Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday inaugurated a rubber processing plant here, saying the factory would contribute to developing the country’s fast-growing rubber sector.
The 7 million U.S. dollar plant, invested by Cambodia’s Sopheak Nika Investment Agro-Industry Company, was built on the area of 9 hectares in Sesan district of Stung Treng province, about 455 kilometers from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, according the company’s report. …
The report said the company received economic concessional land of 10,000 hectares from the government in March 2005 in order to grow rubber trees, and to date, the firm has invested 19 million U. S. dollars for rubber plantation. …
As of last year, the government had granted about 1.2 million hectares of economic concession land to companies for rubber plantation, the premier said, adding that so far, the country has planted rubber trees on the area of 280,350 hectares, and about 55, 000 hectares of them are old enough to be yielded.
Cambodia’s cassava exports reached 245,438 tonnes in the first quarter this year, a 47 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter, from 465,640 tonnes in the final quarter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce released early this month.
While most exports went to Thailand, Vietnam and China, where processing takes place, Thailand also is a major market for Cambodian cassava. Officials in border provinces and traders said Thailand’s restriction on cassava imports early this year and informal exports that have not been recorded are the reasons for the decline.
In Sovanmony, director of the agronomy, soil and improvement of agricultural department in Battambang province, a major cassava plantation area in Cambodia, told the Post yesterday that it is estimated that 30 to 35 per cent of the total exports go to Thailand without being officially recorded. …
During the first three months, the total value of Cambodia’s cassava exports reached $11.7 million, about 30 per cent of the total export value last year. However, the figure from the Ministry of Commerce shows that the export volume is only high during the first few months of the year.
Bilateral trade volume between Cambodia and Japan had amounted to 180 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year, up 14 percent compared with the 158 million U.S. dollars at the same period last year, a report of the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro) showed Tuesday. …
During the January-March period this year, Cambodia’s exports to Japan was worth about 128 million U.S. dollars, up 24 percent from 103 million U.S. dollars at the same period last year, while Japan’s exports to Cambodia valued at 52 million U.S. dollars, down 5 percent from 55 million U.S. dollars, the report said. …
Japan is one of the largest aid providers to Cambodia, but trade and investment ties between the two nations remain low. …
On the investment side, Japanese investors had invested about 300 million U.S. dollars in Cambodia in the last 3 years, according to a record released by Japanese Embassy to Cambodia in January.
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. …
Cambodia saw a slow rise in trade volume with Vietnam and a slight decrease with Thailand in the first quarter of this year, according to the figures provided on Wednesday. …
The figures said Cambodia’s total exports to Vietnam was worth 221 million U.S. dollars during the period, up 10 percent, while the country’s imports from Vietnam valued at 791 million U.S. dollars, up 10 percent. …
On the bilateral trade ties with Thailand, the total trade volume between Cambodia and Thailand had amounted to 1.1 billion U. S. dollars during the first quarter of this year, down 2.3 percent from 1.13 billion U.S. dollars at the same period last year, according to the reports released by Thai embassy to Cambodia.
Cambodia’s export to Thailand was 101 million U.S. dollars, up 19 percent, while Thailand’s export to Cambodia was 1 billion U.S. dollars, down 4 percent, it said.
While significant obstacles remain, the success of the rice sector is a potentially crucial driver in Cambodia’s prosperous and equitable development. …
Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements recently, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. …
Agriculture, led by rice farming, contributes to roughly a third of the country’s GDP and has immense potential for strengthening Cambodia’s economic growth, accelerating poverty reduction, and improving the living standard of its citizens. As part of this agenda, in 2010, the RGC adopted a new Policy Paper on Paddy Production and Rice Export, better known as the Rice Policy, to promote diversification of Cambodia’s economic sectors by catalyzing growth in paddy rice production and milled rice export to match the growth seen in the garment and service sectors. …
If Cambodia’s rice export sector were to reach its full potential, it could produce 3 million tons of milled rice, with the total export value amounting to $2.1 billion (approximately 20% of the GDP) and an estimated additional $600 million (approximately 5% of the GDP) to the national economy. It would also boost employment and income for agricultural farmers who make up more than 70 percent of the population living in rural areas. …
Poor transport and infrastructure such as roads, railways, warehouses, and handling equipment also increase costs for farmers. …
The lack of handling equipment in one of the main ports, the Sihanoukville Port, is also a major constraint for the export of large quantities of milled rice. …
As a relatively new player in the milled rice market, Cambodia faces a steep learning curve. However, with a surplus of 3.5 million tons of paddy rice (equivalent to 2 million tons of milled rice), Cambodia has the potential to soon be among the top five milled rice exporters in the world.
Bilateral trade between Cambodia and neighbouring Vietnam rose more than 10 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, data from the Vietnam Embassy in Phnom Penh showed.
Officials said cross-border trade facilitation by both countries significantly contributed to the growth. But they said the growth rate slowed down a little, as more competition developed from other importing countries.
The data showed total two-way-trade was worth $1.013 billion in the first quarter of the year, a 10.26 per cent increase from $918.694 million in the same period last year. …
The breakdown figure showed that in the first quarter of 2013, Cambodia’s total exports to Vietnam were valued at $221,153,942, a 9.9 per cent increase from $201,198,500 in the same period of 2012. The value of Vietnam’s exports to Cambodia reached $791,857,900, up 10.36 per cent from $717,495,323 in the same period last year. …
Cambodia mainly exported aquatic products and seafood, corn, dried tobacco, rubber latex, paddy rice and cashew nuts to Vietnam. The main products from Vietnam were all kinds of steel and made-from-steel products, confectionery, cereal products, garments, rubber products, vegetables and fruits, paper, metal products, machinery products, transportation vehicles and spare parts. …
I am really optimistic about the rise in bilateral trade volume which will certainly pave the way for the target of $5 billion set by the two governments by 2015.” [per Ministry of Industry Mines and Energy director general Meng Saktheara]
The data showed that total bilateral trade between both countries was worth $3.316 billion last year compared to $2.836 billion in the same period of 2011 – an increase of 17 per cent. …
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. …
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”. …
The two-way trade volume between Cambodia and the United States valued at 758 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year, up only 0.8 percent compared with 752 million U.S. dollars over the same period last year, the statistics of the U.S. Department of Commerce showed Friday.
The United States is Cambodia’s largest export destination. During the January-March period this year, Cambodia’s exports to the U.S. were worth 695 million U.S. dollars, up 0.3 percent, while the country’s imports from the United States were 63 million U.S. dollars, up 7 percent, the report said. …
The Ministry of Commerce has released figures showing Cambodia’s export of fishery goods including fresh and dried fish products have decreased drastically in the first quarter of the year, though several government officials viewed the figures with scepticism.
Cambodia exported 49.9 tonnes of fish products in the first quarter of the year a sizable drop from the 620.14 tonnes exported over the same period in 2012, the ministry’s data showed. …
Om Savath, executive director of Cambodia’s Fish Action Coalition Team, said that in general fishery production had declined this year, as the government had reduced the number of fishing lots throughout the country. …
The bilateral trade volume between Cambodia and the United States was worth about 499 million U.S. dollars in the first two months of this year, down 2 percent compared with 510 million U.S. dollars at the same period last year, the statistics of the U.S. Department of Commerce showed Tuesday.
The United States is Cambodia’s largest export destination. …
Cambodia’s exports to the European Union (E.U.) grew to $2.32 billion in 2012, a 23 percent increase compared to the previous year, according to the E.U.’s latest trade figures.
The figures, released this week by the European Commission’s trade office, testify to the region’s growing role as a key trading partner for Cambodia, thanks to the E.U.’s Everything But Arms (EBA) trade scheme, which lets Cambodia and a few dozen other developing countries export most goods to member states without tariffs or quotas.
According to figures, exports to the E.U. grew twice as much as exports to any other of Cambodia’s trading partners in 2012. And economists say that it would not be surprising if exports to the E.U. soon made up half of all Cambodia’s exports, with garments leading the way. …
Of the $5.49 billion worth of goods Cambodia exported last year, according to figures from the Commerce Ministry’s Cam-Control department, 42 percent went to the E.U., up from 35 percent in 2011. The remainder of Cambodia’s exports mostly went to the U.S., with smaller amounts going to Japan, China, South Korea and other countries in South East Asia. …
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. …
State-owned rice miller Green Trade plans to export about 10,000 tonnes of milled rice to Libya this year, an insider has revealed.
Thon Virak, director of state-owned rice exporter Green Trade, told the Post yesterday that he had signed an export deal with a private company in Libya, adding that his company had already exported about 1,000 tonnes between January and February to the North African country. …
Milled rice can be sold at $400 a tonne to Libya, and its market demands only 15 per cent broken rice, Virak said. …
Cambodia exported 187,119 tonnes of milled rice last year, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce.
Cambodian crocodile farmers prefer selling young live crocodiles directly rather than raising crocodiles and selling their skins for export as they believe there is no market, despite officials encouraging crocodile farming for skin exports.
Heng Chheng, a crocodile farmer from Battambang, has raised crocodiles since 1984. He said this year he planned to hatch about 10,000 young crocodiles, which would produce around 9,000 babies. …
Cambodia has seen a remarkable rise in trade volume with its neighboring Vietnam and Thailand in 2012, official statistics showed on Friday.
The bilateral trade with Vietnam was worth 3.3 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 18 percent year-on-year, according to a data from the Vietnam trade office in Cambodia. …
On the bilateral trade ties with Thailand, the total trade volume between Cambodia and Thailand had reached 3.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2012, up 40 percent year-on-year, showed a data provided by Thai embassy’s foreign trade promotion office in Phnom Penh. …
Exports of Cambodian milled rice rose sharply during the first four weeks of this year, and traders are optimistic about the demand in Asian markets, particularly China.
Figures from the one-stop service office at the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) show the Kingdom exported 25,700 tonnes of milled rice in January — an increase of 165 per cent compared with the corresponding period of 2012, during which only 9,700 tonnes were exported. …
The Cambodian government hopes to export 250,000 tonnes of rice by the end of this year and is aiming for a 25 per cent increase in milled-rice exports by 2015.
The government has publicly issued lists showing the costs of fees that businesses must pay to authorities for various services, in an effort to help companies avoid making informal payments made illegal by the anticorruption law.
The lists were drafted during the past year after Cambodia adopted articles in its Penal Code that stipulated that all informal payments made to officials were illegal. Foreign businesses here responded by informing the government that it was simply impossible to do business without paying such fees.
According to a proclamation signed by Finance Minister Keat Chhon on December 27, the list of fees covers 134 payments businesses often make to the ministry’s departments of customs and taxation—two bodies that investors have long cited as problematic due to their high levels of graft.
The proclamation also covers 175 different fees charged by the Ministry of Commerce and its CamControl department, which regulates the country’s imports and exports. …
Work will start this year on a 400km railway line and a new seaport in Cambodia, with most of the funding coming from Chinese sources.
Cambodia Iron and Steel Mining Industry Group (CISMIG) and China Railway Major Bridge Engineering have signed an agreement to jointly invest US$11.2 million in the projects.
