Chevrolet autos aim to tap into demand for new cars in Cambodia
May 7th, 2013, Global Times, Business & Commercial Development, Foreign Investment, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Production, Trade
Chevrolet, one of America’s iconic brand autos, officially launched its first dealership here on Monday, aiming at tapping into the country’s growing market for new vehicles.
Martin Apfel, president of the US’ General Motors to Southeast Asia Operations, said at the launching ceremony at the cars’ showroom in Phnom Penh, that the firm’s expansion to Cambodia was thanks to the country’s rapid economic growth in last decade and high demand in brand new cars.
The country’s new car demands are around 2,000 units a year, while the annual demand of used cars are up to 20,000 units.
“Cambodian auto industry is expected to grow by 15 percent this year,” he predicted.
Martin said that in Cambodia, the General Motors gave authority to Cambodia’s United Auto Trading to be an exclusive distributor of Chevrolet cars. …
Global Times Staff
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/779626.shtml#.UYheUaKj2xA
Cambodia gets rolling
May 6th, 2013, Bangkok Post, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Foreign Investment, Industry, International Relations, Production, Social Concerns, Trade
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.
Bangkok Post Staff
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/marketing/348783/cambodia-gets-rolling
Sugar Firm Files Defense in Cambodian Lawsuit
May 6th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Exports, Industry, International Relations, Production, Social Concerns, Trade
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”. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uk-sugar-firm-files-defense-in-cambodian-lawsuit-21913/
Made in Cambodia: Foreign Industry Calls on Cambodia as the Next “Low-Cost” Alternative in All Things Manufacturing
May 1st, 2013, Cambodian Business Review, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Exports, Foreign Investment, International Relations, Labor, Production, Trade
About a decade ago, global manufacturing firms staged a mass exodus to Asia in search of low-cost alternatives to increasing domestic wage demands and operational costs.
The consensus was the continued development of a regional supply chain that had formed in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, while taking advantage of low wages offered by the world’s largest exporter in China. It was an idea that bolstered many a bottom line, but now things are changing.
Since then, China has become increasingly prosperous with a rapidly growing middle class. The demands of this new wealth have had Chinese manufacturers rightfully turning their attention to their growing customer base, leaving some exporters in cold.
What’s more, growing wage demands in China as well as in Southeast Asia’s light-manufacturing countries is forcing foreign manufacturers to consider other options as they search for the next low-cost destination.
The result has been a speedy realignment of the jigsaw puzzle that is Asia’s manufacturing supply chain. China has become bullish on foreign markets, investing billions of dollars at a time in new factories and infrastructure development projects abroad.
Vietnam, meanwhile, has earned the title of Asia’s new tech hub as its workforce moves away from sewing t-shirts to assembling microchips for consumer electronic goods.
Cambodia – a country where the low-value garments last year made up nearly 90 percent of all its exports – too is overdue for an upgrade as investors have begun to flood market with value-added manufacturing plants, producing things like automotive parts, sporting equipment and small motors for various consumer products. …
Such is the case with Japanese auto parts maker Yazaki Corp., who christened their new $24 million wire harness factory in Koh Kong province. …
Most recently, global automotive components manufacturer Denso announced in January that it would invest a modest of $400,000 for the development of its new subsidiary Denso Cambodia Co. Ltd., which will produce sensor components at their new facilities in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ).
But Denso is not PPSEZ’s only new customer: Yamaha Motor, Laurelton Diamond, a subsidiary of the popular U.S.-based jeweler Tiffany & Col, and Japanese firms Marusan Plastic and Nikko-Kinzoku Cambodia – a firm that makes wax casting – are all in the process of building factories there, according to recent PPSEZ data. …
Philip Heijmans (Cambodian Business Review, P. 18)
www.cambizreview.com
New Kampot Salt Farm Has Big Ambitions
April 29th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Environment & Natural Resources, Exports, Farming, Industry, International Relations, Production, Trade
TOEK CHHOU DISTRICT, Kampot province – A donor-backed project launched here on Saturday aims to produce Cambodia’s first export-quality sea salt and invigorate the struggling local salt industry.
In a ceremony among Kampot’s vast fields of coastal saltpans and low levees, company representatives from Asia Salt (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. inaugurated a $2.9 million venture, which hopes to produce 20,000 tons of salt each year for export.
Asia Salt (Cambodia) Co., Ltd- a local subsidiary of a joint venture between South Korean Company EEE Korea and InfraCo Asia Development Pte. Ltd.-is financed by the British, Swiss and Australian governments.
The first shipment of salt bound for South Korea is expected to leave between July and September. InfraCo’s non-executive director Peter Bird said the project would employ 350 local people on a 120-hectare salt farm. …
“We are conserving about 30 acres [about 12 hectares] of coastal mangrove for coastline protection and we’re maintaining an ecological zone,” he [Peter Bird] added. …
According to Um Chhun, secretary of the Kep-Kampot Salt Producers Community, the region has about 4,500 hectares of salt farms, together producing 80,000 tons of salt last year- a low yield due to heavy rains.
“The quality of Cambodian salt is still low compared to neighboring countries, Thailand and Vietnam, so we can’t export. We sell it locally,” he said. Mr Chhun said it would be difficult for producers to move up to modern techniques which are costly to implement.
“It’s very expensive. For just 1 square meter it costs $7,” he said. …
Simon Lewis
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/new-kampot-salt-farm-has-big-ambitions-20505/
Long Rainy Season to Help Increase Rice Yields
April 25th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Environment & Natural Resources, Farming, Production
Farmers can expect better rice paddy yields this year compared to last year after the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology yesterday predicted that the rainy season would run from mid-May until November with only a short dry spell. …
Chhomg Sopal, agriculture development cooperative officer with the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture said that farmers should see high yields if the ministry’s rainy season prediction is correct. …
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/long-rainy-season-to-help-increase%E2%80%88rice-yields-20266/
Stronger ties with Cambodia sought ahead of rice-trading zone
April 19th, 2013, The Nation, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Corn, Exports, Farming, Industry, International Relations, Production, Rice, Trade
Thailand will forge closer ties with Cambodia and other neighbouring countries to increase competency in rice trading and boost the bargaining power of Asean countries by setting up a rice-trading zone soon.
Also, Thailand will expand crop cooperation to cassava to raise farm incomes in the region. …
Thailand will help Cambodia promote its cassava under the same concept of rice trading. It will help encourage more trading of cereals, such as cassava and maize, by promoting contract farming to ensure stable incomes for farmers.
The JTC will discuss a strategy to promote bilateral trade with an emphasis on cross-border shipments, which account for 65 per cent of two-way trade value. …
Last year, two-way trade was valued at US$4.03 billion (Bt116 billion), or 0.84 per cent of Thailand’s total trade. Exports to Cambodia were worth $3.78 billion against only $249.5 million for imports from that country. …
Petchanet Pratruangkrai
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Stronger-ties-with-Cambodia-sought-ahead-of-rice-t-30204273.html
Salt Harvest Below Forecast
April 19th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Environment & Natural Resources, Hydroelectricity, Imports, Production, Trade
The Kep-Kompot Salt Producers Community says salt production fell nearly 50 per cent below forecasts because of early rainfall, which is assumed to end salt harvesting for the year. Prime Minister Hun Sen, however, has stepped in to ensure that price remains stable. …
Hun Sen yesterday noted the dilemma concerning salt production and hydroelectrical dams – when the dry season lasts a long time, salt production will be good, but dams will lack water to produce power. …
In 2008, Cambodia imported tens of thousands of tonnes of salt from China to supply the local market, but in the succeeding years, production has exceeded the market’s demand, according to the Post. …
Rann Reuy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013041965112/Business/salt-harvest-below-forecast.html
Betargo readies for the contruction of its 18,000t per annum feed mill in Cambodia
April 10th, 2013, Feed Machinery, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, International Relations, Livestock, Production
Betagro (Cambodia) readies for the construction of its new feed mill in Phnom Penh SEZ.
The feed mill is to be constructed in the capital’s Special Economic Zone, located 12km from the city center.
The company is investing USD$17.2 million in the new project. …
The plant construction will start in May, and is expected to be ready for completion sometime in 2014. The feed mill will supply Betagro’s swine operation in the country,as well as the country’s livestock industry. …
The company is also conducting feasibility tests on the opening of a processing plant and Betagro Shop in the country. Betagro first entered Cambodia through a sale[s] office in 2008. Betagro (Cambodia) currently imports 3,600 tonnes of animal feed per month from Thailand to sell in Cambodia. …
Feed Machinery
http://www.feedmachinery.com/news/asia/betargo-readies-for-the-contruction-of-its-18000t-per-annum-feed-mill-in-cambodia-0158/
U.S. imports large volume of organic rice
April 9th, 2013, AG Professional, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Exports, Farming, Industry, International Relations, Production, Rice, Trade
An unusual report shows that organic rice buyers in the U.S. are getting a large percentage of their rice from Cambodia.
The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) exported 114 tonnes of organic jasmine rice to the U.S. in the first quarter of this year, a 30 per cent increase compared with the same period last year, reports the Phnom Penh Post. …
During the first three months, CEDAC exported 59 tonnes of organic jasmine brown rice and 55 tonnes organic jasmine white rice to the US.
Experts suggest that Cambodia has the potential to become an important organic rice producing country in Southeast Asia. Srey Chanthy, an independent agricultural analyst, told the Post that compared with most Asian countries, Cambodian farmers use relatively few chemicals on their fields. …
Rich Keller
http://www.agprofessional.com/news/US-imports-large-volume-of-organic-rice-201976661.html
Cambodia’s rice export up 148 pct in Q1
April 7th, 2013, Asean - China Centre, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Exports, Farming, Industry, International Relations, Production, Rice, Trade
Cambodia recorded a sharp rise in milled rice export in the first three months of 2012 thanks to increasing international market demand and more investment in post- harvest technologies, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday.
A commerce report showed that the country exported 95,230 tons of milled rice during the January-March period this year, up 148 percent from 38,400 tons in the same period of last year. …
The Ministry of Agriculture announced in January that the country produced 9.31 million tons of paddy rice last year. Of that, around 3 million tons of milled rice is for export this year.
For the whole year of 2012, Cambodia exported 205,717 tons of milled rice, up only 2 percent year-on-year. …
Xinhua News Staff
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013-04/07/c_132290214.htm
Local beer to be sold in France
April 1st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Exports, International Relations, Production, Trade
Khmer Brewery, the maker of Cambodia Beer, plans to begin sales to France, the company’s third export market, this month, having tasted success in Japan and Malaysia.
It is one of six breweries in the Kingdom, but the only one whose investor base is local.
With a capital investment of $60 million, Khmer Brewery began selling to the domestic market in November, 2011. …
In 2011, food and beverages contributed $1 billion, 40 per cent of which came from the brewing industry, to Cambodia’s economy.
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013040164803/Business/local-beer-to-be-sold-in-france.html
Kampot pepper in demand
April 1st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Exports, Farming, International Relations, Production, Trade
Demand for Kampot pepper, the first Cambodian product to receive Geographical Indication (GI) status, is outpacing current supply even as areas of cultivation are expanding.
Industry experts say the fast-growing demand is a result of the pepper’s newly earned GI label, which attests to its quality and uniqueness.
Representatives of the Kampot Pepper Association believe that as demand continues to rise, farmers’ living conditions will improve. …
According to Lay, pepper farms increased from 20 hectares in 2012 to 41 hectares in 2013. Moreover, crop yields have increased from 23 tonnes in the whole of 2012 to 27 tonnes in just the first three months of this year. …
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013040164802/Business/kampot-pepper-in-demand.html
Cambodia Posts 29 pct Rise In Large-Scale Factories Last Year
March 28th, 2013, Asean - China Centre, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Foreign Investment, Garment Industry, Industry, International Relations, Labor, Production
The number of large-scale factories in Cambodia has increased by 29 percent to 907 in 2012, Minister of Industry, Mine and Energy Suy Sen said Thursday.
Those large-scale enterprises employed 559,600 employees last year, a 38 percent increase from 403,560 a year earlier, he said during the ministry’s annual conference. …
The large-scale enterprises produced products in equivalent to 5.4 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 10 percent year-on-year, according to the ministry’s report released at the conference. …
Xinhua Staff
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013-03/28/c_132269109.htm
Luxury Motor Show takes on Used Car Market
March 18th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Imports, Industry, International Relations, Production, Trade
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. …
Aun Pheap, P.21
www.cambodiadaily.com
Sugar Playing Catch-Up With Spice
March 15th, 2013, Independent European Daily Express, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Economics, Environment & Natural Resources, Exports, Farming, Foreign Investment, International Relations, Land Tenure, Production, Social Concerns, Trade
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. …
Independent European Daily Express Staff
http://www.iede.co.uk/news/2013_1290/sugar-playing-catch-spice
USDA Hikes 2013 Export Projections for Cambodia, India, U.S.
March 12th, 2013, Oryza, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Exports, Farming, Industry, International Relations, Production, Rice, Trade
The USDA increased its rice export forecasts for India, Cambodia and the U.S. mainly due to higher production estimates in these countries.
Cambodia’s 2013 rice export estimates was increased 150,000 tons to a record 975,000 tons, up about 21% from last year, said the USDA in its March Rice Outlook. However, it also added that the “bulk of Cambodia’s rice exports are shipped to Vietnam and Thailand,” duggesting the figure reflects unofficial sales. The forecast for rice production for Cambodia has been raised by 375,000 tons to a record 4.6 million tons based on larger area (2.95 million hectares) and a record yield. …
Oryza Staff
http://oryza.com/content/usda-hikes-2013-export-projections-cambodia-india-us
The drugs don’t work: Despite the best efforts of the authorities, producers of fake medicines are making a killing in Cambodia
March 11th, 2013, Southeast Asia Globe, Business & Commercial Development, Industry, International Relations, pharmaceuticals, Production, Social Concerns
“Counterfeit medicine kills, while real medicine heals.” This was the simple but apt message selected just over a year ago for a poster campaign in Cambodia that aimed to raise awareness of the risks of counterfeit medications, as part of a government crackdown on the illicit trade.
Record seizures of counterfeit medications in the country followed. On September 24, 2012, police appropriated more than two tonnes of dangerous medicines in Phnom Penh and arrested a pharmacy owner. A week later, three tonnes of counterfeit and expired medicines were discovered at warehouses in the capital’s Chamkarmon district – the largest counterfeit drug haul recorded in the country. …
“Approximately 20% of the antimalarial medicines in Cambodia do not work. Many are fakes – sold because patients are not aware of the dangers. Additionally, most antimalarials make legitimate companies only a small revenue, so the companies don’t protect those brands as closely as they might more valuable products,” [economist Roger Bate] added. …
Sacha Passi
http://sea-globe.com/the-drugs-dont-work/
Limited yarn supply troubles Cambodian silk industry
March 11th, 2013, Fibre2fashion, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Garment Industry, Imports, Industry, International Relations, Production, Social Concerns, Textiles, Trade
The silk industry of Cambodia is in rapid decline due to limited domestic supply of silk yarn and high cost of imported raw materials.
According to the latest data released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-Cambodia, the Southeast Asian nation imports 395 tonnes of raw silk yarn from countries such as China and Vietnam, and only 5 percent of raw materials are produced in the country. …
A research report on Cambodian silk industry released by the FAO states, “Silkworm diseases, low quality silkworm varieties and rudimentary production techniques kept cocoon production low. Silk producers are unable to meet international standards because of traditional manual reeling techniques.”
Fibre2fashion Staff
http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=122102
Policy to expand sector
March 11th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Industry, News Source, Production
The government plans to implement an industrial policy designed to promote development of the manufacturing sector.
Speaking at a business networking dinner prepared by the Cambodian Federation of Employers and Business Associations on Wednesday, Sok Chenda Sophea, secretary general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), said the policy will be implemented after the national election to help institute financial, educational and transport reforms with the aim of meeting the demands of a rapidly changing labour market. …
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031161862/Business/policy-to-expand-sector.html