing challenges. …
The low quality of Cambodia’s educational institutions, especially in higher education, along with limited investment in them, are also factors, Strange said. …
Cambodia’s investment in research is so low that it is not ranked by the World Bank. But according to government statistics, about 275 post-graduate students, about 2.2 percent, are currently studying research and development. This includes research in economics, agriculture, the environment and good governance.
Mak Ngoy, general director of the higher education department at the Ministry of Education, said that despite low government investment, it is committed to pushing for more research, and that funding has increased in recent years. That includes a World Bank project of $3.2 million to improve higher education and fund 31 research proposals from students in public and private universities. …
The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Tuesday handed over country-specific roadmap to Pakistan ambassadors to Thailand, Uzbekistan and Cambodia that would help strengthen liaison, increase bilateral trade and promote economic cooperation.
The Ambassador to Thailand Sohail Khan, Ambassador to Uzbekistan Riaz Hussain Bukhari and Ambassador designate to Cambodia Amjad Ali Sher had a detailed meeting with the LCCI members and identified areas of mutual cooperation. …
The LCCI president said that Pakistan holds a great potential that needs to be tapped. He said that Thailand, Uzbekistan and Cambodia are importing goods worth billions of dollars at higher rates from other countries of the world while same could be imported from Pakistan at a bit lower price. …
Luxury jewellery brand Tiffany & Co is building a diamond-polishing factory in Phnom Penh, as the company, which has enjoyed increasing sales, seeks to ensure it can continue supplying the diamonds it needs.
Construction began last month on the 1.2-hectare factory, along with a training centre, in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ), said Sotheary Chap, business development manager of the Archetype Group, the architectural firm involved in construction.
“Cambodia has no diamonds; the factory is just a platform” to process the diamonds, she said, declining to reveal construction costs or when operations would start. …
Last year, Andrew Hart, senior vice-president of Tiffany & Co’s diamonds and gemstones division, met with Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh to discuss possible investment opportunities in Cambodia. …
Cambodia’s precious-stones industry, although small, is growing. The fifth Cambodia Gems and Jewellery Fair, in June, is expecting a 12 per cent increase in visitors and exhib-itors, according to a press release. …
Cambodia’s economic growth is forecast at 7.2 percent in 2013, picking up to 7.5 percent next year as recovery in Europe and the United States takes hold, according to the Asian Development Bank’s annual economic outlook released on Tuesday.
The United States and Europe are the largest purchasers of Cambodia-made garment and footwear products. …
The report noted that net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Cambodia surged by an estimated 75 percent in 2012, to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, funding new industries including automotive parts, electronics, and processing of agricultural products, as well as diversifying garment production into higher- value products and tourism into new areas. …
Tiffany & Company is quietly building a diamond-polishing factory in Cambodia, a country popularly associated more with killing fields and land mines than baubles.
Some of Japan’s biggest manufacturers are also rushing to set up operations in Phnom Penh to make wiring harnesses for cars and touch screens and vibration motors for cellphones. European companies are not far behind, making dance shoes and microfiber sleeves for sunglasses. …
Foreign investment in China nonetheless slipped 3.5 percent last year, after rising every year since 1980 except 1999, during the Asian financial crisis, and 2009, during the global financial crisis. Still, at $119.7 billion, foreign investment in China continues to dwarf investment elsewhere.
By comparison, investment in Cambodia rose to $1.5 billion. But last year was the first time since comparable recordkeeping began in the 1970s that Cambodia received more foreign investment per person than China. …
Strikes this winter temporarily crippled numerous Taiwanese-owned garment factories in eastern Cambodia producing simple garments like bathing suits after Japanese factories moved in to make more sophisticated products like business suits and gloves — and offered higher pay and benefits. …
The Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia (TRC) of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued warning letters to mobile operators Beeline and Smart over their recent advertisement, stating it violates the Inter-Ministerial Prakas, or edict, signed in 2009.
The separate letters, obtained by the Post last week, were approved by TRC’s president Mao Chakrya on March 1, stating that the companies did not comply with Inter-Ministerial Prakas number 232 dated December 7, 2009. …
In response to price disputes and to set minimum tariffs, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications signed the Inter-Ministerial Prakas No 232 on Minimum Tariffs of Mobile and Fixed Telephone Services and Interconnection Fees in December 2009.
In paragraph one of article 4, the edict states that “minimum tariff of calls within one network shall be 4.5 cents per minute.” Later on the Prakas also says: “advertisings on on-net tariff must not be lower than 50 per cent of the tariff contained in Paragraph 1 of Article 4.” …
