News
Health ministry warns of a spike in dengue
Large outbreaks of the mosquito-borne virus happen every three to five years. In February, the National Malaria Center observed that dengue cases reported in January were similar to those recorded in 2007 and 2012, when the country last saw dengue epidemics. Dr. Sovann said the ministry ...
ILO says factory conditions improving
The International Labor Organization said conditions in Cambodia’s garment factories have improved since it resumed identifying labor infractions at specific factories two years ago but noted significant ongoing problems in a report released on 1 July. The latest Synthesis Report, produced by the ILO’s Better Factories ...
Prey Lang still logged: community
Continued widespread logging in the Prey Lang forest is evidence that the government’s recent push to have more than 400,000 hectares of land protected is toothless, according to activists as well as a Prey Lang Community Network report released on 29 June. The report’s purpose was ...
NGO releases ELC figures to help with ‘shortcomings’
The NGO Forum on 28 June released an extensive and updated accounting of economic land concessions in Cambodia, suggesting that in a 20-year period, 267 ELCs totalling 1,532,783 hectares were granted. The data collection, from 1995 to the end of 2015, was conducted by the Research Advocacy ...
Officials bid to increase South Korean investment
A delegation of Cambodian investment officials and prominent private sector businessmen held a seminar in Seoul, South Korea, on 29 June in an effort to drum up more Korean investment in Cambodia’s growing agro-industrial sector. The Cambodian delegates briefed more than 80 Korean investors in attendance on ...
Worker traffic accidents down in ’16
The number of traffic accidents involving workers is down 28 per cent in the first six months of 2016 compared to the same period last year, Cambodia’s Ministry of Labour’s National Social Security Fund reported on 28 June. Accidents for 2016 through June totalled 2,259, with 2,849 ...
New restrictions aim to curb rice imports
Cambodia’s Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on 27 June that the government will block all illegal rice imports at its borders and limit legal rice shipments from Vietnam based on production cost. As part of the new regime, only milled rice with a production cost of ...
Most ELC disputes still unresolved
More than two-thirds of the 158 land disputes triggered by large-scale plantations over the past two decades have yet to be fully resolved, according to a new report by the NGO Forum on Cambodia. Drawing largely on incomplete government records, the umbrella group’s Statistical Analysis of ...
Kingdom scores low on human capital index
A report released on 28 June by the World Economic Forum underscores Cambodia’s poor performance at educating and training its citizens in order to develop a competitive workforce and put their skills to productive use. The Kingdom ranked 100th out of 130 countries in terms of human ...
Follow the money
A surge in U.S. aid is helping Cambodia scale up work to rid its eastern provinces of the deadly detritus of old wars. With other countries pulling funding, deminers are leaving the west—where death and injury from old landmines and artillery shells are far more ...
