News
Try Pheap inks $300M seaport deal with Hong Kong company
Timber magnate Try Pheap signed off on a $300 million seaport project with industry heavyweight Hutchison Port Holdings on 30 May, according to Kep provincial governor Ken Sotha. “The two companies held the signing ceremony in Cambodia’s Kep province, but the international port is going to be ...
Timber trade continuing despite ban, data shows
Customs data from Vietnam confirms that thousands of cubic meters of wood worth millions of dollars is continuing to reach the country from Cambodia despite a blanket ban placed on such exports four months ago. Soeng Sophari, a spokeswoman for the Commerce Ministry, which manages and ...
GI status for Tbong Khmum pepper unlikely
With 72 per cent of Cambodian black pepper production coming from Tbong Khmum province, agriculture officials are calling for it to receive Geographic Indicator status to promote the spice for export. Hean Vanhan, deputy-general director of the general department of agriculture, said on 30 May that if ...
Cambodia and Thailand edging closer to nuclear power
Step by step, Cambodia and Thailand are edging towards nuclear power generation as the region hunts for vast, stable power sources to fuel rapid development and improve the livelihoods of growing populations. As the debate over nuclear grows, so do the region’s power needs. According to ...
Timber exports to Vietnam way up
Legal timber exports to Vietnam – the bulk of them rosewood – soared between 2013 and 2015, with the volume of logs exported increasing by a factor of 142 and seven times as much sawn wood passing across the border, according to a report by ...
Dam firm hasn’t made good on pledge: locals
Some 100 people from five villages in Oddar Meanchey’s Chongkal district, Cambodia protested over the weekend against a hydropower dam project built by Chinese firm Sinohydro, claiming they have yet to be compensated for their eventual displacement when the flood gates close in the next ...
Posing for ‘poverty porn’: The murky ethics of NGO fundraising ‘hero shots’
The young girl in Sunrise Cambodia’s recent fundraising campaign has been labelled a “sex worker” in glossy typeface. Her face is smeared with dirt. She is accompanied by a “trafficked kid” and a “homeless teen” on the page. “Just because it raises money, it doesn’t ...
Government will start chipping away at protected areas
Between 2009 and 2012, the Ministry of Environment went on nationwide leasing spree, signing over vast swaths of the country’s nominally protected areas to private companies for rubber plantations and other agribusiness ventures. A new map of Cambodia’s protected areas shows the 36,000-hectare concession controlled by ...
Details of Kingdom’s first double taxation agreement released
In what could be Cambodia’s biggest step forward into the ASEAN Economic Community in terms of taxation deals and fiscal transparency, details on Cambodia’s first bilateral double taxation agreement (DTA) with Singapore have been released. Mey Vann, director of financial industry at the Ministry of Economy ...
Drought relief campaign over: PM
The government’s emergency campaign to distribute water to some 2.5 million people affected by drought is over, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen declared on 25 May, though for development partners and humanitarian groups, drought relief efforts continue. Humanitarian and disaster reduction manager for Save the Children ...
