Cambodia Attracts US$116.5 Million In FDI In Two Months [-More upcoming land-grabbing from Cambodian farmers?]

PHNOM PENH, March 16 (Bernama) -- Cambodia attracted US$116.5 million in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first two months of this year, showing a recovery in FDI attraction from a decrease of 46 percent to US$5.9 billion USD last year.

The Cambodian Development Council (CDC) granted licences to nine projects worth US$75 million in January and to six others worth 41.5 million USD in February, reports Vietnam news agency on Tuesday.

The projects mainly involve in agriculture and apparel, including two garment and textile plants invested by China and Singapore, a Vietnamese-invested rice processing mill and several farm produce processing plants, according to the CDC.

The agriculture sector is becoming the most attractive area for foreign investors in the Kingdom and it has potential in the world market, especially in the European Union.

The Cambodian government has offered various incentives for investments in the sector, including tax incentives, in order to turn agriculture into the country's sustainable economic spearhead.

Cambodia has more than 6 million hectares under agricultural and industrial crops. However, only two-thirds of the acreage are under cultivated as the country lacks irrigation systems, advanced farming methods and high-yield strains.

With an output of about 7 million tonnes of rice in 2009, the government targets to produce about 8 to 9 million tonnes of rice by 2015, aiming to make rice a hard currency earner for the country.

The land-grabbing 7NG Company is crazy: Hun Xen

Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

PM Hun Xen issued a direct warning to the 7NG Company (KI-Media note: the 7NG Company was involved in the Dey Krahorm land-grabbing and forced eviction) which was planning to build a bridge from Phnom Penh to Arey-ksatr. Hun Xen scolded this dumb and thoughtless company that wants to use the Hun Xen park as the bridge entrance. Hun Xen issued his scolding during the inauguration of a 100-km long road linking Siem Reap province to the Poipet area on 28 December 2009. Hun Xen said: “They (CDC) gave authorization to create problems. As for the funding, I did not think about it yet, but the negotiation problem is to divide the city in two, I don’t understand and I wrote back for them (CDC) to discuss with the city hall because they (7NG) want to build a bridge from Chrauy Changvar to Hun Xen park, and they think they can do it because if the bridge is built across the river, in order to allow boat passage, they have to raise the height of the bridge. Therefore the bridge entrance must reach the Samdech Chuon Nath roundabout.” Hun Xen scolded the Council for the Development Cambodia (CDC) for allowing such plan to be considered as it is a waste of time.

Investment in Cambodian tourism reaches $354 mln in half year [-Another cooked up economic number?]

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The investment in Cambodia's tourism reached to about 354 million U.S. dollars in the first six months of this year and is a leading field that got the most investment, the local media said on Tuesday.

"Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC) approved about 1.22 billion U.S. dollars investment projects totally from private companies and 354 million U.S. dollars of the total is on tourism investment project," the khmer language newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea quoted the document from CDC as saying.

Agricultural field stands second row after tourism with 323 million U.S. dollars and next field is industry with 303 million U.S. dollars.

In total, Cambodia received 53 investment projects for the first half year and tourism field attracted seven projects, while agri-industry has 12 projects, garment industry with 14 projects and three in energy projects.

If we consider on the projects for the first six month of this year, it increases four projects but the investment capital went down about 3.2 billion U.S. dollars compared with the same period of last year, it said, adding that for first six month of last year, Cambodia yielded with 49 investment projects with about 4.43billion U.S. dollar.

Six SEZs along the Vietnamese border, several more are coming ... to boost the one-sided trade benefiting Vietnam

Cambodia strengthens Vietnamese trade with economic zones

Sunday, February 8, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Cambodia has licensed six special economic zones along its border with Vietnam to boost bilateral trade, according to the Council for Development in Cambodia (CDC).

Of the six SEZs, two are already operational and the rest are still under construction.

The largest, the 100-hectare Phnom Den SEZ along the border with An Giang Province, which cost about US$100 million to build, would house agricultural processing companies and is slated for completion in 2015, the CDC said.

The Phnom Penh Post newswire quoted Kim Sithan, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Commerce, as saying that trade between Cambodia and Vietnam would increase to over $2 billion after this SEZ is completed.

Bilateral trade was an estimated $1.6 billion last year and is expected to reach $2 billion in 2010.

Another Cambodian official was quoted by the Post as saying that Phnom Den would “attract both tourists and businesses because it shares a border with the An Giang Province of Vietnam, which is a high growth region.”

Reported by Vinh Bao

Cambodia Fights Disease

08 September 2008
VOA Editorial

The following is an editorial reflecting the views of the US Government

Click here to listen to the audio program in English

Cambodia has a newly renovated national public health laboratory, funded by the United States government. U.S. Embassy to Cambodia Charge d'affaires Piper Campbell and Cambodia's Health Secretary of State Professor Eng Huot took part in ceremonies, August 29th, opening the laboratory at the National Institute of Public Health in Phnom Penh.

Renovation of the molecular biology laboratory was funded by the U.S. government's Centers for Disease Control. The new facility will serve as a center for conducting polymerase chain reaction testing for avian influenza, HIV, and other diseases. It is also a starting point in joint U.S.-Cambodia efforts in developing the capacity to conduct even more sophisticated diagnostic testing for a host of other infections in the future.

The Centers for Disease Control provided six-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars to support the renovation of this laboratory's diagnostic capacity. This brings its total support for the development of laboratory capacity in Cambodia to three million dollars.

The Centers for Disease Control has also provided major financial support in order to train staff at the facility on molecular techniques, as well as other staff on serology, bacteriology, immunology including CD4 testing, hematology, and laboratory management. Laboratorians working at the provincial level have also received training in these areas, and the new laboratory will serve as a training facility for laboratory workers in Cambodia's provinces.

This facility and training provided are yet another concrete example of the U.S. government's efforts to detect and combat disease in the region. It is only a part of the more than thirty-six million dollars in aid that has been provided this year to support the health care sector in Cambodia. The United States Agency for International Development has provided nearly two-hundred million dollars for education and health and in Cambodia since 2002. The U.S. remains committed to helping Cambodia build a healthy, democratic, and prosperous society.

China surpasses SKorea to become the 800-pound gorilla in terms of investment in Cambodia

Asian nations vie to become Cambodia's biggest foreign investors

Wed, 27 Feb 2008
DPA

"Competing regionally remains less than easy. Trading partners use the words 'friendly' and 'cooperation', but of course they always look after their own interests" - Sok Chenda

Phnom Penh - China overtook South Korea as Cambodia's largest foreign investor last year, but Japan had shown an increased interest in investment as opposed to aid, a senior Cambodian economist said Wednesday. Speaking at a press conference in the capital, the secretary-general for the government's Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), Sok Chenda, gently chided Western nations for lagging behind Asian nations in foreign direct investment.

He said between 1994 to 2003 investment from Western nations made up just 15 per cent of the country's total, with 60 per cent coming from Asian nations such as Malaysia, China and Korea.

"I can't predict foreign investment figures for 2008 but I hope for even more. Prime Minister Hun Sen just returned from a visit to South Korea yesterday and we are hopeful that will generate renewed investment interest there," Chenda said.

"There is also new interest from other quarters, and especially Japan. Japanese investors have certainly now entered the doors of our home."

Approved foreign investments from 1994 to 2007 totalled 14.83 billion dollars, he said, with China accounting for 1.76 billion dollars of that total and South Korea 1.5 billion dollars.

Industrial investments made up 34 per cent of that total, followed by the service industry with 32 per cent.

Agriculture made up just 7 per cent, but Chenda said that was a promising area of growth and with a boom in global bio-fuel demand and the recently launch of several food processing factories in Cambodia it was expected to continue to grow.

However he admitted the less developed nation still faced obstacles, such as Cambodia's terrible balance of trade and lack of secondary industries, which meant container ships arrived full but often left with room to spare.

He also appealed to foreign governments to help Cambodia strengthen its ability to curb money laundering, pointing out that the country lacked an investment board to investigate potential investors thoroughly, such as the boards set up in Thailand and Japan.

"Competing regionally remains less than easy. Trading partners use the words 'friendly' and 'cooperation', but of course they always look after their own interests," he said.

CDC: Entrepreneurs need to deposit for island investment

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Cambodian Press Review
By Media Consulting and Development

The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) has announced that companies wishing to invest in islands on the country’s sea territory must provide a deposit of US$500,000 to US$2 million, which will be included into state budget if they fail to implement their projects, newspapers report.

“If six months has passed, [and] nothing has appeared in form, we will include that money into state budget, and we will arrange a bidding to seek a new investor,” CDC Undersecretary General Suon Sothi told investors during a meeting last week, reports Cambodge Soir.

The CDC has set the financial requirement based on a deposit of US$1,000 for one hectare of land on a island selected for project development, because some local and foreign firms have failed to develop islands as stated in investment proposals sent to the government, according to Suon Sothi, writes Rasmei Kampuchea.

“The new measure is to ‘run and follow the footstep of some investors’ [or] prevent them from requesting investment principles but leaving it unimplemented or selling and transferring it,” he said, according to the newspaper. “This is a new initiative to attract real, new investors.”

Cambodia has more than 60 islands, which can provide valuable advantages for the country’s growing tourism, Touch Seantana, secretary of state for the Council of Ministers, said, noting that neighboring Thailand and Vietnam have already benefited from these resources, continues Cambodge Soir.

Touch Seantana suggested that there should be human resource training to advance this kind of tourism, emphasizing: “Travel by boat from beaches to islands will generate a lot of profits for local citizens,” reports the French-language daily.

Om Pharin, president of the Cambodian Association of Travel Agents (Cata) , expressed satisfaction with the idea to place significant importance onto islands.

“This is in response to what we have wanted for long. Tourists not only feel interested in Siem Reap province [which houses Cambodia ’s world famous ancient temples] and Phnom Penh , but also like coastline resorts and a paradise atmosphere on islands,” he said, adding that travel agencies are ready to add those tourist destinations to their guidebooks.

Moeung Son, president of the National Association of Tourism Enterprises and Eurasia Travel, echoes Om Pharin.

“We should not pay sole attention to Siem Reap province. If one day Siem Reap suffers accidentally from serious incidents such as a terrorist attack, then the whole national tourism industry will decline,” Moeung Son told Cambodge Soir.