Walmart and H&M Suppliers Pay Workers at Closed Cambodia Plant
March 2nd, 2013, Bloomberg, Business & Commercial Development, Foreign Investment, Garment Industry, Industry, International Relations, Labor
Suppliers to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) agreed yesterday to pay about $145,000 in back wages and severance to about 160 workers at a Cambodian factory that closed in November, a labor activist involved in the deal said.
The agreement, which followed a two-day hunger strike, was reached at a meeting yesterday in Phnom Penh that included representatives from Wal-Mart, H&M and their suppliers, Saramax Apparel Group Inc. and New Archid Garment Factory Ltd., said David Welsh, country director in Cambodia of Solidarity Center, a Washington-based international worker rights group. …
Cambodia is the eighth-largest apparel producer for the U.S. market, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Saramax will pay about $100,000 to the workers and New Archid will pay about $45,000, Welsh said. Workers will begin receiving the payments in the coming weeks, [David Welsh] said. …
Renee Dudley
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-02/wal-mart-and-h-m-suppliers-pay-workers-at-closed-cambodia-plant.html
IMF Says Cambodia to Reach 7.5% Growth in Medium Term
January 9th, 2013, Bloomberg, Economics, News Source
The International Monetary Fund said it expects economic growth in Cambodia to reach its potential of 7.5 percent in the medium term.
The Washington-based IMF forecast growth of 6.7 percent this year, up from an estimated 6.5 percent in 2012, in its annual assessment of the country’s economy published today. …
Sandrine Rastello
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-08/imf-says-cambodia-to-reach-7-5-growth-in-medium-term.html
Manulife Enters Cambodia Market With Phnom Penh Office
June 28th, 2012, Bloomberg, Banking & Finance, Business & Commercial Development, Domestic Investment, Economics, Foreign Investment, Industry, International Relations
Manulife Financial Corp. (MFC), Canada’s largest insurer, has opened an office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, its first in the Southeast Asian nation.
Manulife has about 40 people in its Cambodian unit, the Toronto-based insurer said today in a statement. …
Sean B. Pasternak
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/manulife-enters-cambodia-market-with-phnom-penh-office.html
Levi’s, Gap garment workers on strike in Cambodia
May 23rd, 2012, Bloomberg
Workers at a large Cambodian garment factory that makes clothes for Levi’s, Gap and other well-known international brands are striking for more pay and better working conditions.
More than 5,000 workers from the Singaporean-owned SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd. failed to reach an agreement with their employers Tuesday to end an 11-day strike. …
Sopheng Cheng
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-05/D9UTQ5M80.htm
Cambodia’s stock market begins trading
April 18th, 2012, Bloomberg, Economics, Stock Exchange
Trading on Cambodia’s stock exchange has begun for the first time after a state-run company completed its initial public offering.
Some 13 million shares of the state-run Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority were offered at 6,300 riel ($1.57) per share.
The stock exchange was officially launched in July 2011, but trading only began Wednesday, a delay blamed in part on time needed to finalize investment laws. …
Associated Press
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U75EVO0.htm
Cambodia May Lure Up to 10 IPOs a Year, Korea Bourse Says
April 14th, 2012, Bloomberg, Economics, Foreign Investment
Cambodia’s stock market, which is set to open next week after several delays, may be able to lure five-to-10 initial public offerings a year, according to Korea Exchange Inc., the Cambodian government’s partner in the bourse.
State-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) will start trading on April 18, while Telecom Cambodia and Sihanoukville Autonomous Port are preparing to go public…
Saeromi Shin
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-12/cambodia-may-lure-up-to-10-ipos-a-year-korea-bourse-says.html
Templeton Cautions Investors Riding Myanmar, Cambodia Growth
April 1st, 2012, Bloomberg, Business & Commercial Development, Foreign Investment, Infrastructure, Stock Exchange
Investors should be cautious when pursuing the opportunities for growth present in Myanmar and Cambodia, Southeast Asia’s frontier markets, Templeton Asset Management Ltd. said. …
In Cambodia, state-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority will have its initial public offering this month, making it the first to be traded on the stock exchange that opened last July without a single listed company. The Cambodian government has said it wants to spur economic development by selling off state- owned companies and encouraging private enterprises to expand with new funding.
Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion in emerging- markets assets as executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, has said he’s watching the Cambodian railroad industry “with particular interest.” …
Shamim Adam
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-31/templeton-cautions-investors-riding-myanmar-cambodia-growth
China’s Hu Visits Cambodia as Asean Leaders Eye Sea Disputes
March 30th, 2012, Bloomberg, International Relations
President Hu Jintao today becomes the first Chinese head of state to visit Cambodia in 12 years, in a trip days before Southeast Asian leaders gather for talks that may touch on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Hu’s visit, which lasts until April 2, will deepen ties between Cambodia and China, its largest investor, the official Xinhua news agency reported March 27, citing the country’s ambassador in Phnom Penh, the capital. China appreciates Cambodia’s support on core interests, the report said, adding that China opposes outside interference on the South China Sea. …
Vietnam and the Philippines have pushed the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations to take a common position regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where Exxon Mobil Corp. and Talisman Energy Inc. (TLM) are searching for oil and gas. Cambodia holds the bloc’s rotating chairmanship. …
Daniel Ten Kate
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-30/china-s-hu-visits-cambodia-as-asean-leaders-eye-sea-disputes.html
Cambodia rejoins the world of stocks
March 19th, 2012, Bloomberg, Economics, Foreign Investment, Stock Exchange
Enthusiasm about the start of trading at the exchange, which opened last July without a single listed company, extends beyond the borders of the Southeast Asian country. Investors including Templeton Emerging Markets Group Chairman Mark Mobius said they plan to participate in Cambodia’s stock market after state-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority has its initial public offering next month. …
Demand for Phnom Penh Water’s shares is more than 10 times the amount available, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the IPO. The company, which plans to raise as much as 82.8 billion riel ($20 million), held a two-week roadshow in the nation’s capital starting Feb. 29 with about 400 potential investors crammed into a conference hall with seating capacity for half that number. …
With two dozen computers in an air-conditioned room on the 25th floor of Phnom Penh’s tallest office building, Cambodia Securities Exchange Co. is a joint venture with Korea Exchange, the operator of the Seoul bourse. …
Asia’s Newest Stock Market Is Risk to Investors, Sam Rainsy Says
February 9th, 2012, Bloomberg, Banking & Finance, Foreign Investment
Investors in Cambodia, tied with Yemen as the world’s 164th-cleanest country for doing business, face risks in a planned stock market because of ineffective financial and legal systems, the country’s exiled opposition leader said.
“Among the little dragons of Southeast Asia, Cambodia is the least encouraging,” Sam Rainsy, 62, a former fund manager with Banque Paribas and ex-Cambodian finance minister, said in an interview in Paris. “The country needs a much longer period of preparation in terms of company accounts and corporate governance. Investors risk paying for nothing.”
Cambodia’s stock exchange may open as early as April, listing a state-run port, telecommunications operator, and manager of the capital’s water system, according to partner Korea Exchange Inc. Developing a capital market may lessen reliance on aid, equivalent to a tenth of the nation’s $11 billion economy, and the government says it has delayed starting the bourse until conditions are right.
“Frontier markets need not be perfect democracies to be lucrative investments,” said Douglas Clayton, chief executive officer of Leopard Capital, whose $34 million Leopard Cambodia Fund invests in closely held companies. “China and Vietnam are one-party states but at certain times those countries have been very good places to invest.”
David Whitehouse
Rice Jumps Exchange Limit to One-Month High on Asia Flood Damage
October 25th, 2011, Bloomberg, Business & Commercial Development, Disasters & Disaster Management
Rice futures jumped the most permitted by the Chicago Board of Trade, advancing to a one- month high, as flood damage to crops in Southeast Asia boosted prospects for U.S. exports.
Storms since September damaged 12.5 percent of paddies in Thailand, the world’s largest exporter, and crops in the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization said in a report dated Oct. 21. Floods and drought will cut U.S. output by 23 percent in the season that ends July 31, the government said Oct. 12. Prices have rallied 11 percent in the past two weeks.
“Thailand won’t be able to export as much, which will drive business to the U.S.,” Dennis DeLaughter, the owner of Progressive Farm Marketing Inc. in Edna, Texas, said in a telephone interview. “The U.S. doesn’t have very much rice yet, so it will pop up prices. We’re talking about some world trade shortages.”….
Blair Euteneuer and Luzi Ann Javier
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/rice-jumps-to-one-month-high-on-southeast-asia-crop-losses.html