Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he hoped land being registered to rural families as part of the government’s nationwide land-titling program would be used to cultivate rubber trees in order to help the country compete with Vietnam as the world’s third-largest rubber exporter. …
Speaking at the opening of a $26 million rubber plantation and processing factory in Stung Treng province, Mr. Hun Sen said that by utilizing some of the 2 million hectares of land that has been registered under his titling program, Cambodia could reach its target of 840,000 hectares of rubber plantations within five years. …
Presently, there are 280,000 hectares of land planted with rubber trees, 118,000 of which is inside ELCs, while another 107,600 is on small-scale farms, Mr. Hun Sen said, adding that about 1 million of the approximately 1.5 million hectares of land that has been leased to private companies as ELCs are registered as rubber plantations. …
Despite its growing rubber industry, much of Cambodia’s rubber is transported as liquid resin over the border to Vietnam to be processed, meaning Cambodia looses out on much of the value-added exports once the rubber has been processed.
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday lashed out at the opposition party’s concerns over the interest rates charged by commercial banks to farmers.
SRP lawmaker Yim Sovann said commercial banks in Cambodia charge customers very high interest rates, and said it is much higher than in other countries. …
However, the premier, speaking at the opening of a new rubber processing plant in Stung Treng province said Sovann’s words do not apply with the market practice and the real situation in Cambodia’s economy. …
“Based on the market economy, they don’t allow the state to handle commercial bank. We have a national bank which cannot provide that serivce to customers. If people have money to deposit at the bank, they will get five per cent, some give four per cent and other 5.6 per cent [interest rate],” said Hun Sen. …
“To lower the interest rate to one per cent, it would kill the bank … They are against the political protectionism,” he said. …
According to the statistics from the National Bank of Cambodia, the Kingdom’s 32 commercial banks have lent $5.49 billion to about 1.6 million borrowers by November 2012, up 30 per cent year-on-year. …
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.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said Saturday that he had ordered a Phnom Penh ice-making factory to shut down, after pungent chemical emissions from the plant in Russei Keo district caused more than 100 nearby residents to be hospitalized with breathing problems on Friday.
At least 20 of those hospitalized had to spend the night in the hospital, while 100 more were prescribed medication and told to return on Saturday to check ammonia-absorption levels, according to district health chief Phan Phearath. Ammonia is used in the ice freezing process. …
Mr. Hun Sen, speaking at the inauguration ceremony of a pagoda in Kompong Chhang province on Saturday, blamed the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy for allowing the factory to pollute the area with toxic chemical gases, and for refusing to act on on-going complaints by the community. …
The government on Friday awarded CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat a $92.21 million contract to install power lines in Cambodia’s eastern provinces, the Council of Ministers said in a statement.
During the weekly Cabinet meeting, senior officials including Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on the deal to extend the national grid by connecting Phnom Penh with Kompong Cham, Kratie, Stung Treng, Ratanakkiri and Mondolkiri provinces. …
Mark Moorstein knew little about Cambodia before he got involved in a lawsuit on behalf of land owners there. But as it’s turning out, the suit could end up affecting most every country in Asia.
Moorstein is a land-use lawyer in Northern Virginia who, like many lawyers, was looking for some pro-bono, charitable work to do on the side. …
Across Asia, almost every country is guilty of baldly seizing its citizens’ land without significant compensation and then selling it to corporations or developers, leaving the owners homeless and often destitute. …
Finally in 2001, Cambodia enacted a Land Law intended to curb these seizures. But like so many measures passed to mollify the Western donors who keep the government afloat, the government immediately began ignoring its own law. Now, as one major Cambodian human rights organization put it: “In Phnom Penh and the 12 provinces” around it “land-grabbing has affected an estimated 400,000 Cambodians since 2003, helping to create a sizable underclass of landless villagers with no means for self-sustenance.” …
It turned out that the land he [Mark Moorstein] focused on — two plots of about 25,000 acres each — is used to grow sugar cane, primarily. A wealthy and powerful Cambodian senator took possession of it after evicting residents from about 200 individual plots. Many of the evictees held identification cards the United Nations had given them when it set up a protectorate in Cambodia 20 years ago. Under the Land Law, that meant they held legal title to the property. …
Once the suit was filed, Tate & Lyle seemed to panic. Very quickly, it sold its entire sugar unit to American Sugar Refining, better known here in the United States for its name-brand product: Domino Sugar. That company is now the defendant, and when contacted for comment, the company declined.
But last Thursday, the company did file its response to the suit. It said Tate & Lyle had no knowledge of any prior ownership of the land in question. The villagers had no claim to the sugar cane grown on the land, even if they did previously own it, because they had not paid for the seeds or production costs. And finally, the defendants claimed, “The English court cannot adjudicate or call into question” matters of Cambodian law dealing with land concessions.
Nonetheless, the British court had already accepted the suit. The case is moving forward, and that all by itself is already encouraging many people. …
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will visit Macau in September to participate in the Second Global Tourism Economy Forum. Prime Minister Hun Sen called for more investment in the country by Chinese and Macau entrepreneurs, and direct flights between Cambodia and Macau.
According to Xinhua, the Prime Minister met with Edmund Ho Monday in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, to discuss further expansion of bilateral ties in economics, trade and tourism. Ho is the former Macau Chief Executive and also a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,
Speaking at the meeting at the Peace Palace, Edmund Ho, who is also chairman of the Global Tourism Economy Forum, said his visit to Cambodia was to further promote China-Cambodia relations and cooperation, particularly between Cambodia and Macau …
[Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance] Keat Chhon noted that from 1992 to present, China has provided USD2.7 billion in soft loans and grants to Cambodia for rehabilitating and building infrastructure. Keat Chhon and Edmund Ho also discussed ways to promote tourism.
Serge Mostura, French Ambassador to Cambodia, said he wanted to boost economic diplomacy between Cambodia and France. …
Citizens of France visits Cambodia only as tourists or for study, but none have placed investments in the country, so he vows to attract small and medium sized French companies to invest in Cambodia, [personal assistant to Hun Sen Leng Sophatlet] quoted Serge Mostura as saying. …
He [Prime Minister Hun Sen] also called on France to pay attention to the commerce and investment sectors of the country, which are factors to strengthening the relationship between the two countries.
Cambodia will launch a new 100,000-riel banknote (in equivalent to 25 U.S. dollars) in order to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of King Norodom Sihamoni on May 14, a central bank official said Wednesday. …
A sub-decree on the issuance of the new 100,000-riel banknote was signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on April 30. The 100,000-riel bill is the country’s highest riel value banknote. …
The Ministry of Agriculture has signed a deal with Try Pheap Import Export to give the firm the right to purchase all timber felled in economic land concessions (ELCs) in Ratanakkiri province, according to a letter sent from the Agriculture Ministry to the Forestry Administration in February.
Signed by Lor Raksmey, secretary-general at the Ministry of Agriculture, and sent to Forestry Administration chief Chheng Kim Sun, the letter says that the firm owned by well-connected casino, mining and agriculture mogul Try Pheap has been granted purchasing rights over timber in Ratanakkiri in order “to meet local demand and for export” and “generate royalties and dividends for the state’s budget.”
“The forestry administration will allow Try Pheap Import Export to buy wood from every economic land concession located in Ratanakkiri province,” the letter, dated February 26, reads.
Though a senior official in the province said the agreement will help improve the regulation of Ratanakkirri’s timber trade by directing felled trees through only one company, a provincial land rights monitor said the deal would create a market that encourages illegal logging and accelerate the rate at which the forest is being deforested.
Although concessionaires are required under law to log only within their ELCs and pay royalties on any timber they extract, community activists and environmental monitors have complained that many companies regularly cut down trees and systematically smuggle logs across the border to be sold in Vietnam. …
Cambodia’s government has granted ELCs in Ratanakkirri to 27 companies covering a total of 222,933 hectares, according to figures compiled from Adhoc. …
In February 2011, Prime Minister Hun Sen granted Try Pheap two 70-year leases covering 18,885 hectares within the park in Cambodia’s northeast. …
During his speech last week at the swearing-in ceremony of Phnom Penh’s new governor, Pa Socheatvong, Interior Minister Sar Kheng noted that managing Cambodia’s capital is by no means an easy task. …
While critics of [former Phnom Penh governor] Mr. [Kep] Chuktema note his failure to settle high-profile land disputes and struggle to deal with the city’s expanding population, it is impossible not to notice some of Mr. Chuktema’s accomplishments. …
“[O]verall, in the last decade [Mr. Chuktema’s] tenure has overseen modest but uncoordinated infrastructure improvements set against increased isolation and forcible displacement of the urban poor,” [NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut] Ms. [Nora] Lindstorm said, noting that since 2003, about 100,000 Phnom Penh residents have been displaced to relocation sites in and around Phnom Penh where access to employment, education healthcare and clean water is often limited.
“In sum, we have seen unregulated urbanization that has benefited a small strata of society and has increased spatial inequality. Phnom Penh today is more gridlocked, less green and less equitable than ten years ago,” she added.
In 2007, City Hall announced that it had leased 133 hectares of land surrounding and including Boeng Kak for almost $80 million to Shukaku Inc., a company owned by CPP senator Lao Meng Khin. The forced evictions that followed have given rise to the most high-profile land dispute in the country, as landless protesters from the Boeng Kak community have taken to the streets on an almost daily basis to demonstrate against what they say is a collusion between City Hall and Shukaku in illegally usurping their land without proper compensation. …
Still, Mr. Chutema’s focus on major construction projects and the beautification of Phnom Penh has attracted much needed investment, according to Nuon Rithy, the managing director of Bonna Realty, one of the city’s largest real estate firms. …
Others, however say the municipality over the past ten years has failed to tackle the rate at which the population is growing. According to Khem Ley, a socioeconomic researcher at the Advanced Research Consultant Team, an independent consultancy, Phnom Penh’s population is growing at a rate of almost 7.5 percent a year. …
In March, Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed concern for the failing state of Phnom Penh’s infrastructure during a meeting with the visiting mayor of Paris. He said the city’s expansion had led to electricity shortages, traffic jams, trash problems and an inadequate water supply system. …
Five men working for Ratanakkiri rubber concessionaire DM Group, including a soldier, have been arrested for allegedly beating a villager and his children – one of whom, doctors say, may not survive – in a scuffle over their family’s land, the father said yesterday.
Police confirmed the beating and said the soldier would be sent to court today for questioning, while the four non-military suspects would be sent to be charged.
The father, 52-year-old Ry Sarun, said that on Saturday two bulldozers and 30 DM Group workers came to his land in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district – which had previously been measured and titled by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youth volunteers – and began to clear it. …
DM Group has been implicated in a slew of alleged abuses in its long-running land disputes in Ratanakkiri. Villagers have claimed to have been intimidated by the concessionaire, and observers have suggested that the company has used lawsuits to stifle dissent. …
“The agriculture sector today is still playing significant role in promoting local production growth, job creation, and contributing to the poverty reduction of the people. At the same time, the agriculture sector will continue the basic role for economic growth and socio-economic development in Cambodia in the coming decades although Cambodia has diversified her economy, including industrialization”, Samdech Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia said last week. …
“The growth in agricultural sector is not only improving our economy but also transforming the red dry land to become the green area in all seasons, as well as allowing our youths in rural area to be employed, reducing migration, and improving their livelihood.”
According to the report made by H.E Chan Sarun, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the agriculture sector has grown in average about 4.3% in 2012, in which the rice production was about 3 million hectares, and the land of 2.98 million hectares could be cultivated, and the average yield per year in both dry and rainy seasons is 3.117 tons per hectares. …
“We have also expected that this poverty rate will further decline to under 19% in 2013. In the future, we will try our best to drag down the poverty rate until the elimination of the poverty through the continued development of agriculture and economic diversification.” …
To impose no land tax is like helping them right in the field. For example, they need to spend one or two hundred thousand Riel per hectare as tax. “When we do not charge tax from them, they could use the money for something else, like purchasing a bicycle for their kids or other agricultural utensils.” …
The Boeung Kak community and a land rights NGO yesterday released a proposed demarcation plan they say could solve the long-standing land dispute.
In a map presented yesterday, villagers said they had agreed on a land division that would make room for 70 families locked out of a plot created by the government and set aside for hundreds of families. …
Representatives of 157 families evicted in 2010 from a social land concession in Preah Vihear province belonging to businessman Pen Lim, a one-time adviser to Senate President Chea Sim, were in Phnom Penh yesterday to petition Hun Sen.
The families say they were forced off the land by Mr. Lim after paying thousands of dollars for plots and have been living with relatives since. …
Thousands of Cambodian people visited and bought Thai products on Thursday at a large scale exhibition although simmering border spat between the two countries remains unsolved.
“Even though border dispute is still going on, trade and investment ties between Thailand and Cambodia are still good,” Amparwon Pichalai, deputy director general of Thai commerce ministry’s international trade promotion department, told reporters before attending the opening of the Thai trade fair 2013 at the Diamond Island Exhibition Center in Phnom Penh. …
Mao Thora, secretary of state at Cambodian Ministry of Commerce, said it was a positive sign that the two countries have been working closely to improve the bilateral trade relations. …
Cambodia has lost almost a quarter of its forests in the past 40 years due to rapid development and China’s demand for timber, according to a new report released yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on the Greater Mekong Region.
Looking at five countries in the Mekong Region- Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam- WWF has calculated, using data from both satellite analysis and U.N. country reports, that almost a third of the region’s forests have been destroyed. Titled Ecosystems in the Greater Mekong Region, the report says that the presence of primary forest is “extremely low” in Cambodia, and only approximately 10 million hectares of forest cover remain in the county.
According to Agence Kampuchea Presse, Prime Minister Hun Sen said this week that 1.5 million hectares of forest cover has been used for economic land concessions, while there remains 9.5 million hectares of forest cover left in the country. However since 1.2 million hectares of these concessions have been allocated for rubber plantations, Mr. Hun Sen said that these land grants, in fact constitute forest cover …
About 5,000 Cambodian workers took to the street on Wednesday to mark the International Labor Day, calling for pay rise, better labor conditions and decrease in petrol prices, a union representative said.
Marchers, mostly garment workers, held banners and walked from the Freedom Park near the Wat Phnom historical site to the National Assembly in order to submit a petition to the National Assembly. …
The garment industry is Cambodia’s largest income earner, representing more than 80 percent of the country’s exports.
The latest report of the Ministry of Commerce showed that currently, the country has about 500 garment and footwear factories employing some 510,600 workers. Last year, the country exported garment products in equivalent to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 8 percent year-on-year. …
The premier recalled that the worker’s monthly salary was just more than 50 U.S. dollars in 2008 and increased to 61 U.S. dollars in 2010 and further rose to 80 U.S. dollars from May 2013.
He said the government would be happy if the employers could increase more wage for workers.
The government’s abuse of land rights and indigenous minorities were among the top concerns raised Tuesday by non-governmental groups at a workshop in Phnom Penh on Cambodia’s progress toward achieving a long list of U.N. human rights recommendations.
As part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review process for all member states, Cambodia accepted all 91 recommendations the U.N. made in 2009. Covering everything from children to land, the recommendations hue toward the very vague. They urge the government to “tackle the roots” of gender inequality, for example, and “ensure” that trade unions get to operate freely. …
Ven Samin, an ethnic Souy from Konpong Speu province, wanted the recommendations to call for the protection of minorities.
“I want them to take account our problems,” said Ms. Samin, who accused the nationwide land-titling project being led by Prime Minister Hun Sen of pressuring her to give up much of her ancestral rights.
Kha Sros, an ethnic Kuoy from Stung Treng province, accused the government of largely ignoring the interests of the minorities.
When it comes to development, they [authorities] don’t let the indigenous give their ideas. …
Police at border checkpoints have in the past weeks stopped more than 2,200 people in Banteay Meanchey province from crossing into Thailand to look for better paid work, officials said yesterday.
The focus on Cambodian workers migrating to Thailand-many illegally-comes amid a shortage of labor at building sites in Cambodia, and in the country’s garment factories. …
Moeun Tola, who is in charge of labor programs at a free legal aid organization, Community Legal Education Center, said that Cambodian workers are simply looking for better opportunities in Thailand where the minimum wage is about $300 per month, making it much more attractive than staying in Cambodia where Garment sector’s minimum wage- the only sector with such a set salary is about $80 per month. …
