Ready, steady, boycott! Korean tensions spill over to restaurants

North Korean waitresses in Pyongyang Restaurant in Phnom Penh (Photo: Slate)

Jan 12, 2011
DPA

Phnom Penh - Ongoing tension on the Korean Peninsula has reached Korean eateries in Cambodia, local media reported Thursday, with boycotts of North Korean restaurants by South Korean tour groups and allegations of reprisal raids on South Korean restaurants by North Korean 'agents.'

Park Jeong Yeon, who heads the Phnom Penh branch of the Korean Association of Cambodia, said the sinking of the warship Cheonan last year, in which 46 South Korean sailors died, provided the spark. South Korea blamed the North for the torpedo attack.

'Afterwards, the embassy of (South) Korea recommended to Korean restaurants and tourist agencies not to go to North Korean restaurants,' he told The Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

North Korean company sets up biofuel factory in Cambodia

Jul 16, 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - A North Korean company said it would launch Cambodia's first biofuel factory, specializing in cassava conversion, by October, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Rasmei Kampuchea daily reported MH Bio-energy Group's director Choi Wee Sung said he had already advised Prime Minister Hun Sen of the factory's inauguration date at a site on the outskirts of the capital and hoped it would help Cambodia go green.

The factory will buy a minimum of 30,000 tons of locally grown cassava per year to convert into ethanol for use as biofuel, and is expected to reach full capacity by next year, the paper quoted Choi as saying.

MH Bio-Energy Group describes itself on trading website Alibaba.com as 'the biggest Korean investment company in Cambodia.'

'We will produce bio-ethanol in 2008, we can supply all kinds of agricultural product especially cassava chip, cassava starch in the world market,' it says.

The paper quoted the prime minister's spokesman Eng Sophalet as welcoming the company's ambitions, and Choi said he has already been invited to expand nationally.

Cambodia maintains warm relations with North Korea, where former king Norodom Sihanouk maintains a residence.

It has thrown open its threadbare secondary industry market to all competitors willing to invest in factories, which are sparse and currently almost exclusively devoted to garments, leaving Cambodia to export its agricultural products and buy them back once processed.