Cambodia has dispatched 4,779 workers to Thailand, South Korea and Japan in the first three months of this year, according to a report from the Ministry of Labor on Friday.
During the January-March period this year, the country sent 4, 100 workers to Thailand, 678 workers to South Korea, and one worker to Japan, the report said.
Cambodian laborers work in industries and construction in Thailand, in the fields of manufacture, agriculture, construction and fishing in South Korea, and in small-sized industries in Japan. …
Currently, about 125,000 Cambodian laborers are working legally in Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and Japan. Those migrant workers have sent home about 200 million US dollars a year, the Ministry of Labor said. …
Koh Kong province’s mangrove forests have changed from being a source of charcoal to serving tourists who help to protect their biodiversity. The forests have now become a popular destination for Cambodian tourists. …
Yem Yan, Peam Krasorb commune chief in Koh Kong, said gradually visitors have been coming from different provinces in the country.
He said Peam Krasorb community earned about 140 million riel ($35,000) from selling tickets to 40,000 visitors – Cambodian visitors pay 3,000 riel and foreigners pay 5,000 riel per day – per year in the last few years. …
Yem Yan said mangrove forests were being destroyed in the 1990s because villagers made charcoal, but since the year 2000 there has been strict protection of mangrove forests. …
Cambodia’s tourist arrivals registered a 19.9% growth in February according to the country’s statistics and tourist Information Department.
The country welcomed 385,760 visits compared to 321,870 during the same month in 2012.
Released by the Ministry of Tourism, Monday, data showed neighbouring Vietnam was the top supplier with 58,750 visits, an increase of 4.4% over 56,297 visits in February last year. …
In February, 52.8% (203,453) of all international visitors arrived by air. Siem Reap airport received the major share, 34.9% (134,465), while Phnom Penh Airport received just 17.9% (68,988) mainly business travellers who needed to contact government departments or budget travellers who starting or finishing their overland trips. …
Data hints of the massive imbalance between tourist arrivals to Siem Reap and the rest of the country. The tourism authority has urged travel enterprises to provide more information and tour programmes on other destinations to encourage visitors to Angkor Wat to explore the country in more detail. …
Booyoung Co., a mid-sized South Korean conglomerate, said Tuesday that it broke ground for one of the largest housing projects in Cambodia, a project Cambodia hopes to spur foreign investments.
Booyoung said it will build 40 apartments and seven residential and commercial complexes on 2.7 square kilometers of land in downtown Phnom Penh.
The planned buildings could accommodate 17,760 households in a landmark project, called “Booyoung town,” the company said, without giving any further details on financial costs and a completion date of the project. …
In terms of the cumulative foreign direct investments approved in the period of around 18 years ending at September 2011, the largest amount of US$8.9 billion came from China. The second biggest foreign direct investment provider is South Korea with $4 billion, according to data posted on the Web site of the Council for the Development of Cambodia.
Cambodia and Bangladesh on Friday signed a visa-free agreement for diplomatic and service passport holders in a bid to strengthen bilateral ties in politics, trade, investment and tourism, officials said.
The deal was inked here between Long Visalo, secretary of state at Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Kazi Imtiaz Hossain, Bangkok-based Ambassador of Bangladesh to Cambodia. …
Trade and investment ties between the two nations are relatively small. On tourism side, only 1,367 Bangladeshis visited Cambodia last year, up 4 percent year on year, said a tourism report.
Cambodia has so far signed mutual visa exemption agreements for diplomatic and official passport holders with all ASEAN member countries as well as India, China, South Korea, Australia, Iran, Pakistan, Cuba and Uruguay.
Cambodia is considering offering sovereign bonds to raise more revenue for the national budget and move away from its dependence on overseas aid, a senior central bank official said Sunday.
National Bank of Cambodia director-general Nguon Sokha said the Ministry of Economy and Finance was currently looking at other countries’ experiences with bond markets and was seeking outside help to issue the government’s first bonds.
By issuing sovereign bonds governments can raise money from international investors that are usually paid back with interest at the end of a fixed term. …
Ms. Sokha said there was no set date for when the bonds might be issued, but officials were working on the plan with help from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and members of the Asean+3 group, which includes China, Japan and South Korea. …
Cambodia is set to graduate this year or next to a lower middle-income country but still qualifies for overseas development assistance and concessional loans from international institutions.
“For long term financing, we cannot really survive on development assistance,” Ms. Sokha said. …
Although Cambodia does not currently issue sovereign bonds, it has been assessed recently by credit rating agencies. The most recent assessment by Moody’s gave the country a stable but high-risk “B2” rating, which means Cambodia is deemed to have “very low economic resiliency.”
Cambodia Angkor Air is planning rapid fleet and network expansion as competition intensifies in the Cambodian market. The Cambodian flag carrier is expected to more than double its fleet by the end of 2015 and launch services to several new markets, including mainland China, Hong Kong, India and South Korea. Cambodia Angkor Air was established in 2009 as a joint venture with Vietnam Airlines but remains one of the smallest flag carriers in Southeast Asia, only operating domestically and to two neighbouring countries.
Cambodia Angkor Air has already seen its most dramatic expansion in its four-year history, launching three international routes over the last six months. Further rapid expansion of Cambodia Angkor Air and the planned launch of a second Cambodian scheduled carrier that will be affiliated with Philippine Airlines (PAL) should lead to more rapid growth in the Cambodian market. The Cambodian passenger market grew by 18% in 2012 and by 21% in 1Q2013, based on figures from Cambodia Airports. …
Cambodia Angkor Air currently accounts for only 15% of international capacity in Cambodia, lower than the home market penetration of any Southeast Asian flag carrier. It is also the smallest of Southeast Asia’s flag carriers based on fleet size and the second smallest based on seat capacity. …
Cambodia Angkor Air currently operates a fleet of three A321s and two ATR 72s to only three domestic and three international destinations. It has a smaller share of capacity in Cambodia’s international market than close partner and shareholder Vietnam Airlines. Its 15% share is also only slightly larger than the 11% share from Bangkok Airways and AirAsia. …
Hotel transaction volumes in Asia hit US$620 million (Bt18.18 billion) in the first quarter, up 190 per cent from the same period last year, and properties in Southeast Asia are attracting investor attention, according to real-estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle.
“Rising visitor arrivals, robust trading performance and positive market dynamics have put emerging Southeast Asian markets such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar back into the investment spotlight,” Tom Oakden, executive vice president, investment sales, for Jones Lang LaSalle’s Hotels & Hospitality Group, said at a recent industry event co-hosted with Ashurst, the international law firm. …
Neighboring Cambodia, meanwhile, is on the cusp of real economic and tourism growth, with rising visitor arrivals and increasing foreign direct investment from countries such as South Korea, Vietnam and China. …
With limited hotel supply in the key cities of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and 443 kilometers of unexploited coastline, Cambodia is attracting the attention of both domestic and regional investors and developers. …
Arrivals at the Kingdom’s two main international airports rose more than 20 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2013, according to data from Cambodia Airports. Officials said the rise reflects the normalisation of the world economy and the country’s political stability.
According to the data, 750,355 passengers arrived at the two airports over the first quarter, up from 608,281 arrivals in the same period last year. …
TOEK CHHOU DISTRICT, Kampot province – A donor-backed project launched here on Saturday aims to produce Cambodia’s first export-quality sea salt and invigorate the struggling local salt industry.
In a ceremony among Kampot’s vast fields of coastal saltpans and low levees, company representatives from Asia Salt (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. inaugurated a $2.9 million venture, which hopes to produce 20,000 tons of salt each year for export.
Asia Salt (Cambodia) Co., Ltd- a local subsidiary of a joint venture between South Korean Company EEE Korea and InfraCo Asia Development Pte. Ltd.-is financed by the British, Swiss and Australian governments.
The first shipment of salt bound for South Korea is expected to leave between July and September. InfraCo’s non-executive director Peter Bird said the project would employ 350 local people on a 120-hectare salt farm. …
“We are conserving about 30 acres [about 12 hectares] of coastal mangrove for coastline protection and we’re maintaining an ecological zone,” he [Peter Bird] added. …
According to Um Chhun, secretary of the Kep-Kampot Salt Producers Community, the region has about 4,500 hectares of salt farms, together producing 80,000 tons of salt last year- a low yield due to heavy rains.
“The quality of Cambodian salt is still low compared to neighboring countries, Thailand and Vietnam, so we can’t export. We sell it locally,” he said. Mr Chhun said it would be difficult for producers to move up to modern techniques which are costly to implement.
“It’s very expensive. For just 1 square meter it costs $7,” he said. …
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.
Cambodia Angkor Air (CAA) intends to acquire seven more planes by 2015, more than doubling its existing fleet of five, as the airline plans new routes in the next few years to China, South Korea, Hong Kong and India.
The plan was unveiled at an industry workshop in Phnom Penh two days ago. By 2015, the airline which currently has three Airbus A321 for international flights and two ATR-72 turboprop planes serving mostly domestic destinations will have six of each aircraft model, a company representative said at the workshop. …
CAA’s vice chief executive, Lim Kao, said the new acquisitions will begin with an ATR-72, likely to be brought in around July or August this year. “This is to prepare for the high season for tourism [from November],” he said. …
A new Airbus A321 costs about $110 million, while the leasing fee is $300,000 per month. …
Cambodia and Uruguay on Thursday signed an agreement on visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders, aiming at creating close contacts among the two countries’ diplomats, officials and business people, officials said.
The deal was inked here between Long Visalo, secretary of state at Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Gerardo Prato Rodriguez, Malaysia-based Ambassador of Uruguay to Cambodia. …
Cambodia had granted operating licenses to 606 new companies in the first quarter of this year, a 33 percent decrease compared with the 904 firms at the same period last year, the Commerce Ministry’s report showed Tuesday. …
Yim Rom, an official at the ministry’s statistics and planning department, said the drop in new business registration was due to the ministry’s restrictions on registration procedures by thoroughly examining proposed companies’ business plans in order to ensure fair competition and to avoid duplicated trademarks. …
In the whole year of 2012, Cambodia granted operating licenses to 3,385 new firms, a 9 percent rise year-on-year, the commerce report said.
Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temples, one of the world heritage sites, received 694,700 foreign tourists in the first quarter of this year, a 8 percent rise from the same period last year, the statistics of Siem Reap provincial tourism department showed Friday.
The top three countries visiting the temples are South Korea, China, and Vietnam. During the January-March period this year, the temples welcomed some 142,040 South Koreans, up 8 percent; 87,104 Chinese, up 77 percent; and 45,760 Vietnamese, down 39 percent. …
Last year, the temples attracted 2.06 million foreign visitors, up 28 percent year-on-year. Tourism is a main sector supporting the Cambodian economy besides the garment industry, agriculture and the real estate industry.
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 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. …
In the light of growing tensions between North and South Korea, officials from the Ministry of Labour will head to Seoul on Thursday for a weeklong visit to inform Cambodian workers on emergency evacuation procedures.
An estimated 25,000 Cambodians, a figure that includes roughly 5,000 illegal workers, are employed in South Korea. …
The ministry is drawing up theoretical evacuation plans for about 8,000 workers in and around Seoul, should threat of a strike grow imminent. The group would be sent to Busan, in the south, and then flown or shipped to safer locales. …
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. …
Despite current tensions between North and South Korea, Cambodia’s tourism minister said yesterday that the number of tourists from South Korea to the Kingdom had not dropped. …
[Minister of Tourism Thong] Khong said that so far there appears to be nothing to worry about. “There are no reports that it [the stand-off] is affecting our tourism industry. But, normally, during the hot season, the number usually declines a bit,” Khong said, adding that in the first two months, the number of tourists from South Korea had jumped eight per cent compared to the same period last year, making it the largest source of tourists for the Kingdom. …
