Khmer Intelligence News - 23 December 2009

KHMER INTELLIGENCE NEWS
23 December 2009

CPP rescuing Canadia Bank and Foreign Trade Bank (2)

The ruling CPP is spending an increasing amount of money to prevent Canadia Bank and its subsidiary Foreign Trade Bank from collapsing under a mountain of bad debts resulting from the property market crisis. Hun Sen’s wife and children are major shareholders of the two banks. Accounting tricks (window-dressing) have so far helped hide the banks’ real situation. Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund said Cambodia must undertake "critical actions" to strengthen its battered banking system, including better supervision by the central bank and faster implementation of measures to boost banks' minimum capital requirements.

Business as usual for Thai fishermen in Cambodia (2)

In spite of the increasing tension between Cambodia and Thailand, Thai trawlers continue to fish in Cambodia’s territorial waters as usual after corrupt Cambodian local authorities in Koh Kong province resumed issuing licenses to fishing boats from the neighboring country earlier this month. The resilience of the fishing, smuggling and gambling (casinos along the border) businesses show that Cambodia’s feudalistic patronage-based political system cannot afford to sever multi-faceted trade relations with Thailand.

Sam Rainsy to go to Hanoi (2)

In a statement issued earlier this week, opposition leader Sam Rainsy said he would not show up at any Cambodian court to face “criminal” charges for uprooting tentative markers at the border with Vietnam because “it’s useless and meaningless to defend yourself before a servant. You’d better address the master.” However, he said he would accept to be tried before a Vietnamese court in Hanoi because “my trial is a political one first ordered by Vietnam’s government.” He would then “denounce the unfair 1985 border treaty signed by a puppet regime” and would “invoke the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements on Cambodia and its provisions on Cambodia’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Read full statement in English at http://tinyurl.com/y99gv8w

80 percent of the population live below adjusted poverty line (2)

Statistics on poverty in Cambodia are misleading. Excerpt from World Bank report “Cambodia: Halving Poverty By 2015?” published in 2006 : “The latest survey shows that now 35 percent of Cambodians live below the national poverty line, down from an estimated 47 percent a decade earlier.” But the World Bank’s methodology in defining poverty line obviously clashes with realities of poverty in Cambodia. Costs of living have dramatically increased over the last few years and several public services have been recently privatized. Many farmers have lost their land. Today, virtually nobody can survive on only 50 US cents (2,090 Riels) a day, which is at best a starvation line. In the Philippines and most developing countries in Asia and Africa, poverty line is estimated at 2 US$ a day. With a similar yardstick, at least 80 percent of Cambodia’s population of 14 million would be rightly considered as poor or extremely poor.

Former Resident Representative fired from ADB (2)

Mr. Urooj Malik, a former Resident Representative in Cambodia, has been recently fired from the Asian Development Bank following allegations of corruption. Mr. Malik’s case is reminiscent of that of Mr. Bonaventure Mbida-Essama, a former Chief of World Bank Cambodia Resident Office, who has since left the World Bank. In a lawless country like Cambodia, the local authorities are very good at tempting and corrupting representatives from international financial institutions and other aid agencies.

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