Cambodia opening its doors to investment [-The whole country is for sale after all]

10/09/2012
Bangkok Post

With GDP growth averaging around 9% for the past decade, Cambodia is certainly attracting interest from potential investors. It has possibly the most investor-friendly environment in Asean with no exchange controls, no restrictions on repatriation of profit, and no discrimination between foreign and local investors.

Moreover, corporate income tax is 20% and there are tax holidays of up to nine years. Foreigners can also take out leases on land for up to 99 years and foreign companies can buy land.

For Thai investors, the interest so far has been in Cambodia’s growing footwear and garment industry. This is Cambodia’s biggest employer and key export earner and there are over 300 garment or textile factories. Low wages – about one-third the level of Thailand’s – are a big attraction for investors, even though the minimum wage for garment workers in Cambodia rose from $61 a month to $66 earlier this year. Cambodian garments and footwear also enjoy favourable tariff-free access to markets in the United States and Europe.

Song Saa Islands: A country for sale ... one island at a time

Cambodia’s Song Saa Islands: An Isolated Eden


April 16, 2012
Newsweek

A few nautical miles from the scabrous Cambodian port of Sihanoukville lies a little pair of islands known in Khmer as Song Saa, “the sweethearts.” Among the 60 islands of Cambodia (/newsweek/2012/02/19/lawrence-osbborne-reflects-on-phnom-penh-cambodia.html) ’s secretive coastline, they are, as brochures put it, lost. No one would know they were there were it not for the motor launch that leaves in the afternoons from the Sihanoukville port laden with the odd solitary millionaire in a linen hat and Prada espadrilles.

The sweethearts are uninhabited. They are Koh Ouen and Koh Bong, now occupied by a single “resort”—though the word seems over-hustled for a place that remains quietly separated from a coast that war and civil war have preserved in a state of beautiful ruin. A place made beautiful, if you like, by failure.

Companies given right to develop wildlife land [-At this rate, Hun Xen may as well his sons and daughters also!!!]

After selling off all of Cambodia's land and waters, will Hun Xen put his children and family to sell next???

Friday, 30 March 2012
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Ouch Leng, land reform project co-ordinator for the Cambodian Centre for Hum-an Rights, said that in 2011, 10,537 hectares were carved from the wildlife sanctuary and granted to 18 companies.

The Cambodian government has reclassified 12,000 hectares of wildlife sanctuary to make way for agro-industry concessions for three companies, according to the royal book issued on March 19.

The land has been cut from the Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest protected area in Cambodia, which covers 402,500 hectares of land at the juncture of the Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey and Siem Reap provincial borders.

According to the royal book, on March 13 Prime Minister Hun Sen signed three sub-decrees granting concessions to three private companies for agro-industry and rubber plantations. The sub-decrees annul all other legislative provisions concerning the land, including laws protecting the sanctuary.

The grand scale looting of Cambodia by Hun Xen, Inc.

A mother and her infant walking out of Borei Keila after their forced evictions

The great land giveaway

Friday, 23 March 2012
Phnom Penh Post

“All the places that evict people were taken over by private companies that have close relationships with powerful people, and some companies are even owned by senior government officers” - Thun Saray

More than 2 million of the Kingdom’s nearly 18 million hectares of land – roughly 12 per cent – was given out to 225 private companies in economic concessions last year, according to an annual report released by rights group Adhoc yesterday.

The concessions put 606 communities at risk of eviction, the report states.

Adhoc president Thun Saray said yesterday at the report’s release that the 2,276,349 hectares of land concessions were distributed to companies by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to be used for agro-industry development.

“This shows that Cambodia barely has any more land to grant as an economic land concession. In one year, the government granted over 1 million hectares to private companies like this,” he said.

“How will we have any to leave for the younger generation?”

Insight: China gambles on Cambodia's shrinking forests (Repost by request from Pissed Off)

Schoolboys ride a motorcycle through Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

Construction work takes place at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

March 6, 2012

Andrew R.C. Marshall and Prak Chan Thul

For activist Chut Wutty, Union Group's activities smack of colonisation. "You think after 99 years that this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they'll kick the Chinese out? No way. It's forever."

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

"This was all forest once," says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

"But then the government sold the land to rich men."

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km (130 sq miles) of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for "extravagant feasting and revelry," its website says. A 64-km (40-mile) highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Cambodia, an impoverished country known for its ancient temples and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

Insight: China gambles on Cambodia's shrinking forests [-China creating anti-Chinese conditions in Cambodia similar to Indonesia in the 60s?]

Schoolboys ride a motorcycle through Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

Construction work takes place at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

March 6, 2012

Andrew R.C. Marshall and Prak Chan Thul

For activist Chut Wutty, Union Group's activities smack of colonisation. "You think after 99 years that this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they'll kick the Chinese out? No way. It's forever."

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

"This was all forest once," says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

"But then the government sold the land to rich men."

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km (130 sq miles) of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for "extravagant feasting and revelry," its website says. A 64-km (40-mile) highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Cambodia, an impoverished country known for its ancient temples and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

Global land grabs creating security and political problems [-Shhtttt! Don't tell that Hun Xen, let him learn the hard way!]

Villagers in Kampong Speu fight back against the cops who came to evict them from their lands (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

It's become known as the global land grab. More and more wealthy countries are buying up agricultural land in the developing world in at attempt to hedge against high food prices. Ben Shepherd from Sydney University's Centre for Security Studies says these land deals are driven by countries sourcing food security by directly purchasing agricultural land, but it's creating both political and security issues in host countries.

September 13, 2011 13:37:00

Bronwyn Herbert

ABC News (Australia)

ELEANOR HALL: It's become known as the "global land grab".

More and more wealthy countries are buying up agricultural land in the developing world in an attempt to hedge against high food prices.

According to the World Bank, food prices jumped by almost 30 per cent last year and contributed to riots and protests across the Middle East, South America and Asia.

Ben Shepherd from Sydney University's Centre for Security Studies is researching the phenomenon and told Bronwyn Herbert that these land deals are creating a new kind of security and political problem.

BEN SHEPHERD: The deals themselves are usually made by corporations and investment funds but the investing countries like China and the Arabian Gulf states are providing support and policy frameworks that are encouraging these commercial enterprises activities.

So if there are bad outcomes in the way that these corporations are behaving, if those policy frameworks can be adjusted to encourage better behaviour by those corporations, there's a hope for better outcomes on the ground.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Are there examples of bad behaviour on the ground?

BEN SHEPHERD: I've just spent two and a half months in field work in Cambodia which is a really interesting situation. As well as the policy frameworks on the investor side, the Cambodian government has its own policy frameworks which are encouraging foreign investment in agricultural land.

And one of the unfortunate side effects of the way that those policies are working is that corporations are getting granted land in Cambodia and the net result is forcible evictions of the people that have been living on and relying on that land.

Sale of Khmer wealth by Hun Xen and his gang - By Spean Tep

[Thailand] Controversial policies may do long-term damage

August 19, 2011
By Thanong Khanthong
The Nation

The Pheu Thai government has introduced several controversial economic policies.

Let me go through them one by one.

1. Most people don't notice that an offshore oil deal is on the cards. Fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen are now trying to strike an offshore oil deal. The defence minister, the foreign minister and the energy minister have got a mandate to work with Cambodia on offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Thailand. The change of government from Democrat to Pheu Thai has facilitated this business deal. Chevron, the US oil company, is waiting in the wings for this project.

This oil production will take place in the overlapping maritime area as a joint operation between Thailand, Cambodia and the United States. However, offshore oil drilling is now very risky, given the frequent occurence earthquakes and natural disasters. Shell is now trying to control an oil spill in the North Sea. BP created a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a year ago. A court in Ecuador earlier this year fined Chevron US$8 billion for polluting the Amazon region.

The oil giants have bad records in offshore drilling when it comes to safety and care for the environment. Any monetary compensation cannot write off the massive damage being done to the environment. If a huge oil spill were to happen in the Gulf of Thailand, it would spell doom for Pattaya, Hua Hin and other resort areas along our coast. Thailand's tourism industry would basically come to a grinding halt.

Cambodia: Scale of Tatai River Dredging Permit Revealed

CPP Thief Ly Yong Phat

Jun 24th, 2011
David Boyle and Phak Seangly (phnompenhpost)
DredgingToday.com

“The consequences are two fold. Damage being done to the river can have an effect on the aquatic populations and sedimentation. On the other side these are eco-tourism sites and these are places that they are tying to make people to come and sustain the beauty and to use the river to generate income. Anything that makes this more difficult is not something that we can be pleased with” - John Maloy, spokesman for Wildlife Alliance

The scale of a dredging permit given to ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat was revealed yesterday, one day after Koh Kong businesses complained that fish stocks and eco-tourism projects were suffering due to large-scale sand extraction in the Tatai river.

A copy of the permit obtained by The Post yesterday shows that a concession given to the senator’s LYP Group covers seven separate sites along the Tatai river, totaling 32 square Kilometres. The sites are dotted at roughly equidistant points in a 25-kilometre stretch of river.

In 2009, Prime Minister Hun Sen imposed a total ban on marine dredging for export, except where sand gathered and replenished itself naturally or where build-ups were obstructing waterways.

Cambodian Conservati​on Areas For Sale

"A COUNTRY FOR SALE: I MEAN ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE! Buy the Prime Minister and get his wife for HALF OFF... Buy his son and get his daughter free..." -- Heard on the street of Phnom Penh

April 29, 2011
Op-Ed by Heng Heng

Destruction of Khmer Nation Continue..............

"Conservation Areas See Bonanza of Concessions" Cambodia Daily, April 29, 2011

Anything for sale in Cambodia, and it has always been quite a trend over the last two decades or so. Cambodia has been selling away its precious lands to Vietnam, a major investor of all times, at such a rapid rate that now even conservation areas are not spared from this quick-money-making process. More rain forest will be cleared as a result for rubber plantation and/or other similar projects. This is all done under the leadership of corrupted mind and soul like Monsieur Rannaridh and Hun Sen. Unfortunately, people continue to turn away blindly at their nation's on-going destruction of natural resources, land, lakes and everything constitute Khmer Nation. For Hun Sen and his associates there are just too many creative ways to pocket millions of dollars, of tea or social money so the Cambodian government preferred to call it. There aren't any transparencies to any transactions or where exactly the money go to? So, the looting of our nation continues unabated.

Whatever the issues are, whether it is land concessions, forced evictions, human rights violation, social or economic there is always a card that Hun Sen can play to distract all the attention from it all and that is to firing shot across the border with Thailand. It should not come as a surprise to anyone to learn that the last instigation of conflict, firing first, was initiated by the Cambodian side given there were enough domestic issues on the table for Hun Sen to deal with. Thailand did respond in kind and Mr. Hun Sen has to back off not without leaving many lives in shatter at the present. Having said that, Mr. Hun Sen did get his objective accomplished an that is to get people and the international community re-focusing back on the issue of Preah Vihear with Thailand. It is a diversion tactic/strategy which has a powerful affect in getting the populous behind the issue while in the process allowing Hun Sen and his ministers to continue selling out Cambodia. While refugees are being once again displaced, the deals and the destruction of Cambodia continues. Isn't it time for a meaningful change of leadership in Cambodia? It's long over due and as long as Hun Sen and his associates are in charge, your country will continue to operate on this destructive economic policy "Cambodia for Sale". Who is the major buyer, you bet, Vietnam. Vietnam will probably buy us out before the end of this decade, the nice part about it all, they have already taken plenty of lands without paying much, not to mention our lakes and sea areas. Go around Tonle Sap and see how many Khmer villages remain in the hand of Khmers. What about Tonle Bati, Takeo? A lot of free stuff since 1979, folks. Khmer people need to be aware that this damaging process can not continue un-checked because it has a devastating affect for eternity, their livelihood, their children for eternity. It needs to be reversed and it needs to be reversed quickly. Next time people go to the pole, they should vote for change.

I was wondering also what will be left after the selling of our National Parks? Hun Sen and his men are very creative in their scheme of things, and I won't be surprise they have already figured out what to do it next, so long they get your kind supports. Let's hope that your land or villages will not be next on his hit list as remote areas are most affected so far. Should anyone care? I hope you do because this so-called development process, land evictions, concessions, are not about to end any time soon. On the contrary, it has picked up speed and it could be heading your way in due course. So, do look out for that freight train, people.

Sale of sacred hill sparks protest [-Country for Sale Redux]

Monday, 21 March 2011
Tep Nimol
The Phnom Penh Post

VILLAGERS from 96 households in Takeo province’s Tram Kak district staged a non-violent protest to block a private company from destroying a protected sacred hill on Thursday, a representative of the group said yesterday.

Heng Try, A representative of Thmey village said employees belonging to an unknown businessman were repelled by the villagers when they attempted to clear Tuol Ang Yeay Pov hill using land clearing machinery and trucks.

“They want to destroy it to dig up artifacts [which] the villagers don’t want, the villagers want to keep it and build a Buddhist hall for worship,” Heng Try said.

Tuol Ang Yeay Pov hill, a 30 by 40 metre ancient site of worship dating back at least 800 years to the reign of king Jayavarman VII, is recognised as a protected site of worship and as state property by Tram Kak district’s cultural department, Heng Try said.

Global Witness criticises corruption in mining concessions

Source: Radio Free Asia
Translated by Khmerization

Global Witness had issued another statement last week relating to corruption and cronyism in awarding mining concessions in Cambodia.

The criticism was met with a harsh response from Mr. Hor Nambora (pictured), Cambodian Ambassador to London, who called for financial backers to cut their financial supports to Global Witness because he accused Global Witness of waging a vicious campaign against the government of Cambodia.

The Global Witness' report, issued on 5th May, criticised Cambodia's donors such as the EU, the U.S, China, Japan and the World Bank for failing to address the corruption issues with the Cambodian government amid amounting evidence of official corruption and the plundering of state assets.

Mrs. Eleanor Nichol, Global Witness' representative based in London, said that Global Witness had made great effort to meet the representatives from the donor countries to present them with evidence that Global Witness had uncovered from its investigations, but some donors refused to meet them and some agreed with Global Witness' concerns but they all failed to make any promises to take actions to address the corruption issues in Cambodia.

Mrs. Nichol said that there are mountains of evidence of corruption in Cambodia which have hampered development efforts. She added that Global Witness had already presented clear evidence of corruption to those donors.

The Global Witness' report titled "Cambodia: A Country for Sale" has exposed how the Cambodian government awarded mining concessions to themselves, their immediate families and their cronies without resulting in any benefits or little benefits to the nation and the people of Cambodia.