Cambodian milled rice exports are gradually lessening their dependency on a single market by expanding their shipping destination in Asia, a sign insiders say is good news for the industry.
Kim Savuth, president of the Federation of Cambodian Rice Exporters, told the Post yesterday that milled rice exports to European countries, Cambodia’s traditional market, is still increasing, but its percentage share is gradually decreasing. He said the trend of exports to Asian market is on the rise. …
In the first four months of this year, Cambodia exports to Malaysia, Thailand and China, reached 40,500 tonnes, 34 per cent Cambodia’s total overseas exports, according to figures from the secretariat of the One Window Service for rice exports.
The data show that those three countries are among the top five importers that bring in rice from Cambodia, with France and Poland at numbers one and two. …
Hennes & Mauritz AB, Europe’s second-biggest clothing retailer, said some H&M garments were produced without its knowledge or approval at a factory in Cambodia where workers were injured in a partial building collapse this week.
A supplier of the Stockholm-based company placed two minor orders with an unapproved sub-supplier at the Hong Kong-owned Top World garment factory, H&M spokeswoman Anna Eriksson said today in an e-mailed response to questions. She said H&M has no business relations with the plant, where a shelter collapsed into a river injuring at least 23 people, according to Xinhua. …
H&M isn’t the first retailer to discover its products are made in factories that escape its scrutiny as suppliers hire subcontractors without their knowledge when rushing to fill orders. When clothing bound for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Sears Holdings Corp. was found in the ruins of a fatal factory blaze in Bangladesh last year, the companies said their goods were manufactured there without their permission. …
The Japanese athletics brand ASICS said Friday that it would push its four Cambodian sub-contractors to join a programme that monitors conditions in garment and shoe factories. …
“We will strongly request to our sub-contractors in Cambodia to sign up to this programme,” Katsumi Funakoshi, ASICS spokesman, said by email. …
The Better Factories Cambodia programme, which is voluntary, was set up in 2001 and is run by the International Labour Organization. It monitors factories making clothing and shoes for export to ensure they comply with a range of issues, such as fire safety, working conditions and prompt payment of wages.
Thursday’s accident showed the programme should also monitor factory construction, its chief technical adviser, Jill Tucker, said. …
She called on the hundreds of buyers from other countries that source from Cambodia, including Japan, to take responsibility for the factories where their products were made and join the initiative. …
Cambodia’s promising animal feed sector will soon see support from a big pharmaceutical manufacturer which is now studying local demand for animal healthcare – a nearly untapped market.
“We intend to introduce animal health business in Cambodia for our farm products and feed mills,” Khalid Baig, Bayer’s country group head Southeast Asia, told the Post. …
According to animal welfare and production expert Ros Limhy, several thousand veterinarians are working in the Kingdom, mostly at the village or commune level. However, the key players in improving animal health in Cambodia would be the Village Animal Health Workers, who have been trained by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the public sector.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is one of those NGOs. According to IFAD’s Country Operations Officer Meng Sakphouseth, 80 per cent of the villages in the Kingdom have at least one animal health worker. …
Following a considerable increase in Cambodia’s milled rice exports in the first four months of the year, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said he was optimistic the Kingdom’s rice exports would reach the 2015 target of one million tonnes.
With this year’s export figures notably higher than those of the same period last year, Prasidh said he believed exports of milled rice would reach more than 300,000 tonnes in the first six months of the year, mostly absorbed by European markets. …
According to data from the Secretariat of One Window Service for Rice Export Formality, Cambodian milled rice exports reached 118,500 tonnes in the first four months of this year compared with 51,466 tonnes in the same period last year. …
Delta Electronics (Thailand), one of the world’s leading producers of power supplies and electronic components, plans to expand to Cambodia and Myanmar, the Bangkok Post reported on Wednesday.
“There is no indication of a specific timeframe for the expansion, but the company sees these countries . . . as distributing channels of supply chain to other Asian and European countries,” the report said.
Asian Development Bank deputy country director Peter Brimble said, while he cannot speak for Delta about their reasons for moving to Cambodia, generally “regional automotive and electronics firms are looking to expand and spread their operational risk, including firms based in Thailand.” …
Milled rice exports have seen dramatic growth this year as the sector begins to take advantage of duty-free exports to European countries, an official and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
Thon Virak, director of state-owned rice exporter Green Trade, said Tuesday that in the year up to the end of April, 118,500 tons of milled rice had been exported from Cambodia.
“It increased by about 43 percent compared with the same period [last year],” Mr. Virak said.
Cambodia traditionally exports a large proportion of its rice crop as unprocessed paddy to Thailand and Vietnam, where it is milled and often re-exported. The government has targeted an increase to 1 million tons a year-compared with only about 200,000 tons last year-by 2015, and investment in rice mills has been stepped up to meet the goal. …
An online trading firm based in the tax haven of Cyprus is planning to open a subsidiary in Cambodia, an account manager at IronFX’s headquarters in Cyprus said yesterday.
“We are on the planning stage in Cambodia. We are now studying law and regulations in the country right now,” account manager Siwapong Meesuntree said by Skype. …
When asked about reports from sources at recruiting firms in Phnom Penh that local staff had already been hired to receive training at IronFX’s headquarters in Cyprus, Siwapong replied: “We will have Cambodia staff very soon.”
Cyprus’s financial services industry has been in the spotlight this year following that country’s financial crisis. The island nation’s financial services industry had grown massively through a combination of tax and regulatory incentives, including a high level of secrecy that can, in some cases, “make the disclosure of information in Cyprus offshore bank accounts … punishable by the law”, according to tax haven experts. “Bank employees and other persons who are associated with Cyprus banks must take an oath of secrecy,” the website Taxhavens.biz says. …
Half a year after the first Cambodian domestic workers network formed, Cambodian activists for maids’ rights are turning to workers in other sectors and international organisations for solidarity and support.
Long lacking organised representation, Cambodian domestic workers this Wednesday will join workers in other industries in rallying in front of the National Assembly on International Labour Day, said Chum Chamm, program officer for the Cambodian Domestic Workers Network. …
Eight countries have now ratified International Labour Organization Convention 189, which requires days off, a minimum wage and several other rights for maids. …
Cambodia exported garment and textile products in equivalent to 1.34 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2013, up 17 percent from 1.14 billion U.S. dollars at the same period last year, the Commerce Ministry’s report showed Friday. …
Garment industry is the country’s largest income earner, representing more than 80 percent of the country’s exports.
The sector consists of more than 300 factories, employing about 350,000 workers.
The whole year of 2012, the country exported garment products in equivalent to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 8 percent year-on- year.
France said it plans to boost its exports to Cambodia as French foreign direct investment in the country – worth $3.18 million in 2012 – continues to rise, officials said on Wednesday. …
Among this year’s investments, concessions and construction company group Vinci, the largest building firm in the world by revenue, plans to invest $92 million in the Kingdom through its subsidiary Cambodia Airports.
Trade between France and Cambodia was limited last year, worth only 266.8 million euros ($349.16 million), though it had increased from 202.6 million euros in 2011, according to a report from the French embassy.
However, Cambodia’s exports to France accounted for the lion’s share, at 204.8 million euros. Eighty-one per cent of the products France imported from the Kingdom were clothes and shoes. Their value increased by 35 per cent compared with 2011, to 166.4 million euros last year. …
Cambodia’s economic growth is forecast at 7.2 percent in 2013, picking up to 7.5 percent next year as recovery in Europe and the United States takes hold, according to the Asian Development Bank’s annual economic outlook released on Tuesday.
The United States and Europe are the largest purchasers of Cambodia-made garment and footwear products. …
The report noted that net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Cambodia surged by an estimated 75 percent in 2012, to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, funding new industries including automotive parts, electronics, and processing of agricultural products, as well as diversifying garment production into higher- value products and tourism into new areas. …
Mong Reththy Group (MRG), Cambodia’s largest exporter of palm oil, hopes to expand its exports to European markets this year.
Mong Reththy, president of the firm, said the quota-free and duty-free trade frameworks provided by European governments factored heavily into the decision.
“About 50 per cent of our total exports, which were worth about $27 million last year, went to European countries. They provided us with quota-free and duty-free access so that we can get $60 per tonne, compared with Malaysia or Thailand, which require us to pay tax. That is a great benefit,” he said. …
Philippe Laurent became secretary-general of Cambodia Airports in May 2008. He was one of six senior executives in charge of the country’s international airports in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the little-used facility in Sihanoukville. …
Mr. Laurent is now carrying out a one-man campaign against Cambodia Airports in Cambodia and in France, where Vinci, the company’s major stakeholder, is headquartered. He has lobbied French politicians, the press, and financial regulators. He is doing the same in Cambodia, telling his story to anyone who will listen. …
Cambodia Airports is 70 percent owned by Vinci Group, Europe’s largest construction company, and 30 percent by Muhibbah Masteron (Cambodia). Muhibbah Masteron is 70 percent owned by Malaysia conglomerate Muhibbah Engineering Berhad and 30 percent owned by two Cambodian businessmen, Kong Triv and Hann Khieng. …
Cambodia Airports earns revenues of about $100 million every year through a $25 service charge for every passenger that passes through the airport, as well as landing fees, aircraft cleaning fees, parking tickets, cargo related business, storage facilities, and leasing floor space to airline companies, fuel supply companies and the airport’s catering business. It also earns money from commercial shops inside and outside of terminal buildings. …
“My colleagues and I have worked for several years to try and assassinate the unethical environment of these businesses, but to no avail. We have just discovered a short time ago that we were in a money laundering machine for the management of the group at an international level between the following countries: Cambodia, Malaysia and France,” Mr. Laurent told the senators. …
Cambodia Airports refuted all of Mr. Laurent’s allegations “with the highest firmness.”
“Regarding Philippe Laurent’s allegations, we referred the case to the head office, especially Vinci’s ethical committee and an investigation has been performed. The ethical committee has concluded that the specific allegation raised by Philippe Laurent is without merit,” Khek Norinda, communications director of Cambodia Airports, said in an e-mail. …
With Cambodia Airport’s contract to run for another 27 years, and with tourism the one area of the Cambodian economy assured to see massive growth in that time, and with French and Malaysian companies winning associated lucrative contracts, homegrown business resentment would seem an obvious backdrop to the business environment and Mr. Laurent’s campaign. …
As it transpired, Bouygues settled their dispute out of court with Mr. Laurent for a sum of money that he would not disclose for this article.
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. …
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.
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.
Advocacy groups, environmentalists and policy-makers have wrapped up five days of events surrounding Mekong River issues in Washington.
“Mekong Days,” a series of talks, films and other forums that ended Tuesday, highlighted issues in the region, where some 60 million people live.
The Mekong River, a major source of food for many in the region, is currently under increased pressure from hydropower dam projects and the potential impact of climate change. Environmental advocates say the dams could hurt fish stocks in the river, even as temperature and rainfall changes threaten agriculture and livestock. …
A recent study funded by USAID, “Mekong Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change,” found increasing threats to livestock, fisheries and other agriculture. …
At least 11 dams are currently planned for the lower Mekong, a major concern for fish populations that migrate up and down the river. China has built four dams upstream already, and Laos is in the process of building a dam in Xayaburi province, despite objections from Cambodian and Vietnam.
About a quarter of the garment factories in Cambodia that supply Swedish clothing giant H&M have been the scene of mass faintings or large-scale strikes since 2010, based on a suppliers list the clothing giant released late last week.
Along with its 2012 sustainability report, the Swedish retailer, which has 2,800 stores worldwide, released a list of 33 Cambodian factories from which it sources, along with the vendors who initiated the business relationships.
By divulging the information, H&M said in a statement, it became “one of the first and largest fashion companies in the world to make its supplier/factory list public”. …
The list of factories includes at least eight that have made headlines in the Post since 2010 for faintings and strikes. …
Cambodia’s import and export trade volume had amounted to US$2.7-B in the 1st 2 months of this year, up 28% compared to the US$2.1-B in the same period last year, the statistics of the Commerce Ministry showed Friday.
Main products Cambodia imported are garment and textile raw materials, petroleum, construction materials, automobiles and motorcycles, consuming items, food and soft drinks, pharmaceutical products and cosmetics, while it exported garments and footwear, rubber latex, milled rice, corn and cassava. …
