The National Committee for Disaster Management is meeting with officials from throughout the country in Phnom Penh this week in the wake of a slew of destructive storms that have wreaked havoc in the first four months of 2013.
Officials will gather for the second and final time today to discuss three major projects: the development of national and provincial risk maps, emergency management information and early warning systems, and the establishment of new construction guidelines and building codes. …
BANGKOK: Demand for farmland may strip the Greater Mekong region of a third of its remaining forest cover over the next two decades without swift government action, a leading conservation group warned Thursday.
Forests are being cleared for commodities such as rubber and rice while illegal logging is decimating many protected zones, WWF said in a report, adding a contentious dam on Mekong river will deepen already severe ecosystem damage.
“The Greater Mekong is at a crossroads,” said Peter Cutter of the WFF, adding Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar lost between 22-24 percent of their forests from 1973 — the first point of available data — to 2009, while 43 percent of woodland was stripped from Thailand and Vietnam. …
The US$3.8 billion hydroelectric project, which is due to be completed in around five years, has sharply divided the four Mekong nations — Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. …
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. …
Cambodia ranks last in travel and tourism competitiveness among eight Southeast Asian countries, according to a recently published study by the World Economic Forum.
The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013, which excluded Laos and Myanmar, said Cambodia comes 106th out of 140 countries this year, compared to placing 109th in 2011.
While the number of international tourist arrivals in Cambodia is increasing, the sector is still lacking a regulatory framework, an effective business environment and infrastructure, as well as human, cultural and natural resources, the report said. …
The president of the Bar Association of Cambodia has hit back at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), which called for assurances that the Bar Association’s newly launched Code of Ethics, which was unveiled on Friday, would allow Cambodian lawyers to freely express themselves without retribution. …
Article 17 of the Code of Ethics for Cambodian Layers states: “All interventions made publicly or through public media by lawyers in the capacity as lawyers may be permitted only within the framework of strict compliance with the duties of the legal profession. Such interventions require diligence.” …
Malaysia-based Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad has tied up with Rex International Holding Pte Ltd to participate in exploration opportunities in Cambodia and 10 other countries across the Asia-Pacific region, according to a statement released last Thursday.
Hibiscus’s wholly owned subsidiary Orient Hibiscus Sdn Bhd and Rex International Holding subsidiary Rex South East Asia Ltd have formed the 50-50 joint venture HiRex Petroleum Sdn Bhd, which will have the right of first refusal to participate in exploration opportunities across Southeast Asia as well as Australia and New Zealand. …
The Edge Malaysia reported in January that Petronas, Malaysia’s national oil and gas firm, was again eyeing the Cambodian oil and gas sector almost three years after withdrawing from the Kingdom. …
Laos is considering a single-visa scheme with its neighbours Thailand and Cambodia to promote balanced development in the subregion, officials said.
The Lao government will hold talks with Cambodia, possibly at the end of this month, to learn from Phnom Penh’s experience in this matter, a senior official at the consular department in Vientiane told the Vientiane Times last Sunday. …
Minister of Tourism Thong Khon told the Post yesterday that a Laos-Thailand-Cambodia single visa was discussed during the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Co-operation Strategy (ACMECS) meeting last month in Laos. …
So far, only Thailand and Cambodia have launched the single-entry visa in December last year. It is available at Thai and Cambodian embassies.
French government through French development agency will give $74million loan to Cambodia to support social and economic development in the kingdom, according to a senior official said today.
Director General of French Agency for Development (Agence Française de Développement -AFD) Mr Dov Zera will travel to Cambodia from 10 to 12 March 2013, according to media statement from French embassy here said. …
The number of subscribers to the mobile operator Beeline plummeted by more than 400,000 in the fourth quarter of last year—the single-largest drop for the carrier since it entered the Cambodian market in mid-2009—while the average revenue per user (ARPU) increased slightly, the company’s quarterly financials released Wednesday show.
The report, by VimpelCom Ltd., Beeline’s Amsterdam-based parent company, states that the number of customers sank from 1.02 million to 598,000 between October and December.
VimpelCom spokesman Bobby Leach said the drop is because the company decided to rid itself of “inactive” users. …
In April, VimpelCom sold its Vietnamese operations a month after it devalued it and its Cambodian assets by $527 million. …
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. …
Impoverished countries hoping to strike it rich by developing their limited oil and gas reserves are being urged to move quickly or risk having their expectations clipped by fracking, which is depressing market prices while adding life to fields once thought exhausted. …
The Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia had intended to bolster their bottom lines through yet-to-be-developed offshore oil and gas reserves. …
Fracking in the US has also led to an oversupply of liquefied natural gas, resulting in price falls of more than a third between 2008 and 2012. Major energy producers like Australia, Canada and Russia are following the US lead with oil and gas once trapped in shale deposits now being accessed and fields once thought spent being re-opened.
As a result, politically difficult countries like Cambodia East Timor and Papua New Guinea are becoming much less attractive than they were five years ago when the price of oil was at its peak. …
Turning positive exploration results from the Gulf of Thailand into a thriving commercial industry has also proved difficult amid maritime border disputes and control over oil acreages between Cambodia and Thailand.
The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding for joint management of the Overlapping Claims Area (OCA) in 2001. A joint working group held talks until 2007, and two years later management of the OCA was put on hold by Thailand. …
A CPP lawmaker said yesterday the government has signed 13 payment guarantees to companies constructing coal-fired power plants and hydropower dams in the country, a move that an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official reiterated was risky for the country’s fiscal future.
CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap said the most recent payment guarantee approved by the National Assembly last Friday on the $781 million Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province is typical when any major company makes an investment in an energy project. …
“It is the government’s obligation to do a guaranteed payment for investment companies whenever Electricite du Cambodge [EdC] [might] miss a payment or don’t pay the bill,” Mr. Yeap said. …
Investment in Cambodia from overseas surged by at least 44 percent last year, according to an estimate from the central bank, despite figures suggesting a reduction in the overall flow of foreign currency into Southeast Asian economies.
Nguon Sokha, director-general of the National Bank of Cambodia, said that foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country was thought to have reached at least $1.3 billion in 2012, based on early indicators. …
“[The 2012 figure] is an underestimate,” Ms. Sokha added. “We will have to revise it up, but I’m not sure by how much.” …
Ethnic minority villagers expecting to be displaced by a proposed Chinese-built hydroelectric dam in northeastern Cambodia are asking the country’s parliament not to approve a law providing financial guarantees for the project. …
Villagers living along three rivers that will be affected by the dam spoke at a press conference hosted on Thursday by the NGO Forum on Cambodia, urging the National Assembly to reject the draft law. …
Seak Mekong, Srekor commune chief in Strung Treng province, told RFA’s Khmer Service on Wednesday that villagers have petitioned authorities over their concerns and have asked for relocation sites, but have received no response. …
The remote district of Rovieng was once a battleground between Cambodian government troops and Pol Pot’s genocidal Khmer Rouge. Unexploded bombs still lurk in its fields and forests.
So does something more desirable – iron ore – and supposedly in such huge quantities two Chinese companies have an $11-billion plan to extract it.
Their proposal – a steel plant and seaport linked by a 404-km (251-mile) railroad – has alarmed environmentalists, mystified mining and transport experts, and bolstered Cambodia’s reputation as an agent for Chinese expansionism in a region where the United States is increasingly competing for influence. …
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Cambodia Iron and Steel general manager Zhang Chuan You said work would begin in July and be finished within four years. But Cambodia’s transport minister Tram Iv Tek, who also attended the ceremony, professed to know almost nothing about it. The conspicuous absence of authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen also left many wondering whether China’s mystery train was going anywhere. …
Asia Forestry Management, an integrated plantation-management company with a focus on cultivating Aquilaria crassna, aims to become Thailand’s biggest producer of oud oil this year and Southeast Asia’s in five years. …
The company’s plant in Trat province will be expanded to produce 280 kilograms of oud oil per annum by the end of this year from 150kg at present. It will look for more areas to grow its trees in Cambodia, Myanmar and Malaysia to supply the factory, through either management contracts or investment by the company, Andrew Steel, chief executive officer of the Treedom Group, the parent of Asia Forestry Management, said yesterday. …
Worldwide, office demand stemmed from the automotive, high-tech and energy industries. The latter is evident in Cambodia, where drilling off the coast near Sihanoukville has helped to increase office demand. Thus, companies such as Total and Chevron are large office occupiers, and new Japanese oil exploration firms will also establish operations in Cambodia by the end of 2013.
The growing insurance industry, particularly life insurance, is also a key office demand driver in Phnom Penh.
Cambodian Life, Manulife and Prudential jointly occupy more than 3,000 sqm of office space in Phnom Penh and will likely expand by the end of this year.
The top office buildings in Phnom Penh are seeking rents of between $21 and $28 psqm/m, and with the lack of high-quality office developments, rents are unlikely to decrease. …
Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5 billion hydropower dam pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday after a meeting of the Mekong River Commission.
The activists said Cambodia, also downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos during heated discussions on Wednesday and Thursday of failing to consult on the project.
The dam in northern Laos, the first of 11 planned for the lower Mekong river running through Southeast Asia, threatens the livelihood of tens of millions who depend on the river’s aquatic resources, activists say. …
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) will forgo an opportunity to voice opposition to the Xayaburi dam project – which member state Laos began building in November – when it meets for its annual council meeting next week.
Surasak Glahan, communications officer with the MRC secretariat, confirmed yesterday that member states, which also include Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, will not address the issue of the 1,285-megawatt dam on the Mekong River as part of its official agenda.
“There has not been a request for a particular discussion on the Xayaburi project made by the member countries,” he said. …
Located in a humble, barrack-like building with small offices that are still under construction, Global Security Solutions enjoys the proximity to its biggest customer: Toll Royal Railways. …
The company not only provides security for embassies, but for petrochemical companies, hotels and airlines as well.
Since the company, a division of the EZECOM Group, started operations in early 2011, Muller has recruited 21 employees and about 600 security guards and plans to further expand this payroll to not more than 1,000 guards. …
