Hennes & Mauritz AB, Europe’s second-biggest clothing retailer, said some H&M garments were produced without its knowledge or approval at a factory in Cambodia where workers were injured in a partial building collapse this week.
A supplier of the Stockholm-based company placed two minor orders with an unapproved sub-supplier at the... continue
During his speech last week at the swearing-in ceremony of Phnom Penh’s new governor, Pa Socheatvong, Interior Minister Sar Kheng noted that managing Cambodia’s capital is by no means an easy task. …
While critics of [former Phnom Penh governor] Mr. [Kep] Chuktema note his failure to settle high-profile land disputes and struggle to deal with the city’s expanding population, it is impossible not to notice some of Mr. Chuktema’s accomplishments. …
“[O]verall, in the last decade [Mr. Chuktema’s] tenure has overseen modest but uncoordinated infrastructure improvements set against increased isolation and forcible displacement of the urban poor,” [NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut] Ms. [Nora] Lindstorm said, noting that since 2003, about 100,000 Phnom Penh residents have been displaced to relocation sites in and around Phnom Penh where access to employment, education healthcare and clean water is often limited.
“In sum, we have seen unregulated urbanization that has benefited a small strata of society and has increased spatial inequality. Phnom Penh today is more gridlocked, less green and less equitable than ten years ago,” she added.
In 2007, City Hall announced that it had leased 133 hectares of land surrounding and including Boeng Kak for almost $80 million to Shukaku Inc., a company owned by CPP senator Lao Meng Khin. The forced evictions that followed have given rise to the most high-profile land dispute in the country, as landless protesters from the Boeng Kak community have taken to the streets on an almost daily basis to demonstrate against what they say is a collusion between City Hall and Shukaku in illegally usurping their land without proper compensation. …
Still, Mr. Chutema’s focus on major construction projects and the beautification of Phnom Penh has attracted much needed investment, according to Nuon Rithy, the managing director of Bonna Realty, one of the city’s largest real estate firms. …
Others, however say the municipality over the past ten years has failed to tackle the rate at which the population is growing. According to Khem Ley, a socioeconomic researcher at the Advanced Research Consultant Team, an independent consultancy, Phnom Penh’s population is growing at a rate of almost 7.5 percent a year. …
In March, Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed concern for the failing state of Phnom Penh’s infrastructure during a meeting with the visiting mayor of Paris. He said the city’s expansion had led to electricity shortages, traffic jams, trash problems and an inadequate water supply system. …
The small but sleek Angkor Car can easily navigate the narrow streets of Cambodia, while with an electric engine saves on expensive fuel costs. It may cost $10,000 per vehicle, a bit steep for most local people, but the vehicle is a welcome testimony to Cambodian ingenuity.
And it is well timed as well, as Cambodia’s automotive sector is just beginning to make some noise. The number of cars that are registered with the government more than doubled since 2006 to 231,352 at the end of last year, according to data from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.
The tendency to buy high-end automobiles is also on the rise, growing 27% in 2011 compared to the year before, according to the World Bank. …
In fact, a number of distributors recorded growth in 2012 as Toyota Cambodia reportedly sold 800 units, up from 500 in 2011, while Ford recorded 15% growth in sales. …
Cambodia charges some of the highest import taxes on vehicles in the world. Whether you are a car distributor or somebody looking to ship in a vehicle from home, you will be will have to pay a 45% excise tax, a 35% import duty and a 10% added value tax on the value of any vehicle brought into the country. Those taxes compounded with logistics fees and other “informal costs” can bring the total cost of importing a car well over its original cost, making it almost impossible for some distributors of imported cars to turn a profit. …
Where the auto market has many dark corners, there is some light as high wage costs abroad have resulted in some manufactures establishing assembly plants in the country. Hyundai opened its $62-million assembly plant in Koh Kong’s special economic zone in January 2011, while Ford opened an assembly plant in Preah Sihanouk province last year able to produce 6,000 vehicles a year.
“When you look at China, the wages are far higher than they once were and if you look at neighbouring Thailand, the minimum wage is also higher, so in Cambodia, you are saving on wages between 75% and 80%, and those savings will go right into your bottom line,” Sharaf said.
Cambodia and Bangladesh on Friday signed a visa-free agreement for diplomatic and service passport holders in a bid to strengthen bilateral ties in politics, trade, investment and tourism, officials said.
The deal was inked here between Long Visalo, secretary of state at Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Kazi Imtiaz Hossain, Bangkok-based Ambassador of Bangladesh to Cambodia. …
Trade and investment ties between the two nations are relatively small. On tourism side, only 1,367 Bangladeshis visited Cambodia last year, up 4 percent year on year, said a tourism report.
Cambodia has so far signed mutual visa exemption agreements for diplomatic and official passport holders with all ASEAN member countries as well as India, China, South Korea, Australia, Iran, Pakistan, Cuba and Uruguay.
Five men working for Ratanakkiri rubber concessionaire DM Group, including a soldier, have been arrested for allegedly beating a villager and his children – one of whom, doctors say, may not survive – in a scuffle over their family’s land, the father said yesterday.
Police confirmed the beating and said the soldier would be sent to court today for questioning, while the four non-military suspects would be sent to be charged.
The father, 52-year-old Ry Sarun, said that on Saturday two bulldozers and 30 DM Group workers came to his land in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district – which had previously been measured and titled by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youth volunteers – and began to clear it. …
DM Group has been implicated in a slew of alleged abuses in its long-running land disputes in Ratanakkiri. Villagers have claimed to have been intimidated by the concessionaire, and observers have suggested that the company has used lawsuits to stifle dissent. …
Cambodia is considering offering sovereign bonds to raise more revenue for the national budget and move away from its dependence on overseas aid, a senior central bank official said Sunday.
National Bank of Cambodia director-general Nguon Sokha said the Ministry of Economy and Finance was currently looking at other countries’ experiences with bond markets and was seeking outside help to issue the government’s first bonds.
By issuing sovereign bonds governments can raise money from international investors that are usually paid back with interest at the end of a fixed term. …
Ms. Sokha said there was no set date for when the bonds might be issued, but officials were working on the plan with help from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and members of the Asean+3 group, which includes China, Japan and South Korea. …
Cambodia is set to graduate this year or next to a lower middle-income country but still qualifies for overseas development assistance and concessional loans from international institutions.
“For long term financing, we cannot really survive on development assistance,” Ms. Sokha said. …
Although Cambodia does not currently issue sovereign bonds, it has been assessed recently by credit rating agencies. The most recent assessment by Moody’s gave the country a stable but high-risk “B2” rating, which means Cambodia is deemed to have “very low economic resiliency.”
British sugar firm Tate & Lyle has denied knowing of the alleged abuses at two Cambodian plantations accused of illegally driving hundreds of families off their farms and says that the families have no right to ask the company for compensation, according to the firm’s official defense filed last week with the U.K.’s High Court of Justice.
Two hundred of those families, some of whom say they were shot and beaten when the plantation owners started evicting them in 2006, are suing Tate & Lyle for millions of dollars in compensation. In their claim, they say the land in Koh Kong province still belongs to them and that Tate & Lyle owes them some of the roughly $32 million worth of sugar it has since bought off that land and shipped home.
But Tate & Lyle, in its defense, refuses to admit that the families owned the land or that they ever lived or farmed there. It even refuses to admit that any of the sugar grown on the disputed 1,364 hectares since exports happened in 2010- through a deal it made with the Thai majority owners of the plantations-ever made it to the U.K.
An even if the families did own the land, Tate & Lyle argues, they gave up any right to compensation because they never paid the Thai plantation owners for the work they put into growing the sugar and because the act of processing the sugar cane had turned it into a different “species”. …
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t going expecting to look out the bus window and see all the blue bags along the roads and in the fields,” said 27-year-old Christopher Convery, who is currently backpacking for the first time in Cambodia. …
In 2010, Mr. Hun Sen lambasted the widespread use of plastic bags as a principle cause of flooding in Phnom Penh. Meetings were called, supermarkets were advised and appeals were made for the public to be educated about throwing away non-biodegradable waste that blocks the city’s drainage pipes. It spurred the then Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema to authorize police to fine people who they saw littering.
“Every day now we are issuing fines of up to 20,000 reil [about $5] to individuals and vendors,” said Em Sambath, chief of municipal public order, who adds that fines total about 2 million reil, or about $500 a month, which goes into the municipal budget. …
The government has made some progress in the past few years to reduce flooding in Phnom Penh, notably with a $350-million dollar drainage system funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). …
“The current [drainage] project we are assisting will finish in 2015 and is still ongoing…[it] will take some time for the system to be fully effective,” said Seng Solady, programme officer for JICA, “But we still consider garbage as a problem for Phnom Penh’s drainage system.”
The environmental implications of such consumption are well documented: Each plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade and as they do, they clog and contaminate soil, waterways and choke or poison animals. …
Tourism is also potentially suffering, with all the discarded rubbish leaving a negative impression on visitors that Cambodia is a dirty place. …
Implementing a tax on plastic bags to encourage people to reuse is another [alternative] answer. The Ministry of Environment is currently working with the Ministry of Tourism to get retailers to charge 500 reil for each plastic bag by 2015, according to Mr. Sam An at City Hall. …
“The agriculture sector today is still playing significant role in promoting local production growth, job creation, and contributing to the poverty reduction of the people. At the same time, the agriculture sector will continue the basic role for economic growth and socio-economic development in Cambodia in the coming decades although Cambodia has diversified her economy, including industrialization”, Samdech Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia said last week. …
“The growth in agricultural sector is not only improving our economy but also transforming the red dry land to become the green area in all seasons, as well as allowing our youths in rural area to be employed, reducing migration, and improving their livelihood.”
According to the report made by H.E Chan Sarun, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the agriculture sector has grown in average about 4.3% in 2012, in which the rice production was about 3 million hectares, and the land of 2.98 million hectares could be cultivated, and the average yield per year in both dry and rainy seasons is 3.117 tons per hectares. …
“We have also expected that this poverty rate will further decline to under 19% in 2013. In the future, we will try our best to drag down the poverty rate until the elimination of the poverty through the continued development of agriculture and economic diversification.” …
To impose no land tax is like helping them right in the field. For example, they need to spend one or two hundred thousand Riel per hectare as tax. “When we do not charge tax from them, they could use the money for something else, like purchasing a bicycle for their kids or other agricultural utensils.” …
Cambodia’s 35 microfinance institutions had lent 1 billion U.S. dollars to customers by the end of March this year, up 24 percent from 808 million U.S. dollars it lent at the end of last year, the data of Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) showed Wednesday.
On the deposit side, the customers’ deposits at microfinance institutions had amounted to 346 million U.S. dollars at the end of March this year, up 54 percent from 225 million U.S. dollars at the end of last year, the data said. …
The two-way trade volume between Cambodia and the United States valued at 758 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year, up only 0.8 percent compared with 752 million U.S. dollars over the same period last year, the statistics of the U.S. Department of Commerce showed Friday.
The United States is Cambodia’s largest export destination. During the January-March period this year, Cambodia’s exports to the U.S. were worth 695 million U.S. dollars, up 0.3 percent, while the country’s imports from the United States were 63 million U.S. dollars, up 7 percent, the report said. …
More than 50 engineers employed by Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Co. Ltd. to work on a new Neak Loueng Bridge in Kandal province protested on Wednesday over paying income tax of 10 percent and are threatening to go on strike again if their employer dose not pay them back.
The Labor Day celebration by 54 engineers in Loeuk Dek district is the latest in a series of protests by workers who are reluctant to pay tax on their salaries and comes as pressure is rising on the government to become less reliant on donor aid and collect more in tax revenue. …
Garment workers who make more than $125 a month through working overtime have also held protects over a 5 percent tax deduction and insisted that factories should be responsible for it.
Still, collecting taxes is a priority for the government. The International Monetary Fund warned earlier this year that the government’s tax revenue is not increasing proportionally to the country’s gross domestic product growth. …
Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav are all subsidiaries of HAGL, according to the company’s 2012 annual report.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas and Hoang Anh Lumphat’s concessions lie inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which rights groups have said is being decimated by illegal loggers who then bring the wood onto company land.
Very similarly named companies – including one called Hoang An Andong Meas, which has a 9,775-hectare concession inside Virachey National Park – operate elsewhere in the province.
Article 59 of the Land Law stipulates individuals or legal entities controlled by the same person cannot hold more than 10,000 hectares of ELCs, even if it is spread over multiple concessions. …
The Boeung Kak community and a land rights NGO yesterday released a proposed demarcation plan they say could solve the long-standing land dispute.
In a map presented yesterday, villagers said they had agreed on a land division that would make room for 70 families locked out of a plot created by the government and set aside for hundreds of families. …
The Ministry of Commerce has released figures showing Cambodia’s export of fishery goods including fresh and dried fish products have decreased drastically in the first quarter of the year, though several government officials viewed the figures with scepticism.
Cambodia exported 49.9 tonnes of fish products in the first quarter of the year a sizable drop from the 620.14 tonnes exported over the same period in 2012, the ministry’s data showed. …
Om Savath, executive director of Cambodia’s Fish Action Coalition Team, said that in general fishery production had declined this year, as the government had reduced the number of fishing lots throughout the country. …
Cambodia Angkor Air is planning rapid fleet and network expansion as competition intensifies in the Cambodian market. The Cambodian flag carrier is expected to more than double its fleet by the end of 2015 and launch services to several new markets, including mainland China, Hong Kong, India and South Korea. Cambodia Angkor Air was established in 2009 as a joint venture with Vietnam Airlines but remains one of the smallest flag carriers in Southeast Asia, only operating domestically and to two neighbouring countries.
Cambodia Angkor Air has already seen its most dramatic expansion in its four-year history, launching three international routes over the last six months. Further rapid expansion of Cambodia Angkor Air and the planned launch of a second Cambodian scheduled carrier that will be affiliated with Philippine Airlines (PAL) should lead to more rapid growth in the Cambodian market. The Cambodian passenger market grew by 18% in 2012 and by 21% in 1Q2013, based on figures from Cambodia Airports. …
Cambodia Angkor Air currently accounts for only 15% of international capacity in Cambodia, lower than the home market penetration of any Southeast Asian flag carrier. It is also the smallest of Southeast Asia’s flag carriers based on fleet size and the second smallest based on seat capacity. …
Cambodia Angkor Air currently operates a fleet of three A321s and two ATR 72s to only three domestic and three international destinations. It has a smaller share of capacity in Cambodia’s international market than close partner and shareholder Vietnam Airlines. Its 15% share is also only slightly larger than the 11% share from Bangkok Airways and AirAsia. …
Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements last month, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. Over the last few years, Cambodia has emerged as a major rice exporter in the region, due in large part to the Royal Government of Cambodia’s recent expansion of its agricultural sector. …
Agriculture, led by rice farming, contributes to roughly a third of the country’s GDP and has immense potential for strengthening Cambodia’s economic growth, accelerating poverty reduction, and improving the living standard of its citizens. As part of this agenda, in 2010, the RGC adopted a new Policy Paper on Paddy Production and Rice Export, better known as the Rice Policy, to promote diversification of Cambodia’s economic sectors by catalyzing growth in paddy rice production and milled rice export to match the growth seen in the garment and service sectors. In his keynote address at the policy’s launch, Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen said: “The policy aims to ensure that we grab the rare opportunity to develop Cambodia in the post global financial and economic cataclysm.” …
Poor transport and infrastructure such as roads, railways, warehouses, and handling equipment also increase costs for farmers. To transport one ton of rice on a 100 km road, Cambodian farmers must spend $15, while their counterparts in Thailand and Vietnam pay $4 and $7.50, respectively. The lack of handling equipment in one of the main ports, the Sihanouk-Ville Port, is also a major constraint for the export of large quantities of milled rice. In addition, lack of access to and high cost of credit decreases domestic economic value-added and hinders milled rice export, presenting an obstacle for rice millers to stockpile paddy rice. …
The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) last month signed a prakas, a ministerial decision, to ensure tax agents’ professionalism, an insider told the Post yesterday. …
After the full implementation of Prakas 455, signed on April 12, agents have to pay one million riel to obtain a licence every two years. They need to be at least 18 years old, have a relevant qualification or record of study of at least six months and a clean criminal record.
Professionals also need to pass an examination, unless they already have a professional document from the MEF or the Kampuchea Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Auditors (KICPAA), or are former tax officials. …
Thousands of Cambodian people visited and bought Thai products on Thursday at a large scale exhibition although simmering border spat between the two countries remains unsolved.
“Even though border dispute is still going on, trade and investment ties between Thailand and Cambodia are still good,” Amparwon Pichalai, deputy director general of Thai commerce ministry’s international trade promotion department, told reporters before attending the opening of the Thai trade fair 2013 at the Diamond Island Exhibition Center in Phnom Penh. …
Mao Thora, secretary of state at Cambodian Ministry of Commerce, said it was a positive sign that the two countries have been working closely to improve the bilateral trade relations. …
More economic activity and a better understanding of using formal financial services among rural residents are leading to good loan performance rates and increases in savings deposits in Cambodia’s microfinance industry, according to industry sources.
The loan portfolios of the 35 registered microfinance institutions (MFI) and four NGOs that are members of the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) reached $1 billion at the end of March, a 41 per cent increase from a year earlier, according to recent figures from the CMA.
Deposits made at seven microfinance institutions that are licensed to take deposits (MDIs) reached $346 million, a 145 per cent increase over the past 12 months. …
