Qatar’s ambassador to Cambodia says his country wants to open a bank here in an effort to enhance, and attract more, trade and investment from Middle East countries to the Kingdom. …
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Arqaam Capital, a Dubai-based investment bank, had said it was considering expanding from Africa to Southeast Asia.
Ngoun Sokha, director-general of the National Bank of Cambodia, said the Kingdom did not have any banks from the Middle East. …
Hiroshi Suzuki, chief executive and chief economist of the Business Research Institute for Cambodia, said he had not noticed an increase in investment from the Middle East into Cambodia.
“Normally, Middle Eastern countries are interested in investment in Islamic countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia,” Suzuki said. …
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. …
The ministry said it had issued 1,694 construction patents covering 6.5 million square metres of land, involving total capital of $2.1 billion in 2012, compared with 2,125 patents for 4.2 million square metres and capital of $1.2 billion in 2011, an increase of 71.9 per cent, the data shows. …
Cambodia is preparing to conserve the capital’s disappearing cyclos or rickshaws, which used to be a popular means of transport during the French colonial rule about 80 years ago.
Cyclo is a three-wheeled bicycle with the driver perched on high above the rear wheel, and the passengers in a bucket seat slung between the two front wheels. …
Cambodia recorded a trade deficit of 2.65 billion U.S. dollars in 2012, according to the government’s statistics on Wednesday.
The country’s total import and export volume had reached 13.63 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 19 percent from 11.48 billion U. S. dollars in a year earlier, said the statistics from Camcontrol, or the Cambodia Import-Export Inspection and Fraud Repression Directorate General, which regulates imports and exports in the kingdom. …
Cambodia has greeted some 3.2 million foreigners in the first eleven months of 2012, up 24 percent compared with 2.58 million visitors in the same period a year earlier, showed the latest statistics of Tourism Ministry on Thursday.
From January to November last year, Vietnam topped the chart among the top ten arrivals to the country with 699,650 visitors, up 24 percent year-on-year, followed by South Korea with 367,950 visitors, up 21 percent, and China with 297,920, up 35 percent, the report said. …
The ties between Cambodia and China in trade, investment and tourism have steadily grown from year to year thanks to good relations between the two countries, Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said Tuesday.
“China is one of our key trading partners. The two-way trade volume was about 2.5 billion US dollars last year and the two sides are committed to doubling the amount to 5 billion US dollars in 2017,” he told reporters after a forum to promote Cambodia’s business and investment potential to Chinese business people. …
Land prices along National Road 4 still have the potential to rise, despite the relocation of a number of factories to National Road 3, property experts say. …
The price of land goes from $100 to $300 per square metre from Chaom Chao cycle to the first car toll if the land is more then 5,000 square metres, but it goes from $200 to $500 per square metre for small parcels of land for villa construction or apartment buildings. …
ASEAN says it will study how to implement a proposed economic partnership with its six external partners that might lead to the foundation of world’s largest economic bloc. …
The proposed bloc, dubbed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) or “ASEAN+6” , would integrate ASEAN’s 10 member nations and six partners in the Asia-Pacific region into a single market comprising more than 3 billion people and with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$17.23 trillion.
The six partners that may join the bloc — Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand — have all signed separate free trade agreements (FTAs) with ASEAN. …
Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the Kingdom’s economic growth is forecast to grow at 7 per cent this year, according to news agency reports.
“We still maintain our forecast of 7 per cent growth and the latest forecast showed that the inflation rate is about 2.9 per cent this year,” he told students at a graduation ceremony at Asia-Euro University in Toul Kork. …
The World Bank has estimated the country’s growth at 6.6 per cent, while the International Monetary Fund put the figure at 6.5 per cent. …
Prime Minister Hun Sen has called for the removal of all tariff and non-tariff barriers when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) integrates in 2015, saying it is of central importance.
Speaking at the opening of an ASEAN symposium in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, the premier said integration of the rural economy into the ASEAN and global production networks and markets through better connectivity would promote equitable development in the region. …
The premier also said Cambodia wanted to encourage ASEAN members and their development partners to continue their close co-operation in accelerating the process towards the establishment of AEC by 2015. …
The government on Friday pledged a 20 per cent increase to the base salary of civil servants year-on-year in a move one government official insisted was based on economics, not politics.
The announcement was made in a statement released over the weekend outlining government spending for 2013, which it said would rise from this year’s planned $2.6 billion in spending to $3 billion for the next annual budget. …
Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said yesterday that no such taxes would be necessary and explained the money for such a raise had been found from upwardly revised predictions of GDP growth. …
The government has previously claimed that the salaries of civil servants have increased 540 per cent on average since 2001.
Bilateral trade between Cambodia and neighboring Vietnam grew by 17 per cent in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year, a decrease from previous years, the Vietnam Trade Office in Cambodia said yesterday. …
The data showed a total trade volume worth US$2.452 billion on the exchange between January to the end of September, compared to $2.096 billion in the same period last year – an increase of 17 per cent. …
Tran Tu, trade attaché for the Vietnam Trade Office in Cambodia, said the slower growth of imports and exports between the two countries was due to a decline in demand as a result of the economic situation between the two countries, as well as the global economy. …
Profits at Cambodia’s largest banks continued to grow through the first nine months of the year as loan disbursals across the sector increased by about 30 percent compared to the same period in 2011, bankers said yesterday.
Acleda Bank, the largest bank in the country, this week posted net profits of $48.49 million during the first nine months of 2012, a rise of 48.38 percent year-on-year. Total deposits reached $1.32 billion, an increase of 25.8 percent over the same period. …
Although banks say the speed at which credit is expanding in the market is due to strong economic growth in the country, economists warn the banking sector must be careful it does not overheat. …
Bankers have raised no concerns over the National Bank of Cambodia’s increase to the reserve requirement rate in order to maintain the stabilization of cash flow and inflation during a time of global financial difficulty.
The increase, from 12 to 12.5 per cent, issued late last month, was in line with the IMF’s revised world economic outlook from 3.3 per cent and 3.6 per cent in 2012 and 2013 respectively. …
National Bank of Cambodia data shows that at the end of June this year, outstanding loans at the kingdom’s 32 commercial banks totaled $4.92 billion, compared with $3.75 billion in the corresponding period last year — a rise of 31.2 per cent.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said yesterday that climate change will be a concern in some Asian countries, including Cambodia.
He encouraged the countries to find ways to manage any affects on their economies. Economists recognize it will lower growth in some main sectors of the economy – especially the agricultural sector. …
Drought has hit 11 of the 24 provinces in Cambodia and affects tens of thousands of hectares of rice seedlings, according to the National Committee for Disaster Management. …
As a delegation of US business owners prepares to travel to Cambodia with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, analysts say they will be tough to court, given Cambodia’s lack of law enforcement.
“Investors don’t bring guns, they don’t bring bodyguards—they bring money to invest,” said Sok Touch dean of Khemarak University in Phnom Penh. “So what protects them is not guns, not nuclear weapons, but laws. When laws are firm, investors have confidence.”
Cambodia’s economy continues to grow, with an estimated rate of about 6.5 percent forecast for this year. Per capita incomes have improved, to about $1,000 per year. But there are few prospects for new jobs…
Cambodia so far has not feared for creating ASEAN economic community 2015 and deeper ASEAN and East Asia regional integration as the region will have free flow of goods, worker mobilization, finance and investment,” trade minister Cham Prasidh said on June 12.
His announcement was made during the workshop of ASEAN economic community 2015.
“We have nothing to fear from openness and competitions as we strengthen and diversity our economy and build our nation.” H.E Cham Prasidh, senior minister, minister of commerce said at the national workshop jointed organized by ministry of commerce and the supreme national economic council on ASEAN Economic community 2015: “realizing the promise”
This workshop which bring together officials from government, and senor representatives of private sector, research community, civil society and international development partners to consider ASEAN’s achievements and the challenges we face in realizing the promise through the ASEAN economic community in 2015.
DANIDA, EU and UNIDO offered strong financial support to organize this very important event.
Minister added: “The Cambodian government has demonstrated its strong commitment to the realization of an ASEAN economic community by 2015.” “We have worked hard, through our maintenance of an open economy, and our compliance with WTO accession requirements and specific AEC requirements, to maximize our preparedness for AEC 2015.”…
Government officials have joined forces with Japanese experts to formulate a new plan for economic diversity in Cambodia.
Foreign direct investment in Cambodian industry has largely gone to garment manufacturing during the past 10 years, putting the country at risk of economic shock in the event of continued financial crisis in the West.
Cambodia’s Supreme National Economic Council (SNEC) and the Japan International Co-operation Agency hosted a seminar yesterday on the establishment of new policies that could help the country attract investment in other forms of industry…
Chinese President Hu Jintao left Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, for home Monday, after a state visit to the southeast Asian nation.
During the visit, Hu met Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Senate President Chea Sim, National Assembly President Heng Samrin and Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Hu and Cambodian leaders discussed further development of the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation and exchanged views on major regional issues.
The two countries also signed a host of cooperation documents, covering infrastructure, human resources, economy and tourism. …
