Cambodia’s total exports to Thailand sharply increased in the first quarter of the year, according to official data from Ministry of Commerce received by the Post last week.
Officials said the rise is the result of efforts by both countries to improve trade facilitation and economic relations.
According to the data, total... continue
The Asian Development Bank has refused to release a critical study on the impacts its $141.6 million railway project is having on thousands of Cambodian families because disclosure of the report could hurt its relationship with the government, an ADB spokeswoman said.
Raising concerns about the ADB’s decision to bury the report‘s findings, housing rights groups released a statement yesterday criticizing the banks lack of transparency and public accountability. …
After having its initial request for access to the report denied, Inclusive Development International (IDI) appealed to the ADB’s Public Disclosure Advisory Committee on February 16. The ADB committee informed IDI that its appeal has also been rejected on Friday.
“ADB has long recognized that transparency and accountability are essential to development effectiveness and ADB’s ability to achieve its vision of an Asia and Pacific free of poverty,” ADB spokeswoman Ann Quon said in the letter.
But releasing Dr. Cernea’s findings on the rail project, Ms. Quon said, would further delay a project that is already behind schedule and over budget, damage the ADB’s long term relationship with the government, and “compromise the integrity of the of ADB’s deliberative decision-making process.” …
Both the ADB and the Australian government’s foreign aid arm co-funding the project, AusAid, have sold the railway’s rebirth as a key of bringing down the cost of transport and doing business across the country.
They have also placed the responsibility for the roughly 1,200 families the project will ultimately see evicted on the government, while pledging extra money to help the families supplement their diminished incomes after eviction. …
Newly-Appointed Director General of the state-owned Telecom Cambodia (TC) Kim Vikra vowed Monday to enhance the enterprise’s governance in order to improve business operations and revenues.
“I am committed to working with all colleagues in order to lead the enterprise to progress,”he said at his official appointment ceremony.”I will enhance the firm’s governance through improving accountability, transparency and high responsibilities.” …
Kim Vikra succeeded the firm’s ex-director general Lao Sareoun, who was removed from the post on Feb. 14 after more than 300 staff staged a protest, claiming that millions of dollars had gone missing from the company’s accounts and calling for Lao Saroeun to be sacked.
However, at a ceremony on Monday, Lao Sareoun was promoted as undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication. …
TC is one of the state-owned enterprises that plan to list on the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX). However, the listing plan will be postponed indefinitely due to poor financial performance …
At Cambodia’s first ever international motor show over the weekend, top-end car manufactures including Mercedez-Benz, BMW and Ford presented their luxury range of SUV’s, sedans pickup trucks and motorbikes. …
Vehicle imports to Cambodia, which include cars, trucks and motorcycles, more than doubled to 1.9 million units last year and roads in urban areas have become extremely congested as car sales in the country have grown.
But car manufactures said that many of the cars on the road are second hand and imported by independent car dealers, a trend that is hampering the domestic market for new automobile sales. …
Pily Wong, cofounder of the Cambodia Automotive Industry Federation (CAIF) and CEO of Hung Hiep (Cambodia) Co. Ltd, a Mercedez-Benz dealership, said, “Second-hand cars unfit to be on the road in other countries come into Cambodia often sliced in three pieces under the label scrap metal. The cars are then put together in the roadside repair shops. This saves importers money on tax.” …
“The industry growth in Myanmar and Vietnam has put a lot of pressure on the Cambodian automotive business and we hope will create enough buzz to fight for more regulation and make us winners,” he said. …
About 200 former employees of bankrupt mobile phone operator Mfone yesterday protested outside the company’s shuttered offices, asking for the help of Prime Minister Hun Sen in the fight to get more than $4 million in compensation from the company. …
Mfone declared itself insolvent in January and is the subject of a number of complaints from competitors, who say they are owed connection fees, and customers stuck with worthless top-up vouchers. …
Another disgruntled former employee, Neoun Sam At, a former salesman for Mfone said that Thiacom PLC, Mfone’s parent company, and its subsidiary Shenington Investement Pte.Ltd., which is Mfone’s official owner should take responsibility for the debts. …
Around half of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species, including the Bengal Florican. They are also a vital fishing, grazing, and traditional rice farming resource for around 1.1 million people. …
The grassland area spanned 3349 km² in 1995, but by 2005 it had been reduced to just 1817 km² – a loss of 46 per cent.
Despite conservation efforts in some areas, it has continued to shrink rapidly since, with a further 19 per cent lost in four years (2005-2009) from the key remaining grassland area in the southeast of the Tonle Sap floodplain.
Factors include intensive commercial rice farming with construction of irrigation channels, which is often illegal. Some areas have also been lost to scrubland where traditional, low-intensity agricultural activity has been abandoned. …
As night falls in Phonm Penh, thousands of weary workers stream from textile factories, reflecting the abundance of jobs created by the clothing industry’s desire for cheap labor.
However, as the number of international clothes companies tapping into Cambodia’s workforce grows, so does anger at the low wages and tough conditions that come with such employment in the global garment industry. …
A series of strikes point to festering discontent — leaving the big global clothes brands and the factories they subcontract to trade accusations over who is driving salaries down.
Protests by workers have also turned ugly. Three women, employees of Puma supplier Kaoway Sports, were wounded when a gunman opened fire on protesters demanding better working conditions at factories in eastern Svay Rieng Province in February last year.
The International Labour Office, which regularly inspects textile mills in the country, has called for a new industrial agreement between the government, factory owners and unions.
“Clearly there is some room for additional payment,” the group’s Jill Tucker said, adding that after Bangladesh, Cambodia is one of the cheapest places to make garments. …
“If our wages were comparable to Vietnam, would investors come to Cambodia? No way,” said Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia.
State-owned fixed-line company Telecom Cambodia’s (TC) plan to join the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) has been postponed indefinitely because of its poor financial performance, reports The Phnom Penh Post. The company will need to redesign its business plan to improve operations, said Sarak Khan, secretary of state at the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. …
It will be worse still when the transit fee, a major source of revenue for TC, is deducted from this year, added Khan. According to Khan, revenue from transit fees account for about USD 17 million annually, more than 50 percent of TC’s total revenues. …
Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) director general Ming Bankosal said any company that fails to make a net profit in the last three years of operation will be barred from joining the country’s bourse …
Dotted with rice fields flanked by palm trees, Cambodia’s southeastern province of Kampong Speu is nothing short of picturesque.
But behind the idyllic exterior is an on-going struggle to turn this region’s natural beauty into a global attraction and improve the lot of poor local farmers, as the neighbouring beachside Kampot province did just three years ago.
Back in 2009, Kampot became to Cambodia what Champagne is to France – a region bestowed with the prestigious Geographical Indication (GI) status, which ensures a higher market value for specialty produce. …
Here in Kampot, farmers supplying European gourmets with what is lauded as the best pepper in the world enjoy a higher daily wage than their counterparts in this Southeast Asian nation of 14 million people, 30 percent of whom live on less than a dollar a day. …
Sun Somnang of the export company Starling Farm and a member of both the Kampot Pepper Promotion Association (KPPA) and the Kampong Speu Palm Sugar Promotion Association (KPSA) believes there is an urgent need to publicise palm sugar and attract tourists.
Experts like Somnang and government officials seek to improve farmers’ lives in Kampong Speu, where the average gross annual income is 500 to 1,000 dollars. …
After years of discussion, the Cambodian and Thai governments on Tuesday agreed at the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Co-operation Strategy (ACMECS) summit in Laos to establish a Cambodian-Thai Business Council in a bid to enhance trade and investment between the ASEAN neighbours after a decline in the past few years.
Nguon Meng Tech, director general of Cambodia Chamber of Commerce (CCC) told the Post on Thursday, after his return from the two-day meeting of Mekong-area countries, that the president of the CCC and Thailand’s Chamber of Commerce had signed a memorandum of understanding, witnessed by both prime ministers, in Laos’s capital, Vientiane, on Tuesday. …
State-owned Telecom Cambodia lost more than $40 million during the five-year tenure of director general Lao Saroeun, who is now set to move into a new government job despite an investigation into alleged corruption at the company, officials said yesterday. …
Speaking at the annual meeting of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, Secretary of State Sarack Khan said that in 2012, Telecom Cambodia- which provides commercial phone and internet services- made losses of more than $10 million. In 2011 the company lost $14 million. …
According to staff, the company also lost more than $17 million between 2008-when Mr.Sarouen took over as director general- and 2010. …
[Mr. Kahn] said the overcrowded telecommunications market, in which there are now six competing companies after a series of bankruptcies and mergers, meant that prices had been driven too low.
Despite the tough market, the company had been named as the candidate to be listed on the Cambodian Securities Exchange. …
La Narath, a secretary of state at the Telecommunications Ministry, said that Kim Vikra, who stepped in as acting director –general as Mr. Saroeun went off sick, will be officially appointed to the position during a ceremony next week. …
NagaCorp, a gaming and entertainment hotel complex operator in Cambodia, has raised HK$1.21 billion ($156 million) from a top-up placement, after fixing the price at the bottom of the indicative range. The deal was launched at around 6pm yesterday in Hong Kong time, and the books were closed after about three-and-a-half hours.
Due to strong demand, the size of the deal was increased to 200 million shares from 193 million shares. The deal, which received good support from existing shareholders and a couple of large orders, ended up well oversubscribed, a source said last night. It attracted demand from investors in Asia, the US and Europe, the person noted.
The NagaCorp group owns, manages and operates the largest integrated gaming and entertainment hotel complex in Cambodia, called NagaWorld, according to the company’s earnings statement. NagaWorld is the only licensed casino in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, and features a world-class 660-room hotel, 15 food and beverage outlets, a nightclub, a karaoke lounge, and a spa. …
Tourist arrivals in Cambodia continued to significantly outpace worldwide tourism growth by recording an increase of 24% to 3.2 million visitors in the first 11 months of 2012, compared to the same period in 2011, it said. …
CAMBODIA’S indirect trade and investments with India are possibly worth almost five times more than its direct economic activities, a situation deemed “unfavourable” to the country, an industry expert said yesterday.
Direct trade and investments between the two countries hit a record $112 million last year, 20 per cent more than 2011, said Indian Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) President, Debasish Pattnaik.
But indirect activities, conducted through a third-party, “could be easily worth around $500 million,” said Manish Singhal, assistant secretary-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). …
While India also largely trades indirectly with countries like Myanmar and Vietnam, Cambodia’s ratio of direct versus indirect activities is “very, very unfavourable”, Singhal said.
Without a middleman, there is “greater possibility of business growth”, he said, because importing costs can drop eight to 15 per cent. Also, when problems arise, having direct connections with the exporter would enable better solutions, because “the middleman is not your friend”, he added.
Such indirect activities, said Dinesh Pattnaik, is one reason why India’s direct trade and investments with Cambodia remain low, compared to that with ASEAN, valued currently at about $80 billion. …
The government approved 103 factories with a combined investment of $660 million last year a big increase from the previous year’s 52 factories valued at $230 million, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia.
Industry representatives and economists said the sharp rise was a result of minimum wage increases in some other countries in the region. …
According to Council for the Development of Cambodia data, 82 garment factories with a capital investment of $499 million were approved, as were 13 shoe factories with $116 million investment, two sock factories supported with $25 million, four textile manufacturers with $9 million and two glove factories with $10 million invested.
In 2011, investments in 45 garment factories were worth $205 million, and $25 million was invested in seven shoe factories. …
Cambodia’s garment workers, and some unions, have demanded an increase in the minimum wage from the present $61 a month. Many meetings between GMAC, unions and government officials have failed to reach a consensus. …
Cambodia’s footwear industry has experienced significant growth over the past five years, with the number of factories doubling, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. Meanwhile, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has announced it will monitor and report on footwear factories.
As of November, 45 factories exported footwear with a combined value of $268.7 million, according to estimates of the Ministry of Commerce. …
A lack of trade financing – the loans and guarantees needed to support import and export transactions – for international deals within developing Asian countries such as Cambodia is restricting opportunities for growth, a survey by the Asia Development Bank (ADB) has found.
Of 106 banks surveyed, those within developing Asian economies had rejected $425 billion of a potential $2.1 trillion requested in trade finance in 2011. …
ADB deputy country director Peter Brimble said trade finance is critical in supporting the export transactions of Cambodian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which do not have access to financing from parent companies abroad. …
Cambodian-based SME-development consultant Lun Yeng said that SMEs would need support from government and multi-national development banks to assist with the capital needed to acquire funding. …
Brimble said Cambodian exporters are not used to accessing trade finance, while Cambodian banks often perceive it as too risky to lend.
In partnership with ACLEDA Bank, the ADB fills trade finance gaps by providing guarantees or loans themselves.
Thanks to seasonal demand, the price of rubber has increased from 2012’s year-end prices. But it was still slightly lower than at this time last year, a rubber-plantation owner said yesterday.
Mak Kimhong, president of the Cambodia Rubber Association and owner of the Chhop Rubber Plantation in Kampong Cham province, told the Post dried rubber prices had increased from about $2,700 a tonne in November and December to $3,100 a tonne this month. …
In 2012, Cambodia exported 54,000 tonnes of dried rubber, up 16.6 per cent from 46,700 tonnes in 2011.
The total value of 2012 exports, however, dropped 21.2 per cent to $158 million from $201 million in 2011, according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce. …
Just 6 percent of 12,006 commercial freight vehicles passed recent road safety inspections, while an estimated 70 percent of car drivers bought their driving licenses illegally from private driving schools, a meeting at the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation was told yesterday.
Many of the commercial transport vehicles failed safety inspections due to the use of makeshift parts to extend truck beds to enable them to carry loads beyond their actual capacity, while others used out-of-date tires or did not have properly working lights on their vehicles. …
Transporting trucks will be required to install GPS satellite navigation systems, Touch Chankosal, secretary of state at the Ministry of Transportation, said at the meeting, which followed after a call by Prime Minister Hun Sen to review enforcement of regulations of transport trucks. …
Mr. Maly also said that his ministry would get serious about proper licensing of drivers, and would prosecute driving schools that simply issued licenses for a fee without any driving instructions or tests. …
More than a thousand garment workers went on strike yesterday morning to demand a minimum wage increase and better working conditions, following the failure of minimum wage negotiations between unions and employers on Monday. …
Some 600 workers in Kandal province yesterday protested in front of the Sixplus Industry factory, an Adidas supplier. …
About 1,000 workers at the E Cheng Cambodia Cooperation factory in Takeo province also protested yesterday to demand a minimum wage increase to $80 and other benefits.
Senior representatives for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and ASEAN met here Tuesday and issued a joint statement highlighting their agreement to forge stronger mutual investment, trade, transport and scientific cooperation links.
The joint statement was released at the conclusion of the 6th annual Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV) Summit, which was chaired by Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and attended by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Vice President of Myanmar Mauk Kham, Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Tan Dung and Secretary- General of ASEAN Le Luong Minh. …
The joint statement called for enhanced cooperation in exchanging information and technology and joint research in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, livestock, animal health and husbandry, aquaculture, industry and energy. …
