The first three-day Koh Kong Investment and Trade Fair 2013 kicked off on Saturday, promoting trade and investment in the southern provinces of Cambodia with neighbours Thailand and Vietnam. …
“The [fair] is aimed at promoting trade and development in Koh Kong province and other border provinces in the southern region of the country, which is to further enlarge trade and the economy between Cambodian provinces, and with the provinces of Thailand and Vietnam that are boardering Cambodia in this southern region,” said Cham Prasidh, Cambodia’s Minister of Commerce. …
The European Union’s ambassador to Cambodia raised issues of judicial reform, land reform and the upcoming national elections in a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday morning. …
The European Commission’s directorate-general for trade is currently reviewing a report by the U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi – which blamed the country’s policy of economic land concessions for serious and widespread human rights violations – to decide whether to launch its own investigation of the government’s land policies. …
Ethnic minority villagers expecting to be displaced by a proposed Chinese-built hydroelectric dam in northeastern Cambodia are asking the country’s parliament not to approve a law providing financial guarantees for the project. …
Villagers living along three rivers that will be affected by the dam spoke at a press conference hosted on Thursday by the NGO Forum on Cambodia, urging the National Assembly to reject the draft law. …
Seak Mekong, Srekor commune chief in Strung Treng province, told RFA’s Khmer Service on Wednesday that villagers have petitioned authorities over their concerns and have asked for relocation sites, but have received no response. …
Energy Minister Suy Sem yesterday defended a draft law on the financing of a massive dam project in Stung Treng province which is slated for debate at the National Assembly on Friday.
Environmental groups have called debate of the law premature, as no consultation with local communities has taken place. About 1,000 families face displacement by the Lower Sesan 2, according to a 2009 environmental impact assessment, but the draft law only factors in compensation and relocation for 797 families. …
A few years ago this scene would have played out in China. More specifically, it would have played out in a Chinese coastal region to which millions of rural folks had arrived looking for work. A huge hangar, piles of fabrics of all colors at both ends, and some 200 heads lowered over sewing machines set up one behind the other.
The atmosphere is not oppressive, just focused. But the workers here are too dark-skinned to be Chinese – though there are some: the managers of this clothes factory on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
From his office next door, He Enjia directs operations at Sunkind Textile. He left China in 1996 to set up his first factory in Cambodia. At the time, he was a pioneer. He moved for one reason – to get around export quotas on Chinese fabrics.
Sixteen years later the sector has exploded. It generates over $4 billion of revenue a year, which makes it Cambodia’s biggest export by far. In a country of only 14 million inhabitants, the textile industry employs over 300,000 in the Phnom Penh region and plays a major role in the annual growth of 7% on average that the kingdom has been experiencing over the past decade.
Attracted by the legal framework, which is very favorable for investors, the Chinese have taken the lead. “Cambodia is the easiest Asian country to invest in,” says Daniel Zarba, Director General of the Franco-Cambodian Chamber of Commerce. What’s more, the cost of production is lower in Cambodia than it is in China. “Here a worker costs on average $150 a month compared to $600 in China. Even if you take into account the fact that Cambodians are less productive, it still means your labor is two times less expensive,” says He Enjia. …
The textile industry is part of a much wider phenomenon. In Cambodia, in the logging, mining, farming, construction, and energy sectors, the Chinese are filling their pockets. The six hydroelectric dams presently being built? All by Chinese companies. The mines in the north? Often run by Chinese groups. “I even saw Chinese soldiers guarding the entrance to a mine,” says a European man living in Phnom Penh. At the recently created Phnom Penh Stock Exchange, where only one – state-owned – company is listed, the Chinese presence is freely acknowledged. “In many sectors, Chinese investors are essential for us,” explains Charles Lu, deputy director of Phnom Penh Securities, adding that Chinese groups invested $9.1 billion in Cambodia between 1994 and 2012. …
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme announced in June originally included a directive for granting collective property titles to indigenous communities, but this part of the program was scrapped weeks later as it was deemed too costly and time-consuming, documents obtained yesterday show. …
For “indigenous minority groups registered as ‘communities’ by the Ministry of Interior…the land identification process shall be done in the same working spirit as the one prevailing in the [Ministry of Land Management's ] cadastral department instructions on the implementation of the Royal Government of Cambodia’s Order 01,” the directive states.
“[T]he land shall be registered as collective ownership of the ‘community’ according to the request of its traditional authorities,” it continues. …
Cambodia has asked India to provide more assistance in the development of human resources to promote economic growth and enhance bilateral co-operation.
Deputy Prime Minister Sok An made the request during a meeting with Indian human resource development minister Mangapati Pallam Raju in Phnom Penh on Sunday, Ek Tha, a spokesman for the Office of the Council of Ministers, told reporters after the meeting. …
Two ethnic Banong communities in Mondolkiri province’s Keo Seima district have completed the final stage in the process to receive rare collective property titles, and are set to receive ownership documents early next month, an official at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) said.
Kan Vibol, project field manager at CIDA, said the O’Chra and Kati communities in Sre Preah commune successfully concluded their monthlong “public display” – used to show that the groups are not in conflict for the land with outside developers – on January 26. …
Cambodia had issued licenses to 146 domestic and foreign investment projects with the total investment of 2.05 billion U.S. dollars in the first eleven months last year, showed a report of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) released Tuesday. …
During the period, the country received 36 Chinese projects with an investment of 249 million U.S. dollars; four Japanese projects with 211-million-dollar investment; and 26 projects from South Korea worth 159 million dollars. …
The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT), in conjunction with the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce, held the 5th Conference on Vietnam-Cambodia Border Trade Development Cooperation in southern Binh Phuoc province on January 9. …
According to Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang, bilateral economic and trade relations have developed in recent years. Customs statistics showed that two-way trade turnover reached 2.83 billion USD in 2011, a year-on-year increase of 55 percent. The figure for 2012 is estimated to exceed three billion USD. …
The U.K.-based life insurer, Prudential Plc, on Wednesday announced the commencement of its life insurance operations in Cambodia, according to the firm’s press release.
Alongside the launch of its business operations, Prudential Cambodia and Acleda Bank, the largest commercial bank in Cambodia, also announced the establishment of a long-term distribution partnership, the first of its kind in the country, the press release said. …
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) will forgo an opportunity to voice opposition to the Xayaburi dam project – which member state Laos began building in November – when it meets for its annual council meeting next week.
Surasak Glahan, communications officer with the MRC secretariat, confirmed yesterday that member states, which also include Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, will not address the issue of the 1,285-megawatt dam on the Mekong River as part of its official agenda.
“There has not been a request for a particular discussion on the Xayaburi project made by the member countries,” he said. …
Newly-designated Thai ambassador to Cambodia Touchayoot Pakdi pledged on Wednesday to strengthen and deepen bilateral ties and cooperation with Cambodia in all fields for both sides’ mutual benefits.
Speaking at a meeting with Cambodian deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, the ambassador asserted that during his diplomatic mission, he would do all his best to deepen friendship relations and cooperation between the two neighbors. …
The number of tourists to arrive in Cambodia in 2012 was at least 200,000 higher than expectations, possibly reaching 3.5 million, officials said yesterday.
Thong Khon, Minister of Tourism, told the Post yesterday that in the first 11 months of 2012, Cambodia received 3.2 million tourists, and that he assumed for the whole of December, Cambodia would receive an additional 300,000 tourists. He said the number of international tourists arriving in Cambodia reached nearly 2.8 million in 2011, so 2012 saw an increase of more than 20 per cent. …
The International Trade Centre (ITC) yesterday rejected criticisms over the misuse of expenses and funds for a sector-wide Cambodian silk project, saying its approach was appropriate and well managed.
Mao Thora, secretary of state for the Ministry of Commerce, publicly criticised the ITC during a seminar on Monday, saying that silk industry development has been weak despite funds being provided to the ITC to develop silk works in Cambodia. …
Japanese mall operator Aeon Co. broke ground Monday on Cambodia’s first foreign-financed mall.
“We are happy to contribute to the development of the local economy because it will create more than 2,000 jobs and we want to stay deeply rooted in Cambodia and we want to be ‘loved the most’,” senior Aeon executive Motoya Okada said at the ground-breaking ceremony in the capital, Phnom Penh.
The mall is to scheduled to open in 2014, which will make Aeon the first Japanese retailer to make a foray into Cambodia. …
On the second day of his two-day visit to Ratanakkiri, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday cajoled indigenous minority members about their ready adoption of new technology amid the shift away from traditional ways of life, and extolled the benefits of rubber plantations over their rotational farming methods.
Mr. Hun Sen, who was speaking to more than 500 mostly ethnic Tampoun minority members in the province’s Andong Meas district, also had words for an unnamed foreigner whom, he said, had angered him by blaming the government’s promotion of rubber plantations on the destruction of indigenous minority culture. …
Discussions on restarting World Bank loans to Cambodia will not commence until after the 2013 elections, a bank official said yesterday.
After a landmark freeze on loans announced in December 2010, a response to the forced evictions by the government of residents of the Boeung Kak lake area in favour of a building development, talk of resuming loans could happen after the next national election, World Bank Vice President Pamela Cox told the Post yesterday. …
Real estate prices in Kampong Chhang province have increased by around 10 per cent over the last 12 months, according to experts.
Dith Chana, general manager of VMC Real Estate Cambodia, said that Kampong Chhnang is only 91 kilometres from Phnom Penh, but the development of its real estate has not risen “significantly,” he said. …
