Abused women’s support services to expand
May 22nd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Labor, News Source, Social Concerns
Helping women find better employment opportunities is key to ensuring they feel able to report rape and sexual abuse, government and civil society representatives said yesterday.
Although Cambodian courts are prosecuting an increasing number of cases involving violence against women, economic concerns stop many from reporting all but the most extreme abuse, officials said. …
As part of the action plan, the ministry hopes to expand a program of one-stop service centres currently based in Siem Reap and Kampong Thom provinces, which offer victims healthcare, legal and social consultation and career training. …
Justine Drennan and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265772/National/abused-women-s-support-services-to-expand.html
Officials in ‘contract’ farms drive
May 22nd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Banking & Finance, Borrowing, Business & Commercial Development, Domestic Investment, Farming, Financial Services, Foreign Aid, News Source, Technical Assistance
Officials are seeking expert firms to implement projects on so-called contract farming and the enhancement of the involvement of farmers’ organisations in paddy collecting and processing, officials said.
Contract farming is an agreement on agricultural production carried out between a farmer and buyers, which establishes conditions for the production and marketing of a farm product or products. …
Mao Thora, secretary of state for the Ministry of Commerce, said Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) provided €6 million ($7.7 million) for projects including contract farming and providing loans. …
Rann Reuy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265766/Business/officials-in-contract-farms-drive.html
Dad ‘Threatened’ by Court
May 22nd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Land Tenure, News Source
The father of three youths allegedly beaten by DM Group workers earlier this month said court officers yesterday threatened to imprison him if he did not agree to compromise with the company and drop the case.
Ry Sarun appeared at Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday to answer questions about his claims that DM Group employees attacked his three children while they were attempting to stop them clearing the family’s land. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265776/National/dad-threatened-by-court.html
Trafficked numbers rising
May 22nd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, International Relations, Labor, News Source, Social Concerns
Their stories have become all too familiar – Cambodian fishermen enslaved on fishing boats after being promised lucrative jobs overseas. They’re also becoming increasingly common.
Anti-trafficking NGOs told the Post this week that they have noticed an exponential increase in the number of trafficking complaints from fishermen trapped abroad.
In the past two years, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) aided in the repatriation of just over 100 Cambodians. But in just the first five months of 2013, the IOM has assisted in the return of 63 Cambodians – mostly from Malaysia, Indonesia and Mauritius. …
Two weeks ago, Taiwanese national Lin Yu Shin, 53, was arrested in Siem Reap on charges of trafficking Cambodians onto Taiwanese fishing trawlers off the coast of Africa.
According to the Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies, Lin’s company – Giant Ocean International Fishery – had already been operating for several years before it obtained its Ministry of Labour licence in 2009, and was part of a bigger network that dealt with partners in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), estimates the company trafficked some 1,000 Cambodians. …
Danson Cheong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265773/National/trafficked-numbers-rising.html
Standards Building Up Safety Fears
May 22nd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Garment Industry, Industry, Infrastructure, Labor, News Source, Social Concerns
When a 100-metre-long section of a Phnom Penh garment factory crumpled in on itself like a cheap pup tent, Sen Sok district officials promised an investigation. …
The results of that investigation, which was to have taken place more than a year ago, in March 2012, were never made public, and officials at the time refused to release the names of those who owned the land the building sat on or the firm responsible for its construction. …
As one long-time real estate consultant put it: “It’s really waiting for the disasters to happen.”
Yesterday morning, on the sidelines of a conference on national industrial relations, a Ministry of Labor official reiterated Social Affairs Minister Ith Sam Heng promise to inspect all of Cambodia’s factories. …
According to the consultant, foreign construction companies who are accustomed to high levels of oversight often maintain those standards when operating in Cambodia. …
“You may have a system in place, you may have a procedure in place, but it may all be hollow. It may just be a show,” he continued. “So even if there is a department in the construction department or the ministry – at the minute there isn’t one – but even if there is one, it’s hard to tell how this country really enforces all that construction safety.”
Van Thol, vice president of the Building and Wood Workers Trade Union Federation of Cambodia (BWTUC), said that while he believes there are inspectors, he doesn’t necessarily believe they do their job. …
“Licensed construction companies are hired by a factory to do its construction, but those licensed firms rent out other, smaller, unlicensed construction firms to build it, and they don’t really follow the standards,” he said. …
Stuart White and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265780/National/standards-building-up-safety-fears.html
Fear Remains as Factory Reopens
May 21st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Disasters & Disaster Management, Garment Industry, Industry, Labor, News Source, Social Concerns
More than 20 people fainted yesterday at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu province, where two workers were crushed to death in a ceiling collapse last Thursday.
Workers and union officials said an electrical short-circuit scared workers returning for the first time since the tragedy.
Hong Seng Lim, president of the Development Movement Union of Cambodia Labour at Wing Star, said 21 workers were taken to hospital, but their conditions weren’t serious.
“An electric short-circuit made a loud noise, scaring workers and causing them to run out of the factory.”
Wing Star, a supplier to Japanese brand Asics, allowed its 7,000 workers the rest of the day off, Seng Lim said. …
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165744/National/fear-remains-as-factory-reopens.html
Solar panels see sunny times ahead
May 21st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Banking & Finance, Borrowing, Business & Commercial Development, Domestic Investment, Economics, Electricity, Energy, Financial Services, News Source, Solar Power
Officials and business people say solar panels are gaining in popularity in rural areas, where the power grid does not reach.
Mao Sangat, director of Solar Energy Cambodia, told the Post yesterday that his company saw increases of installation of solar power systems for families whose children worked abroad and remitted money to their parents.
He said that so far, there were no huge projects to equip solar panel systems in public places such as schools or hospitals in rural areas supported by NGOs, but solar panels were selling well to families in three provinces – Kampong Cham, Prey Veng and Svay Rieng. …
Yiang Tal, chief of administration of Rural Electrification of Cambodia, said Electricity of Cambodia (EDC) provided $4 million for the Department of Rural Electrification Fund (REF) this year for providing loans to villagers and private electricity providers for implementing rural electricity development. …
He said that more than $1 million had gone to providing loans to private electricity providers to connect lines to rural homes, and all the connected families were required to pay back over two or three years without interest charges. …
Rann Reuy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165730/Business/solar-panels-see-sunny-times-ahead.html
Homeowners petition ADB
May 21st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Disputed Land, Foreign Aid, Infrastructure, Land Tenure, News Source, Technical Assistance
The occupants of 90 Phnom Penh households whose homes were partially or completely dismantled to make way for the Railway Rehabilitation Project partly funded by the ADB have demanded the bank offer them fair compensation.
In a letter submitted to the Inter-Ministerial Resettlement Committee, the ADB, the National Assembly and the Ministry of Economy and Finance yesterday, the villagers argued they had been unfairly locked out of compensation due to technicalities despite valid claims.
Luy Im, a representative of 23 complainants from Toul Sangke A, said she received only $100 in compensation after the front of her house was destroyed in 2011 to accommodate the works. …
The complainants, who include six households from Phum III and 65 from Tapeang Anhchanh, want the IRC to intervene because their compensation requests through one avenue of the ADB’s accountability mechanism have been rejected on the grounds that they were accepted via another. …
Mom Kunthear and David Boyle
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165738/National/homeowners-petition-adb.html
Luxury rosewood bust
May 21st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, News Source, Timber/Wood
Nearly three tonnes of illegally logged rosewood was seized during a raid on the home of a former military police officer in Stung Treng province yesterday.
Provincial deputy prosecutor Sun Yeut, who took part in a multi-departmental raid that included police and Forestry Administration officials, said the seized luxury wood had been sent to the local forestry office but that no arrests had been made. …
Kim Sarom
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165743/National/luxury-rosewood-bust.html
Scepticism over government statistics
May 21st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, News Source
Getting reliable statistical data remains a challenge for Cambodia’s government, as a lack of cooporation among the ministries and corruption still distort what is reality.
Industry insiders say this is a problem, especially as reliable data are the base of reference when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) economic community is drafting its policies.
Analysts say data from the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) under the Ministry of Planning, such as the Economic Census of Cambodia, would be reliable, but statistics published by other ministries were not. …
“There still remains some uncertainty around the accuracy of the subscriber statistics coming out of the Cambodian telecom market,” Peter Evans wrote in his 2012 report about the Kingdom’s telecommunications sector. Therefore, he assumed a possible deviation of 15 to 20 per cent about his projection data. …
“When any nation falls behind in this process, it means that the region will not complete the organisation of its statistics. Government statistics are the base reference when the ASEAN Economic Community, the [East Asia Summit] and the ASEAN Economic ministers draft their policies,” a report on Capacity Building for Statisticians in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar from the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) said in 2009. “A lack of qualification of statisticians hinders the international comparability of industrial statistics.” …
Sarah Thust
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165728/Business/scepticism-over-government-statistics.html
Packaged MSG imports plummet
May 21st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Foreign Investment, Imports, Industry, News Source, Trade
Cambodian imports of packaged monosodium glutamate (MSG) totalled just 2,086 tonnes last year, the lowest amount since 2002, according to import figures from the customs department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The import figures showed that from 2002 to 2010, Cambodia had imported a total of 137,908 tonnes of MSG, an average of about 15,323 tonnes annually.
While domestic MSG consumption is said to be on the rise, industry insiders say the decline of imports is not because Cambodians are turning away from the popular taste enhancer, but because a local packaging factory is feeding domestic demand. …
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165729/Business/packaged-msg-imports-plummet.html
Accident rocks garment industry again
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Disasters & Disaster Management, Foreign Investment, Garment Industry, Industry, Labor, News Source
For the second time in five days, Cambodia’s garment industry has been rocked by another partial collapse of a structure at a factory.
Garment workers are reporting that at least 10 people, including a pregnant woman, have been injured after a concrete platform collapsed into a pond at the back of the Top World Garment (Cambodia) Ltd. factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh at about midday today. …
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065721/National/accident-rocks-garment-industry-again.html
Thai generator looking at Kingdom
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Electricity, Energy, Foreign Investment, News Source
Thailand-based Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Pcl (RATCH) has “seriously assessed” investment possibility in neighbouring countries including Cambodia, a company statement said last Thursday.
It said it had geared up for business expansion in domestic and international markets in the potential existing investment bases Laos and Australia, but is also considering Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines. …
Anne Renzenbrink
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065705/Business/thai-generator-looking-at-kingdom.html
‘Take it or leave it’
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Garment Industry, Industry, Labor, News Source
The uncle of a man who died in Thursday’s ceiling collapse at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu province claimed yesterday that the company had threatened to give the family nothing if they did not agree to an on-the-spot payout.
It came as a government official said the two families who lost loved ones in the collapse were not eligible for state compensation beyond funeral costs.
Rim Rorn, 29, uncle of Rim Roeun, 22, who died in the Kong Pisei district factory, a supplier to Asics, said talks between his family and factory representatives had broken down. …
Roeun and co-worker Kim Dany, who was initially identified by police and family members as Sim Srey Touch, were crushed to death when an overloaded storage level collapsed, sending concrete, steel and stock crashing onto the walkway beneath. …
Korn Vet, 44, the father of Kim Dany, said company representatives had already paid his family $6,500 for a funeral. …
Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodia Defenders Project, said it was unlikely, though, that anyone would be charged.
“If we are talking about . . . it being a criminal [case] of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, someone must [be proven] to have intended to commit a crime,” he said. “They do not have any law relating to neglect or illegal construction . . . I think there is only compensation.” …
Chhay Channyda and Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065719/National/take-it-or-leave-it.html
Kampot pepper yield down
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Climate Change, Corn, Domestic Investment, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, News Source
This year’s weather has proven too hot for the Kingdom’s famous Kampot pepper, as yields of the spice dropped for the first time since 2008.
Some 22 tonnes of pepper were harvested this year between January and May, short of the 27 tonnes predicted for this season, and a tonne lower than last year’s yield, said Nguon Lay, director of the Kampot Pepper Promotion Association (KPPA).
This is the first drop in output, he said, since pepper growers in the region formed the KPPA in October 2008, which today has a combined pepper farmland of 41 hectares and 102,500 trees. …
Rann Reuy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065706/Business/kampot-pepper-yield-down.html
Agriculture needs more loans, irrigation systems, experts say
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Banking & Finance, Borrowing, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Farming, Financial Services, News Source, Rice
Accessing low-interest loans for rice cultivation is a challenge because the industry in Cambodia is dependant upon rainfall and not irrigation and is thus more risky, experts said last week.
In a meeting on the private sector development in the rice sector, Lim Heng, vice president of the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, suggested that the government should supply more irrigation systems for better rice output.
“If we do not have enough water systems and still depend on the rainfall, the risk can be very high,” Lim Heng told participants in the meeting. “Therefore financial institutions will be hesitant to give us loans as they think it is too risky. …
Research over the past two years conducted by Srey Chanthy, an independent agricultural analyst, shows that at least $1 billion per year is needed by farmers to strengthen production. …
Cambodia exports to Thailand rise as nations improve economic ties
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Exports, Imports, International Relations, News Source, Trade
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 exports from Cambodia totalled $102 million in the first quarter of the year, compared with $85.43 million in the first quarter of last year, an increase of 19.4 per cent. However, total imports from Thailand declined more than 4 per cent, to $1.005 billion from $1.048 billion. …
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065703/Business/cambodia-exports-to-thailand-rise-as-nations-improve-economic-ties.html
Trade Deal Threat Still On Table
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Economics, Exports, International Relations, Land Tenure, News Source, Social Concerns, Trade
The European union’s executive arm has responded to its parliamentarians’ concerns over rights abuses stemming from Cambodia’s economic land concessions, maintaining that, should the need arise, it “will be ready” to withdraw from its preferential trade agreements with the Kingdom.
In a joint letter to concerned members of parliament on Wednesday, European Commission member Karel De Gucht and vice president Katherine Ashton said they were monitoring the situation, and had stressed to the Cambodian government the importance of reforms, as well as the consequences of losing the no-tariff agreement, commonly known as “Everything But Arms” (EBA). …
One of the conditions of the EBA is that beneficiary countries adhere to rights declarations such as the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, both of which concessionaires – particularly in the Kingdom’s sugar industry – have been accused of violating. …
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065716/National/trade-deal-threat-still-on-table.html
Pheapimex Opponent Arrested
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Land Tenure, News Source
A well-known community representative who has long battled alleged land-grabbing by economic land concessionaire Pheapimex Group was arrested on fraud accusations and jailed in Pursat province’s Krakor district yesterday.
Fellow community representative Lun Sivy, 42, said Kuch Veng, a member of the Cambodian Peace Network, was arrested in the forest at about 9 am by commune and district police officials. …
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065715/National/pheapimex-opponent-arrested.html
Ethnic villagers, firm battle over Ratanakkiri plot
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Domestic Investment, Economic Land Concessions, Land Tenure, News Source
A local official and four ethnic minority Tompuon villagers appeared in a Ratanakkiri court on Friday to face accusations of land-grabbing and protesting against a private company that purchased their land in 2007, authorities said yesterday.
Rocham Pheun, an assistant to the chief of Keh Chung commune in Bakeo district, told the Post that the provincial court put out 15 warrants, summonsing himself and 14 other villagers to court after the company filed a complaint, though only four villagers appeared. …
The company is listed in court documents as Ly Sokkim Co, Ltd, though a Ministry of Commerce database does not list any registered business under that name. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065713/National/ethnic-villagers-firm-battle-over-ratanakkiri-plot.html