The government wants to play a bigger role in helping local businesses remain competitive and, to this end, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) has launched a new award to recognise companies that have achieved high produc-tivity standards.
Ten companies will be awarded in September this year under the initiative, called the 5S Productivity Award. 5S is a Japan-based workplace organisation method – which will also be used as judging criteria – focusing on increasing efficiency and safety through methods such as “sorting”, or eliminating unnecessary processes, and “standardising”, or keeping procedures simplified. …
After the fourth Joint Trade Commission (JTC) recently, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said that Thailand and Cambodia had the potential to drive two-way trade up by 30 per cent, due to strong growth in 2012.
Last year, bilateral trade grew by 40.5 per cent year on year, from US$2.86 billion (Bt84 billion) in 2011 to $4.03 billion in 2012. To drive growth, the two countries will also strengthen cooperation on trade and investment in other sectors, ready for the opening of the Asean Economic Community in 2015. …
Moreover, under an initiative called the Greater mekong Sub-region Cross-Border Transport Agreement, the two nations will provide public transport between the border town of Aranyaprathet and Cambodia’s Poipet. It is hoped the move will lead to a growth in logistics and trade between the two countries and improve immigration procedures for travellers, including an electronic passport identification system.
The government is drafting a rubber law to regulate the sector in response to the rapid growth of rubber plantations across the country, an official said.
Ly Phalla, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said officials are drafting the law to address issues of quality management.
He told the Post that the draft law is intended to better regulate Cambodia’s rubber plantations to ensure that the quality of export be held to high standards. Currently, he added, some proccessors are damaging the sector’s reputation through poor processing quality. …
The commerce affairs office in northeastern Surin has reported robust trade along the Thai-Cambodian border despite unresolved Phra Viharn [Preah Vihear] temple dispute.
Mr. Sitthiporn Bangkeaw from the Office of Commerce Affairs Surin revealed that even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s public hearings in the Phra Viharn case were on for most of last week, trade situation along Thailand’s border with Cambodia has been bright and active. …
He added that such favorable circumstances have helped drive up Thai exports of fuel and consumer goods while its imports of farm products, particularly tapioca, also went up. …
Increases in Cambodia’s GDP and foreign direct investment (FDI) are helping to drive the supply and demand in the Kingdom’s office sector, according to a new report from global property agents CBRE. …
Increasingly, international businesses are favouring Cambodia, in particular Phnom Penh, mainly due to the stable economic growth and the integration with the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.
The office market remains positive with the imminent arrival of the Vattanac Capital, Cambodia’s first international Grade-A office building, which is now due for completion later this year. This will set a precedent for future development, and bring further confidence to the sector. …
Across all office grades, the current market average rent is equal to $15 per square metre, although this is set to increase with the launch of the first Grade A office space increasing the average rents.
In addition, parking spaces are becoming increasingly favoured by new tenants, as they require additional space for their employees. Landlords also benefit as it provides an additional income-stream of up to $160 per space. …
2012 has been an impressive year for Cambodia’s economic resilience. Among the many sectors that had positively grown are the construction and property development [sic] and they are expected to be among the highest growth achievers in the current year as well. …
In 2012, the Ministry of Land Management recorded investments on construction had grown by 72 percent to US$2,109 million for 1,694 projects covering 6.5 million square meters, an increase from the previous US$1.2 billion for 2,125 projects covering 4.2 million square meters in 2011. …
Amid the last year’s strong recovery, construction on residential projects such as ‘Borey’ and apartments claimed a large proportion (about 70 percent off the total projects) and is likely to surge higher responding to the growing local populations (about 10,000 new families are added to Phnom Penh annually), along with more incoming foreign nationals for living and business purposes which require more residential supplies. …
Due to development disparity, growth varies between zones. The property market recovery has appeared vigorously only at the popular industrialized zones such as Phnom Penh’s downtown, leaving the low industrialized areas like suburbs and rural areas less commercialized. …
With more investors coming, Kheng observes now international firms are competing with the local property developers as they begin to understand more about the local markets, knowledge which they previously lacked. …
The important thing in this property business, according to Cheng Kheng is having accurate data. “The key to improve this industry is to have a one-stop recording center where all transactions have been recorded properly and published to the public. In that way, it will be easier for the public to keep themselves up-to-date with the market.” …
Cambodia could see less preferential economic treatment by Europe in coming years, as it graduates as a more developed country, the EU’s ambassador to Cambodia says.
In an interview with VOA Khmer in Phnom Penh, Ambassador Jean-Francois Cautain said Cambodia currently enjoys tariff exemptions under a scheme called Anything But Arms, which seeks to promote trade with lesser developed countries. But Cambodia’s status under that scheme could change soon with its growing economy, he said. …
The threshold for a nation to meet Least Developed Country status is a per capita gross domestic product of $1,000. Cambodia is currently at $900, with an economy growing nearly 7 percent per year. Cautain said other factors, such as a country’s openness and human capital also influence its status. …
Cambodia also needs to diversify its economy. Most of its exports come from garments, “which is OK, but not enough,” Cautain said. Better agriculture, including in the rice sector, is needed, he said. That means building the capacity to process rice in country, rather than exporting paddy rice to its neighbors.
Good governance and reduced corruption would also help, the ambassador said. In these areas, “there’s still a lot of work to do.” An improved environment would increase foreign direct investment. European investors are still not comfortable coming to Cambodia, which is still in a transition phase, where trade is supported by donors. That means there is a good basis from which Cambodia can develop itself, he said.
Local food producer Ly Ly Food Industry had invested about $1 million for a Chinese-made machine to improve production and food quality as it prepared for the coming regional economic community, the company’s owner said yesterday.
Keo Mom said a tremendous amount of goods from neighbouring countries would flow into the Cambodian market in 2015, when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is scheduled to be launched.
She said her company had imported the machine to increase efficiency. …
Meng Saktheara, director-general of the General Department of Industry at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, said many Cambodian-made products were superior in quality to imported goods. …
The Cambodian automotive industry will expand after the Kingdom’s integration into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) in 2015, thanks to the free flow of goods within the bloc and Cambodia’s competitive advantage as a low-cost manufacturer, according to Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh.
Speaking at the First Phnom Penh International Motor Show on Friday, Prasidh said the number of vehicles produced annually in the ASEAN region is expected to surpass two million after the area becomes closer to being a single economy. …
In 2011, a joint venture between Hyundai distributor KH Motors and the Ly Young Phat Group began assembling cars in Koh Kong province. A year later, in March, Ford began assembling the 2012 Everest SUV in Sihanoukville for the domestic market.
In September last year, UK-based BIW automotive company signed a $2 billion joint-venture investment with ACICA Automotive (Cambodia) to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province to produce a Cambodian-made vehicle within the next three years. …
Group Lease Plc (GL), the SET-listed motorcycle leasing firm, is planning to expand into Laos and Vietnam next year after a successful move into Cambodia last year. …
Mitsuji Konoshita, the chairman and chief executive, said both Laos and Vietnam are promising markets, while the company plans to launch its business in Indonesia before the inauguration of the Asean Economic Community in 2016. …
GL has operated in Cambodia for a year and built up a portfolio of 2,000 leased motorcycles without any non-performing loans thanks to a prudent approach in a new market. …
Bonna Realty Group yesterday signed an agreement with the National 6A Investment, a Malaysian real estate developer, to be an authorised sales agent for a 10-storey condominium that is currently being constructed and is expected to be finished by the end of 2014.
The National 6A Investment Co, Ltd had invested millions of dollars in building the 10-storey condo in the capital’s Chroy Changva district. Construction began about two years ago and is now 60 per cent complete. And Bonna Realty will begin finding tenants this month or next, said General Manager Nuon Ritty. …
Frequent power outages in Phnom Penh, a result of a shortage of supply and overuse by consumers, is harming the competitiveness of Cambodian products, industry insiders said yesterday.
In addition to the challenges of expensive electricity prices, an ongoing issue for production costs, unreliable supply during the hot season is harming the potential for growth. …
CP Laos and CP Cambodia are investing a combined Bt250 million to set up a new silo for maize in Cambodia and a new feed-meal plant in Laos to strengthen CPF’s integrated agricultural-industrial business as the Asean Economic Community (AEC) approaches. …
Most recently, the company has invested in developing a silo and drying plant for maize in Pailin province, western Cambodia. The investment is to ensure high-quality raw material to serve its feed production for both the domestic market and export.
Since 1995, CP has invested a total of Bt3 billion in Cambodia, including feed production, livestock farming and food processing such as sausage-making and slaughterhouses.
Sakol said the plant in Pailin province would ensure the company’s distribution in western Cambodia, an important area for agricultural production. Having a plant there will reduce logistics costs. Initially, capacity is set at 10,000 tonnes per month.
The company is also considering investing in aquaculture in Cambodia in the near future. …
Customs procedures are being examined in a time-release study to identify issues that can affect Cambodia’s trade competitiveness. According to experts, the study is an important tool to improve the Kingdom’s investment climate. …
The study will be conducted and organised by the GDCE with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Customer Organisation. Results are expected in May. …
More than 4,000 people attended a ceremony in December last year that saw Japan’s largest shopping mall developer and operator, Aeon, breaking ground on its three-storey mall in Phnom Penh, and the company says it is already considering building more in the capital. …
Aeon Mall Cambodia managing director Makoto Yajima said the mall is expected to be finished in May 2014 if everything goes to plan.
The company is confident in opening a mall in Phnom Penh because the economy is growing, the politics are stable, and the mall will cater to the needs of the younger generation, he said. …
Thai factories have opted to hire Cambodian workers under a memorandum of understanding between Cambodia and Thailand after the Bt300 minimum wage policy came into effect for Thai workers across the country.
A total of 154 Cambodians – 118 men and 36 women – with work permit documents crossed the border in Sa Kaew’s Aranyaprathet district on Monday. …
BANGKOK- First bus services between the two Kingdoms of Cambodia and Thailand had their debut on December 29, said the Transport Co., a Thai state enterprise under the Transport Ministry. The service includes the Bangkok-Siem Reap route, a 424-kilometre trip that takes about seven hours. The two countries will provide two trips a day. The fare will be 750 baht or US$25. The Bangkok-Phnom Penh service, covering 719 km and taking 11 hours, will run once a day with a fare of 900 baht or $30. …
Cambodia’s banking sector has maintained strong and steady growth in terms of loans and deposits in 2012 thanks to better economic performance, a central bank’s senior official said Tuesday.
“Our banking system remains robust this year despite economic crisis in Europe and economic slowdown in the United States. These bad situations do not affect our banking sector,” Nguon Sokha, Director General of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), which is the regulator of the country’s banking and financial institutions, told Xinhua. …
An ambitions new agricultural development project backed by a former US diplomat is aiming to dramatically revamp the sector and bring profits back into the hands of farmers.
Sichan Siv, a Cambodian with dual citizenship who spent five years serving as US ambassador to the UN, and his consultancy, Akra Group, plan to launch in early January a national farmers’ and millers’ co-operative project that will pump millions of dollars into the sector. If successful, says Sichan, Cambodia could be one of, if not the biggest producers of milled rice in the world. …
Thailand and Cambodia will launch the first bus services linking Bangkok with Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in the next two weeks.
The first bus service between the two countries will debut on Dec 29, said The Transport Co, a state enterprise under the Transport Ministry.
The service includes the Bangkok-Siem Reap route, a 424-kilometre trip that takes about seven hours. The two countries will provide two trips a day. The fare will be 750 baht or US$25.
The Bangkok-Phnom Penh service, covering 719km and taking 11 hours, will run once a day with a fare of 900 baht or $30. …
