Foreign investment in Cambodia’s property rises

Last Updated on 28 February 2013

By Siv Meng

 

Property experts say foreign companies are coming to invest in Cambodia’s property sector, as they see the growth and potential of the Kingdom.

Sung Bonna, director of Bonna Realty Group, said that the number of foreign companies in the sector has grown, and most are from South Korea, Japan, China, Singapore and Malaysia.

Chinese companies started their investments earliest, while other foreign companies have been studying and doing research about Cambodia before investing here.

“The property investment companies growth rose a little bit during 2011-212 as it grew better during 2012 and early in 2013”, Bonna said, “After Cambodia hosted the Asean Summit, with world leaders joining the meeting, we see the inflow of foreign investors into Cambodia, but some of them, at the moment, have been doing research and considering about the possible investment in Cambodia”.

Despite the signs of more investment, Bonna warned that there are too many public holidays to make investors happy in Cambodian, a point which he is worried and focused on.

“Forty-five days into the year to so far, there have only been 25 work days, which is an important issue that Cambodia government should take care of.”

Kong Putheara, director of the statistics and information department in the Ministry of Commerce, said there are 347 international companies entering to invest in Cambodia’s property, in which 107 are from South Korea, 54 from China, 21 from Malaysia, France and the USA, 17 from the UK, 15 from Australia and Vietnam, 12 from Thailand, eight from Japan and 56 from other countries.

However, he didn’t comfirm the growth level of foreign companies investing in Cambodia.

Keuk Narin, vice president of Asia Real Estate Cambodia, said that since 2012, there have been many international companies investing in Cambodia’s property sector, in which investors are Malaysian, Singaporean and Chinese, and from the second quarter of 2012, there has been a greater inflow of Japanese companies in Cambodia.  

Cheng Kheng, director of the CPL real estate company and president of Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, said now he was working with a concerned partner, so he do not want to say anything.

He said “the number of foreign companies investing and doing business in this sector has really increased but I don’t have specific figures. I have been working with the concerned parties to clearly get the figure in hand.”

Tourists, Not Tension, Reign at Preah Vihear Temple

By Neou Vannarin and Simon Lewis - March 8, 2013

 PREAH VIHEAR TEMPLE – Several fierce battles have been fought with Thailand at this ancient temple in recent years, but last week it was an energetic game of volleyball that kept Cambodian troops on their toes as groups of tourists wandered unconcerned around the 11th-century ruins. 

 

A Preah Vihear Authority conservation ranger drinks water. (Simon Lewis/The Cambodia Daily)

Despite saber-rattling stories in the Thai press and a recent warning by Prime Minister Hun Sen that Thailand planned to attack if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules that land around Preah Vihear belongs to Cambodia, volleyball and water were the two main concerns among troops at the temple.

A number of soldiers approached by reporters said they were under strict orders not to talk to the media. But rather than staying quiet to keep the enemy in the dark about military matters, they said they were gagged after a recent radio report quoted Cambodian soldiers complaining about the lack of water at the temple.

“The commander was angry after that,” said a soldier who declined to be named.

Far into the dry season, with only a few centimeters of water remaining in wells, and the ancient ponds of the mountaintop temple almost dry, water appeared to be the troops’ most pressing concern.

One soldier, Morn Phat, said that drinking water was being brought up the mountain.

“The water [to drink] is enough, but we have some trouble with water for bathing,” he said. “It’s normal for this season.”

Another, Touch Rathana, said all had been quiet on both the Cambodian and Thai sides of the frontline since July, when the countries held an official withdrawal of troops from an ICJ-proposed demilitarized zone (DMZ) around the temple.

Combat troops were withdrawn on both sides, and Cambodia has kept only conservation rangers and police at the temple since, Mr. Rathana said.

However, troops in army fatigues sat in sandbag bunkers on the steep road up to the mountaintop, which is still within the DMZ. Around the Hindu temple, only police and the Preah Vihear Authority’s rangers, armed only with pistols, were seen on patrol. The heavy weaponry previously stationed near the temple has been removed and there has been no fighting in the area for almost two years.

Around the ancient stones of Preah Vihear, on four ornate tiers separated by steps and long causeways, a handful of tourists strolled peacefully, occasionally crouching behind the sculptures for shade.

Eur Say Lang, 57, a rice farmer from Banteay Meanchey province’s Svay Chek district, said she had come to visit with a group of 17 people.

“But I feel a bit disappointed because it is ruined because of the war,” Ms. Say Lang said, peering sadly at the iconic lower pavilion, which is in a rundown state of repair.

“It must have been beautiful, if it wasn’t ruined by the Thai shells,” Ms. Say Lang said of the iconic stone portico, familiar to all from advertisements and beer labels.

Though the damage Ms. Say Lang spoke of was not inflicted by Thai artillery, but just hundreds of years of neglect and the harsh tropical climate, she thanked the Cambodian army for saving what was left.

“I’m really afraid that they [Thailand] will shell more and ruin everything. I’m happy the army is here to protect it.”

Ms. Say Lang carried with her a $1.25 photograph of herself in front of the temple, taken by one of the young men who make their living with digital cameras and battery powered laser printers.

According to figures from the provincial tourism department, visitors to Preah Vihear temple reached 92,300 in 2012, an increase of more than 75 percent compared to 2011.

Kong Vibol, director of the provincial tourism department, said the two-year period of peace at the temple meant visitors now felt safe.

“The security issue is under control. Our authorities have strengthened security, public order and hygiene for tourists to the temple,” he said.

Of the visitors in 2012, 7,141 were foreign nationals, almost two-and-a-half times the amount recorded in 2011, according to the figures.

“Most of the [foreign] visitors are from Europe, including Italy and France, as well as Asia, including Vietnam, China and Japan,” Mr. Vibol said, adding that the growth in tourism at the temple looked to be continuing this year, with more than 9,500 visitors seen in February alone.

Russian visitor Oleg Malin, 35, said the temple compared in beauty to Angkor Wat, but had an added element of excitement.

“I had some concerns. I was not advised [to visit],” he said, indicating that the modicum of danger associated with Preah Vihear was just his cup of tea.

Mr. Malin gestured at his two Russian companions: “I have some very adventurous friends.”

Graduates lacking skills: report

Last Updated on 05 March 2013

By Sarah Thust

 

 About 50 per cent of Cambodian university students studied business management, but still don’t meet the private sector’s demand. Photograph: Heng Chiovan/Phnom Penh Post

EVEN though about 50 per cent of Cambodian university students studied business management, the banking sector has been hesitant to recruit them, insiders said yesterday.
A 2010 report by the recruitment agency HRINC (Cambodia) projected that the supply of business, marketing, management, banking and finance, economics and accounting students would be more than double the demand.

The study predicted 103,000 graduates would be available, but there would be fewer than 46,000 jobs for them.

A recent case study by Universiti Malaysia Kelanta explored “the gap between the business management curriculum and employability” in the Cambodian banking sector.

After interviews with two curriculum designers and four recruiters, the report’s authors, Hum Chan, Abdul Aziz Ab Latif and Yohan Kurniawan, found why this gap exists.

“The study identified . . . loose enforcement of educational policy and law on nurturing the relationship between universities and industry in developing curriculum; a misperception among universities and the industry about skills development in the curriculum; a scarcity of resources in implementing the business management curriculum; and an information gap between university and industry to develop and update the business management curriculum,” they wrote.

Employers had confirmed that lots of training needed to be done, OSK Group country head Lim Loong Seng told the Post.

“We are concerned with the rampant pinching of staff by some new entrants, which has aggravated the very limited supply of talent and affected the depth and skill sets of these young professionals who need more training and exposure to undertake heavier responsibilities in the increasingly more sophisticated financial service industries,” Seng said.

“The industry would be open to risk without a sufficient supply and depth of professionals with the right skill sets and experience.”

 Acleda bank executive vice-president and chief financial officer Chhay Soeun said this was the reason Acleda preferred to train its own staff.

“Acleda has its own centre where we train our national and international employees for one month. After that, they practise their new-found knowledge for three months in the field,” Soeun said yesterday.

“Graduates have a basic knowledge that simplifies the training, but in our experience competence doesn’t depend on having a university degree.

“That knowledge isn’t very important. As long as employees are bright and their parents have educated them well, they can learn quickly.”

Blaming universities was not a solution, Cambodian Economic Association president Chan Sophal said.

“I think [the problem] is not just the curriculum, but the general standard of teaching and learning,” he said.

“Students come to university with a poor education background from school and work, or study several subjects at the same time.”

Sophal said another problem was the mismatch between the subjects graduates studied and their employment in a different sector.

Seng Bun Thoeun, vice di-rector of the National University of Management, wants to solve this issue.

“Our university held a workshop with about 50 participants, also from the private sector, in early February to adjust the curriculum to the sector’s demands,” he said.
“Before, the exchange with the private sector was very limited, but that’s what we’re looking to improve.”

 

Morality training key to success

Last Updated on 01 March 2013

By Stuart Alan Becker

 

When Tauch Ngam Youra arrived in Vientiane, Laos as part of the ACLEDA team, he noticed a cultural difference between Khmer and Lao people right away.
The date was December 31, 2007. He already knew the Thai language which made the Lao language easier to learn.

Luckily, a Lao lady from the Women’s Union Training Center helped the ACLEDA team locate itself in temporary offices. Another lucky break was that 35 students had come from Cambodia to study at a Lao university. Those students helped promote ACLEDA Bank in Laos.
“We set up temporary offices by renting a room in the training center,” Tauch said. “They came to meet us and then we tried to explain how we came to Laos and our purpose to expand our brand and network in Laos.”

Tauch said that, at the time, the big challenge was to find qualified people who could speak English, understand the differences in the culture and build trust.
“We had interviews with newspapers,” he said.

Tauch studied the Lao language in a 15 hour course and soon became able to read and speak Lao.

A big challenge in those early days was to build trust with the Central Bank of Laos in order for them to issue ACLEDA Bank a licence.
Following six months of work, they were granted their commercial banking licence in August of 2008.

The challenge that followed was to transfer the ACLEDA team’s skills to the new Lao recruits.
One difference was that the Lao workers were not accustomed to getting to work as early as the Cambodians.

“There was a change of the culture and a change of the working time. It was hard for us to push people to get up early in the morning.”

With a risk portfolio that differed from that of Cambodia, including default rates of up to 10 per cent on loans, they set out to bring Lao people into the Cambodian ACLEDA Bank culture.
Tauch said they also changed the culture regarding under-the-table money to zero tolerance.
“We provide loans without personal benefit and we get trust by providing good service to them. This is one-stop service. People feel happy because they never saw service like this.”
ACLEDA Bank started out in Laos providing small loans to green grocers, small businesses, farmers, fishermen and tuk-tuk drivers.

ACLEDA then expanded their banking business across the three largest cities: Vientiane, Savannakhet and Pakse.

The original 2008 ACLEDA Lao team consisted of 12 experts including Tauch - then a brand manager. Leading the team was Vann Saroeun, who served as President and Managing Director of ACLEDA Bank Laos. Today, the CEO is Phon Narin.

“We provided training, coaching and mentoring of credit officers. That’s the way we train, working closely with people who are on the job,” Tauch said.
Another key to success in Laos, as well as Myanmar, was supporting the training of the entire industry, even if they were competitors.

“We provided training to Laos two times, cooperating with the German government cooperation organization GIZ, as well as international organizations to support microfinance activity in Laos in general,” Tauch said.
In terms of a team, we were working very closely together, with a strong team and strong relationships with involved ministries especially with the Central Bank of Laos.

Born in 1959, Tauch’s father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse. He lost both of them during the Pol Pot regime and grew up as an orphan. He spent time in Pursat Province during the Khmer Rouge period, learning to survive in the jungle.

Tauch first joined ACLEDA Bank in January 1998, having earlier worked for a branch of the National Bank of Cambodia. From his initial job as an accountant, Tauch steadily rose through the ranks, becoming a credit official in 1982 - a position he held until 1998 when he started at ACLEDA’s micro loan office. He worked his way up to medium loan officer, then internal auditor and district team leader before becoming brand manager for the Laos office in Vientiane.

Tauch said his priorities were to build trust between the manager and the subordinates and, essentially, provide staff with training.

 “Staff commitment building is a big thing. Inside we respect the competency of the leader, but outside we are also friends. This is our working culture, which is very important, and the main point of ACLEDA working culture is that we recruit people without involving any money spent for the recruitment process.”

Tauch says the strong recruitment policy also included empowering women.
“We come to share our experience, to transfer our success to them and let them lead the bank by themselves,” he said.

Today ACLEDA Bank employs more than 500 people in Laos with 28 bank branches across the country.

Tauch has now been in Laos for two years and serves as head of training for the ACLEDA Training Center Ltd.

“I love to transfer skills to people according to my long experience,” he said. Tauch uses the “real case in a real place” as a motto of the training system.

Last November, ACLEDA Training Center put on a “Microfinance Winter Academy” in Siem Reap with 29 participants from 12 countries.

Chhan Ponloeu, president and managing director of ACLEDA Training Center Ltd. said it was through ACLEDA training that Lao people realised that sharing experience provided good information whether someone was a competitor or not.

When recruited staff joins ACLEDA, they undergo a five-day training program. Trainees are also evaluated on attitude. More skilled positions take 15 days, and credit officer and teller program positions take three weeks.

“If they pass, they can get a contract. We charge the bank, and they pay us. We hire resources from the bank, and have some resources to provide training, and we pay the bank for resources.
Laotians were invited to Cambodia where they took classes at ACLEDA Training Center in Tuol Kork. The same process is going on for people from Myanmar right now. Recently, a training session was completed in Naypyidaw.

Another important component in ACLEDA’s success is morality training in which staffs members are required to show gratitude for their parents because the parents guarantee that they are good people, according to Tauch.

“We get it right from the parents during the home visit of the recruitment process and show people how to pay gratitude to their parents.”

“This is the way we build our gratitude. We have to stand up and show respect and gratitude to our parents.”

Nineteen per cent of ACLEDA Bank shares are owned by ACLEDA staff, an important psychological point for staff motivation, Tauch said. “We are the owners and we have a sense of ownership – not only of the bank, but the policy as well. We develop our policy from the bottom to the top,” he said.

ACLEDA Bank CEO In Channy said there were very few commercial banks in Laos and that competing with the state-owned bank presented a challenge.

“We needed to build our presence and capacity and financial product tailor-made to low income people in Laos. Most Lao customers had never used bank products and financial services before,” In Channy said, adding that the goal was for an ACLEDA Bank branch to reach the Lao border with China in 2017.

“At ACLEDA bank we promote transparency in banking and finance, and we want our partners [to be] transparent to us and we want to build a strong bond with them.”
 

Malaysia: Najib treading on thin ice

By Roger Mitton

Although it should be a cinch to guess the name of the politician who did the following things, several perceptive observers were flummoxed when tested over the weekend.

The politician in question visited the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave of Gaza last month, and then went to Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum.

There, he told investors the threat of Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia had been nullified; yet upon returning home, he promptly had three alleged terrorists detained for subversive activities.
Soon afterwards, he was mortified to hear that Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party had lost a by-election in a formerly safe seat after an anti-government swing of 13.5 per cent.

Today, he plans to attend a vote-getting Chinese New Year bash at whiche South Korean superstar Psy will perform his famous Gangnam Style dance.

No, it’s not Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose party does face elections soon and who did visit Egypt and Saudi Arabia last week and who attended Davos in 2011, but not this year.

No, it is Malaysia’s rather vulnerable Prime Minister Najib Razak, who must hold a general election by June 27, and who, as the above actions indicate, is now in full campaign mode.
His trip to Gaza, the first by a non-Arab Muslim leader since 2007, was provocative, dangerous, crudely geared to impress his Malay-Muslim constituents — and highly laudable.

After all, the Hamas-led government in Gaza has been in power since it was democratically elected in 2006 and has more legitimacy than some of Cambodia’s neighbours.

Predictably, the rival Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank condemned Najib’s visit, as did Western nations that noticed it; less predictably, Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim did the same.

Anwar is a rather mercurial fellow. In his younger days, he was a fervent Islamist with revolutionary tendences; today his attitudes, especially his foreign policy, align more with those of the United States.

It is understandable. During his long years of detention and subsequent harassment by former PM Mahathir Mohamad’s authoritarian government, no one supported Anwar as much as the US.
But his echo of Washington’s censure of Najib’s visit to Gaza could be a major misstep.
Najib has cannily defended it as a humanitarian mission and took the opportunity to chastise Israeli belligerence and to offer scholarships to needy Palestinian students.

For a notoriously indecisive politician, it was a bold move that might, on its own, help Najib’s National Front government retain Malay heartland states like Kedah, Perak and Terengganu.
What it will not do is win over non-Malay votes.

Recent soundings are ominous for Najib for they indicate the Chinese and Indian communities will support the Anwar-led opposition.
The PM’s National Front can live with this in peninsular Malaysia where a large majority of the population is Muslim, but if it occurs in the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, then Najib will be toast.

And it could happen, for his overtures to East Malaysians have been hurt by last month’s revelations of a “citizenship-for-votes” scheme whereby hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants were given identity cards.

Last month, a commission of inquiry was told by one former official that he accepted more than $25,000 to grant citizenship to illegal Filipino, Indonesian and Pakistani Muslims who promised to vote for the National Front.

The numbers certainly support the allegation. In 1960, less than 40 per cent of Sabah’s population was Muslim; today, it is nearly 70 per cent.

How native-born Malaysians react to this vast fraud in the coming election is hard to gauge, but it is possible that the shock results in Singapore will pale beside what happens soon in Malaysia.

AUSTRALIA: Foreign graduates push locals out of jobs

Geoff Maslen 06 February 2013 Issue No:258

 

 Young Australians are facing fierce and increasing competition from foreign-born graduates for a declining number of jobs, according to a new report.

The report says it is the Australians who are losing out, given that the 100,000 new jobs created since 2011 have been almost all taken up by migrants, many of whom are foreign students who graduated from Australian universities and have stayed on.

The study highlights the problems faced by Western countries – that have attracted high migrant numbers from Asia – when unemployment rates begin to rise.

The report says the slowdown in employment growth in Australia is starting to bite on the job situation for the local-born.

This effect is exacerbated by the federal government’s immigration policies to encourage large numbers of migrants into the country, since they have succeeded in taking up all of the net number of new jobs created in Australia over the past two years.

“This is occurring at a time when the potential workforce among young Australians continues to grow. The result is increasing unemployment, a declining level of labour force participation and, in less-skilled, entry-level occupations, ferocious competition for available jobs,” the report says.

Prepared by Dr Bob Birrell and Dr Ernest Healy of Monash University’s centre for population and urban research in Melbourne, the report says there is a strong case for the government to re-evaluate its migration policy.

“At present, the government appears to be operating on two assumptions: the first that employment growth will continue at pre-2011 rates and the second that migrants are filling important skill vacancies in the workforce.

“The recent slowdown in employment manifestly falsifies the first assumption and the poor record of recently arrived degree-qualified migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds in gaining professional and managerial positions belies the second.”

The report says the federal government is wrong in claiming that its migration programme is importing “a highly educated addition to the nation’s skilled workforce” to help fill skill vacancies.

In a study of more than 200,000 immigrants who arrived in Australia since 2011 and their workforce participation, Birrell and Healy found that most graduates from non-English-speaking countries were employed in occupations in sub-professional fields, mainly in community and personal service, and clerical and administrative fields.

The Monash researchers looked at the largest group of recently arrived skilled migrants, which included significant numbers of overseas students who graduated from Australian universities. They say that if the migrants held skills needed in Australia, this should show up in a strong record of employment in managerial and professional positions.

This group is of particular interest because of the government’s aim to boost the proportion of degree-qualified 25- to 34-year-old Australian residents to 40% by 2025.

Birrell and Healy say the government “has been in celebration mode on this issue recently” because it appears its policies of opening up opportunities for university training appear to be working, with the proportion rising from 31.8% in 2008 to 36.8% in 2012.

“In reality, this surge in the proportion of those aged 25 to 34 with degrees has little to do with recent increases in university enrolment levels.

“These will have an impact on the share of the 25- to 34-year-old cohort with degrees over the next decade whereas the recent rise is attributable to migration [because] 72% of the growth between 2006 and 2011 were overseas-born and include a mixture of persons who entered Australia with degrees, and those who trained here as overseas students and have stayed on either as permanent or temporary residents.”

The study found that nearly one in three degree-holding migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds had credentials in management and commerce – a direct result of the high proportion of overseas students who completed accounting courses in Australia and then sought to stay on.

Yet 31% of this group were unemployed compared with 9% of Australian-born graduates and 12% of those from mainly English-speaking countries.

“The bottom line [for the non-English-backgrounders] is that as well as the 31% not employed, only 4% of the total occupied managerial positions and just 26% held professional positions.

“By comparison, 58% of the Australian-born and 53% of those recently arrived from English-speaking countries with degree qualifications reported being employed in professional occupations.”

The report says that more than 672,000 Australians now need to rely on unemployment benefits – up by nearly 56,000 between November 2011 and November 2012 – and that this should be “ringing alarm bells in policy circles”.

Local analysis of youth unemployment also shows very high levels in lower-income areas of Melbourne’s north and west, in Sydney’s western suburbs, in parts of Adelaide and in Queensland. Youth unemployment in northern Adelaide was reported to be as high as 42% – a consequence of significant competition for low-skilled jobs advertised in the northern suburbs.

“Young people without post-school credentials face serious problems in obtaining work in the current labour market. Most have to begin their working life in relatively low-skilled, entry-level jobs, such as in the hospitality and retail areas,” Birrell and Healy write.

“Yet these are the very industries that have been hardest hit in the recent slowdown in employment growth [and] are also the industries in which temporary migrants are most likely to seek employment.”

Senator’s Wife Showers Police With New Year Cash

 By Aun Pheap and Dene-Hern Chen - February 12, 2013

At 9 a.m. on Sunday, more than 200 soldiers, police and military police officers were gathered outside a large mansion on Street 55 in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district. By 10 a.m., their numbers had swelled to about a thousand, now including members of the national bodyguard unit, turning the street into a sea of government uniforms. 

Hundreds of police, military police and RCAF soldiers on Sunday wait outside the Phnom Penh mansion of Choeung Sopheap, the owner of Pheapimex company and wife of CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin, to receive envelopes of money for the Chinese New Year. (Ben Woods/The Cambodia Daily)

All were waiting for their prom­ised “ang pao”—red enve­lopes containing cash usually handed out during Chinese New Year—from Choeung Sopheap, the powerful owner of controversial land development firm Pheapimex and the wife of CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin.

Pheapimex holds a number of economic land concessions around the country, most notably a 316,000-hectare site in Pursat province’s Krakor district where villagers have staged several protests alleging that their land was illegally cleared. Armed military police officers have been deployed to guard the concession.

Ms. Sopheap’s husband, Mr. Meng Khin, is also the owner of Shukaku Inc., which has used armed government security forc­es against protesters at its real estate project in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood.

Rights groups have long ac­cused government security forc­es, especially the Royal Cambo­dian Armed Forces, of protecting the private land concessions of well-connected families in a clear conflict of interest.

But the grateful officers clogging the streets around the house of “Yeay Phou,” or Grandma Phou, on Sunday—picking up between 30,000 riel ($7.50) and 50,000 riel ($12.50) each—readily admitted to the special relationship.

“We help her when problems arise, not only in Phnom Penh but also in the provinces,” military police officer Sieng Radin said while waiting outside the gates. “She loves the armed forc­es because she knows we protect her and she is a high-ranking official. She may be a business wom­an, but she also works with the Cambodian Red Cross.”

“And it’s not only the Gen­dar­mer­ie [national military police], it’s also other joint forces that help her with strikes, and if the strikes affect her projects, like Boeng Kak,” Mr. Radin added.

Chan Dora, a military police officer who said his unit worked directly for the family, attributed Ms. Sopheap’s generosity to her gratitude for their services.

“I’m part of the unit that protects her family, so she gives us ang paos to thank us. I really appreciate it,” Mr. Dora said. “We are military forces and we are also assistants to her. We always help with whatever she needs help with.”

More than 5,000 ang paos were finally handed out, said Lao Van, Mr. Meng Khin’s son, though he did not know how much money it all added up to.

“This is our kindness, to distribute the ang paos to the armed forces because they work very hard. All of them, like the traffic police and other police, they not only work for my family but also for everyone’s families,” Mr. Van said, adding that his family had been making the annual mass donations for nearly a decade.

Chea Vannath, an independent political analyst, said this practice of private business owners providing money to state employees would inevitably raise questions.

“What you see now is the re­sult of the [informal] policy for the higher-ranking [officials],” she said. “So if there is any change, there needs to be a policy from the top that the military and the police have to be independent and not have…financial transaction whatsoever from the business or private sectors.”

Council of Ministers spokes­man Phay Siphan said the country’s armed forces exist for the benefit of the public, not private enterprises, adding that he could not comment on whether Ms. So­pheap’s tradition of giving the armed forc­es ang paos was appropriate.

“It’s hard for me to say if it’s proper or not proper because we don’t have any such law or regulations on what we call a conflict of interest,” he said.

Either way, Lon Saran, a military police officer who has re­ceived the ang paos five years in a row, summed up the deal with Khmer proverb.

“Mean tou mean mork,” Mr. Saran said, meaning roughly that when one provides a gift to another, help will come to the benefactor.

Cambodia: Last days of a valley damned

May Titthara, David Boyle and Danson Cheong, Phnom Penh Post, Feb. 8 2013

Yong Yim’s voice rises to a high-pitched quiver when she talks about a planned dam in the Areng Valley that would inundate land her family has inhabited for hundreds of years to form what amounts to a giant battery.

“Sometimes I am crying, because I will miss my homeland and my ancestors’ farmland,” she says, spitting out chunks of betel nut.

The trees and shrubs that flourish in this haven between peaks of the Cardamom Mountains now bear an ominous token: red demarcation ribbons posted by Chinese engineers a few weeks ago.

Yim, 65, was born here among a cluster of villages populated by 380 families. Most say they are Chong and Phor ethnic minorities, who fall under the umbrella identity of the Khmer Daeum — literally “original Khmers”.

The Khmer Daeum are so isolated they still speak a dialect believed to have derived from ancient Khmer that has been preserved since their ancestors fled from Thai invaders to the isolated Cardamoms hundreds of years ago.

Now they are staring at forced relocation again, their ancestral homelands all but doomed to become yet another area on the fringes of the Central Cardamom Protected Forest (CCPF) to be devastated by the effects of hydropower dams. To date, there are three dam projects, some with multiple stations, under way on the boundaries of the CCPF.

Lee, an engineer working on one of those projects, the Stung Tatai, told the Post late last month plans to begin construction of the bitterly op­posed Cheay Areng dam were moving ahead rapidly.

“I spoke with the project leader of the Cheay Areng dam recently, and he said that next month [February] representatives from the company will meet with the Cambodian government to discuss the project,” Lee, who spoke on the condition his full name would not be printed, said.

“If all goes well, construction could start as soon as July.”

Lee said a feasibility study for the once-abandoned Cheay Areng dam had recently been completed by China Guodian Corporation, the huge, state-owned firm that took over the project after China Southern Power Grid pulled out of the project in 2010.

The details of that study, Lee said, were scarce, and he had not investigated too much because matters here with the government could be “complicated”.

Repeated requests for comment from China Guodian Corporation went unanswered and the company hung up on reporters when reached by phone.

Previous studies conducted for the firm China Southern Power Grid, which dumped the project because they deemed it unfeasible, suggest that a 109-megawatt dam would be fed by a 20,000-hectare reservoir.

Roughly 10,000 hectares of this reservoir would cover forest directly within the CCPF, the largest single encroachment to date on what is one of Cambodia’s last remaining well-protected conservation zones. The remaining 10,000 hectares of the reservoir would inundate the forest homelands of the Khmer Daeum.

But despite the massive impact, the energy output would be strikingly small.

Tracey Farrell, senior technical director for Conservation International-Cambodia, which supports conservation programs in the CCPF, said in an email that a previous environmental impact assessment had found that the dam “failed to meet the minimum power density ratio of more than 100 watts/m2 of surface area of the reservoir”.

This has led conservation groups to question why the government would allow the destruction of such precious remaining forest for a dam that the latest publicly available information suggests will not really work. There has been no answer.

Using satellite imagery analysis, Conservation International has found that only about two per cent of the 402,000-hectare CCPF lost vegetation between 2006 and 2012.

But with each new dam project – the Stung Atai, Stung Tatai and Stung Russey Chrum – comes a wave of opportunistic migrant loggers commissioned by powerful syndicates, as well as violence and corruption.

A land unparalleled

The loss of the Areng Valley would be particularly devastating. In its upper reaches, the 150-kilometre Areng River resembles that of a large low-land river despite being far from the ocean. The unique morphology likely explains why it boasts an extraordinary diversity of species, most of which are endangered.

Populations of clouded leopards, Asian elephants, Siamese crocodiles, dragon fish, Asiatic black bears and a raft of other reptiles, birds, fish and mammals thrive here.

Rare fish species flourish in the valley’s oxbow lakes – U-shaped stretches of water that have become detached from the river.

In his own visits to the Areng, the Chinese engineer Lee has borne witness to the rich diversity of wildlife that feed off of and seek shelter in the valley’s thriving flora.

“I’ve seen crocodiles, elephants and other animals in the area, but if you want to build a dam, you have to cut the trees down. Then the animals that live there will move away. It’s unavoidable,” he said.

The elephant population in particular is so robust that toward the end of every annual harvest, petrified migrant villagers find themselves with little choice but to shoot off fireworks at hungry elephants to save their crops from the marauding herds.

Just days before Post reporters arrived, almost three weeks ago, the elephants had been on a fresh gastronomic offensive, indulging on bananas, peanuts – anything ready for harvest.

The nearly 1,000 people who will be forcibly relocated if the dam is built have been offered six-by-eight-metre houses with zinc roofs on two-hectare plots of land smack dab in the middle of what conservationists loosely term an “elephant corridor”.

But that’s not their only concern with the relocation site.

Prom Rin, 43, believes he will be relocated to land that is just 100 metres from where the dam would discharge. He fears disaster would ensue if something went wrong with construction.

Thma Daun Pov commune is just one of many relocation sites that have been floated; and though no official word has been issued, villagers are convinced this is the likely option.

“I am worried that we will lose everything,” says Rin.

His fears are not unfounded. In December, an outlet pipe burst at the Stung Atai dam, which, like Areng, discharges just outside the perimeter of the CCPF.

The torrent that was unleashed swept away at least three men, possibly four, who are now presumed dead.

Of greatest importance to those facing forced eviction is that they will lose lands that are home to ancestral spirits and which they have harmoniously cultivated for generations. Some villagers are desperately suggesting eco-tourism could instead be developed as an alternative to the dam, drawing in tourists to experience the wonderful diversity of species in the area.

But no one is helping them to develop this foreign, relatively complex industry, and there is one rare species in Areng that actually threatens to entice the destruction of the forest rather than its protection – luxury rosewood.

If the experience of other dam projects on the boundaries of the CCPF is anything to go by, the peoples of the Areng Valley can expect huge social and environmental problems related to the clandestine trade in luxury timber that is likely to stretch far beyond the boundaries of the dam and its reservoir.

Lessons of the past

About 16 kilometres away in the town of Thma Bang, military police and soldiers infest the streets, patrolling the area like a small, privately owned fiefdom.

They are known to use intimidation and violence against anyone potentially jeopardising the interests of the corrupt businessmen and officials profiting from the illegal rosewood trade in nearby Tatai Leu commune – for whom they routinely moonlight. Repeatedly, this intimidation has been directed at reporters from the Post, who have been detained, threatened and forced to flee from military police.

In Areng, rosewood is still so abundant that on one farm the Post visited, the owner had simply tossed highly valuable small pieces of timber to the ground, only bothering to collect the more lucrative larger logs.

Tatai Leu was once home to abundant rosewood stocks, but in late 2011, after the Stung Tatai dam was approved in January of the same year, a wave of migrants arrived and began selectively logging the trees to sell on to powerful syndicates.

Today, the migrants collect only stumps left over from the more profitable days, and even these are becoming scare.

With a less reliable income stream from illegal logging, migrants are now seeking to clear land for farming so they can support their families.

Though rosewood can fetch more than a million dollars as finished pieces of luxury furniture sold in China, those who do the hard work of logging make just a few dollars per log.

There is no separating logging from land grabbing – the two issues are linked in a chain that starts with the selective logging of luxury timber (often, in the case of the CCPF, after a company is legally granted the right to clear a dam reservoir). It ends with migrants who are enticed to the area as manual labour vying with companies and powerful individuals to clear fell the remaining trees − the former seeking a livelihood, the latter seeking huge profits from large-scale agriculture.

The worst example is in Pursat’s O’Som commune in the northern CCPF, where vast tracks of once-pristine land are left looking like a bombsite after tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import & Export came in to clear the reservoir for the Stung Atai dam in 2009.

So it is becoming the case in Tatai Leu, where large tracts of clear-felled land lay still smouldering on either side of the road that intersects this once untouched stretch of evergreen forest three weeks ago.

Villagers told the Post they were clear felling the forest because Prime Minister Hun Sen’s volunteer land surveyors have been deployed directly inside the CCPF, and they need to prove they are cultivating the land to have any hope of receiving a title.

But the opportunistic logging rush extends to higher officials, and to have any hope of receiving a title, you have to be connected, they said.

Kim Ra, 36, and his family moved to Tatai Leu commune about  six months ago, after they heard about the national land-titling scheme.

“I think if the student did not measure the land for me, that’s fine. But I’ll still live here,” he told the Post.

Like all the villagers the Post spoke to in Tatai Leu, Ra said that the commune chief and district chief had been seeking to secure much larger plots of land under the national land-titling scheme, including one hill that has now been almost completely deforested on one side.

When contacted by the Post, Meas Chan, chief of Tatai Leu commune, refused to comment, saying only that he did not know about such rumours and had no involvement, while Tou Savuth, governor of Thma Bang district, could not be reached.

The issue of migrants clearing land in the CCPF to claim titles was “particularly problematic”, wrote Conservation International-Cambodia’s Tracy Farrell.

“Any land clearing that is taking place, whether it is inside or outside the CCPF in the buffer zone, is a major threat to biodiversity and the ecosystems that provide essential services that people depend upon,” she wrote.

As a result of this threat, documentation on eight cases of illegal land-clearing since 2012 involving 60 hectares of cleared forest were being investigated by the provincial court, Farrell wrote. In at least one case, a primary suspect had been named by the court.

Nevertheless, there is clearly friction between different government authorities and officials over whether or not to crack down on the illegal logging.

Even a military police officer in Tatai Leu, who declined to give his name, was clearly frustrated by what he said was clear-felling backed by corrupt local officials.

“If I was a volunteer student, I would not measure land for them, and I would file a complaint against those people to the court because they cut trees,” he said, going on to allege that senior local government officials were buying the land up off them.

Koh Kong provincial forestry administration chief Oum Makary acknowledged that illegal clearing had taken place inside the CCPF but said all he could do was send his report to the provincial governor and high-level officials.

“I have no duty to do [pursue] it besides [filing] the report,” he said.

A three-star general who tried to take action to stop the illegal logging had recently been fired, he said.

Just under two weeks ago, a large government entourage, including the prime minister and his entire politburo, took a trip to isolated Thma Bang town, arriving in a convoy of black SUVs.

As the premier lauded the final chapter in his national land-titling scheme, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Chan Sarun drove on to Tatai Leu, straight past the clear-felled smouldering tracks of what was meant to be a protected forest.

If Sarun was shocked by the destruction he witnessed on either side of the road, he uttered not a word publicly.

Value of construction in Cambodia skyrockets

Last Updated on 23 January 2013

By Hin Pisei

 

The amount of money spent on construction in Cambodia soared by 72 per cent in 2012 compared to 2011, according to data from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.
The ministry said it had issued 1,694 construction patents covering 6.5 million square metres of land, involving total capital of $2.1 billion in 2012, compared with 2,125 patents for 4.2 million square metres and capital of $1.2 billion in 2011, an increase of 71.9 per cent, the data shows.
Lao Tip Seiha, deputy general director of construction at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction and an adviser to the Supreme National Economic Council, said the significant growth of capital was due to several construction projects in 2012, as many high buildings on more than 3,000 square metres each had been constructed in Phnom Penh in 2012 and in provinces such Preah Sihanouk, Battambang, Kampong Thom and Kandal.

“Because Cambodia’s economic situation is stable, the capital has increased well, local and international investors are confident in the political policies, and our country is rich in infrastructure,” he said.

As Cambodia’s population and economy have climbed steadily, the demand for housing, trade buildings, offices, factories, hotels, schools, hospitals and entertainment centres has increased as well.
“In 2013, construction will be boosted further than in 2012 despite Cambodia holding a general election, because the economic situation, daily life, micro-finance and security are good, and investors have confidence in the government. All these are the foundations to push the national economy, because it can provide many jobs to people such as workers, architects, engineers, technicians... and urge the price of real estate up further,” Tip Seiha said.

Many countries have invested in Cambodia since 2000, such as China, South Korea, Britain, Thailand and Malaysia.

In 2012, several big Japanese companies have also invested heavily in Cambodia.

 

Interesting times for Phnom Penh office market

Last Updated on 23 January 2013

By Ryan O’Sullivan

Tight market conditions, strong demand for office space and constrained levels of new supply are the principal reasons behind the rising occupancy costs in prime office markets across the globe. 

Canadia Tower in central Phnom Penh. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post

Out of the top five most expensive office markets in the world, the Asia Pacific region contains four: Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and New Delhi. With Hong Kong’s inherent lack of office supply, prime rents remain robust at $171 per square metre per month (psqm/m).

Demand from global financial and manufacturing companies kept occupancy costs high in Tokyo, while in Beijing pharmaceutical companies continued to expand.

Worldwide, office demand stemmed from the automotive, high-tech and energy industries. The latter is evident in Cambodia, where drilling off the coast near Sihanoukville has helped to increase office demand. Thus, companies such as Total and Chevron are large office occupiers, and new Japanese oil exploration firms will also establish operations in Cambodia by the end of 2013.
The growing insurance industry, particularly life insurance, is also a key office demand driver in Phnom Penh.

Cambodian Life, Manulife and Prudential jointly occupy more than 3,000 sqm of office space in Phnom Penh and will likely expand by the end of this year.
The top office buildings in Phnom Penh are seeking rents of between $21 and $28 psqm/m, and with the lack of high-quality office developments, rents are unlikely to decrease.
In terms of new supply, Vattanac Capital will be ready for occupation this year. The building will be the first Grade A office development in the Kingdom.

The development recently won an award for the best commercial property in Southeast Asia, and its specifications match many office buildings in Hong Kong and Singapore. This is not only welcome news for occupiers, but also helps to elevate Cambodia’s standing among investors.
Cambodia’s sound macro-economic fundamentals, the first Grade A office development in the country, and the continued expansion of multinational corporations will make 2013 an interesting year for the Phnom Penh office market.

Number of construction companies in Cambodia soars

Last Updated on 09 January 2013

By Seun Son

 

Construction and design companies that have registered for business in Cambodia have grown to number 1,205 at the end of 2012, according to an official at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.

Lav Tepseiha, deputy director of the construction department of the ministry said it is a large number, and is good for Cambodian construction.

“The construction sector in Cambodia has increased every year and it is continuing to boost the Kingdom’s real estate,” he said.​

There are 932 Cambodian and 273 foreign construction and design firms at the end of 2012, he said.
“I have noticed that foreign companies that invest the construction in Cambodia have climbed much more, especially in 2012, because they are looking for the potential of construction investment in Cambodia,” he said.

Foreign investors in Cambodia come from 16 countries: China, Korea, England, Japan, Russia, Lao, Malaysia, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, the United States, Singapore, Belgium, Australia and France. China is number one, South Korea number two and England third.

This growth is a good sign for Cambodia’s real estate, said Tepseiha. With the Kingdom’s political stability and rich human resources have come technical prowess, and specialist construction companies have sprung up.

“Companies will increase more and more next year because the number of proposed projects that are being submitted for permission continue to increase,” he added.

Key Real Estate Company CEO Soun Seap said that this growth is good for Cambodia’s economy.
Cambodia’s construction sector has increased due to economic and political stability, he said.
 

Phnom Penh’s historic quarter to go pedestrian

Last Updated on 14 January 2013

By Bennett Murray

 

 

 

A new tourist promenade is to open in the heart of Phnom Penh’s old French quarter.

Scheduled for a February opening, the tourist walk zone will provide an outdoor leisure area on Street 13 that will be closed to cars and motorbikes on weekends from 6pm till 12am, as well as on national holidays.

It will be adjacent to the colonial-era post office that today houses the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication.

“Everywhere in the world, especially in the cities, there are some places for the people to walk down,” said Minister of Tourism Thong Khon, whose ministry is helping Phnom Penh Capital Hall build the tourist walk zone.

“In Cambodia, we also need a place for tourists to walk down.”

The neighborhood includes some of Cambodia’s most prominent examples of French architecture from the turn of the 20th century, including the disused police commissariat, Manolis Hotel and the Banque de l’Indochine that today houses Van’s Restaurant.

“It is good to walk down for tourists because of the large, colonial-style buildings,” said Khon.

According UNESCO Head of Office Anne LeMaistre, it is not just tourists who stand to benefit.

“Phnom Penh has a unique chance to have a garden-city image with large avenues and trees, which is extremely rare for a capital in the region. The colonial heritage and the Khmer New architecture contribute enormously to the identity and beauty of the city.

“It is an opportunity which should not be missed for ob­­vious touristic reasons but also for the memory of all inhabitants of Phnom Penh,” she said.

“Heritage, silence, space and green environment are part of this quality of life and appreciation of living in a city. In addition, this area is unfortunately the only remaining coherent his­toric quarter of Phnom Penh,” she added.

Restoration and preservation in the area has been erratic, with some buildings getting far more treatment than others.

“The post office and the Van’s Restaurant were restored and are well-maintained buildings,” said LeMaistre.

“The Manolis Hotel and the former Commissariat are magnificent buildings but which need urgent interventions,” she added.

LeMaistre said that despite widespread enthusiasm for preserving Cambodia’s Angkorian heritage, more needs to be done to promote the country’s more recent urban heritage.

UNESCO is supporting the efforts of the Heritage Mission, which is attached to the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, to make the old French Quarter a special heri­tage protected zone.

However, increased visitation to the area may encourage preservation of the historic quarter.

“The tourist walk zone will hopefully attract Phnom Penh inhabitants who will discover this area, maybe, for the first time and invite them to appreciate the harmony of the architecture and the pleasure of walking in a nice environment,” said LeMaistre. “We hope that this discovery and appreciation will lead to the understanding of preserving heritage.”

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To contact the reporter on this story: Bennett Murray at ppp.lifestyle@gmail.com

Government Tells Unions to Agree on Minimum Wage Demands

 By Phok Dorn and Colin Meyn - January 23, 2013

The government on Monday re­quested that manufacturers look at raising the minimum wage for garment workers, but only after divided trade unions agree on what that wage should be.



At the moment, union leaders are demanding that the current $61 per month minimum wage be raised to between $93 and $150, a 52 percent and 145 percent hike, respectively.

“After discussions, those present at the meeting agree in principle to discuss raising the minimum wage for workers,” the Ministry of Labor said in a statement after a meeting between manufacturers and unions on the issue.

“The meeting requested all un­ions meet and raise a joint re­quest for the minimum wage to be discussed with the employers to reach a resolution,” the statement says, adding that union leaders should submit their request to the government before the next meeting at the ministry on February 26.

Yesterday’s meeting followed a speech from Prime Minister Hun Sen on Decem­ber 12 in which he called on manufacturers to up sal­aries in Cambo­dia’s garment factories in order to keep workers in the country.
The last time the minimum wage was increased was in July 2010, when it was raised from $50 to $61.
Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers Asso­cia­tion of Cambodia, said prior to Monday’s meeting that demands from many of the unions were “unrealistic.”

“We can’t expect 50 to 60 to 70 percent [increase in the minimum wage]. The Royal Government an­nounced a 20 percent salary in­crease [for civil servants], so I would presume that that would be a good starting point,” he said.

Jill Tucker, chief technical adviser for the International Labor Organiza­tion’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambo­dia program, said that the ILO would mediate discussions between the various trade unions—which represent some 300,000 workers.

Sam Aun, president of the CPP-aligned Cambodia Labor Union Federation, said that $93 would be a fair figure, while Ath Thorn, president of the nonaligned Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, said that he would stand behind raising the minimum wage to $150.

“I think that workers can live on a minimum wage of $93 per month because they also get their bonus, rent, and transport allowances and add overtime to their salary,” said Mr. Aun. But Mr. Thorn warned that if the wage hike was too modest, workers would likely continue to protest.

Cambodia's 'worst year’ for land disputes

Last Updated on 24 January 2013
By May Titthara and Shane Worrell

More than 200 people were arrested while defending their land in 2012 – a year human rights groups described yesterday as Cambodia’s “worst” for land disputes.

Of the 201 people arrested – a figure that more than doubled the 2011 total – 29 were imprisoned, mostly on charges of destroying property, faking documents and encroaching on private property, said Chan Soveth, deputy head of the land rights department at rights group Adhoc.

“Two thousand twelve was the worst year for residents being arrested as they tried to save their homes,” he said, adding that disputes themselves had also soared.

The comments came as heads of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, the Housing Rights Task Force, Adhoc and the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee called on the government to take measures to end forced evictions and resolve land disputes.

A joint statement released by the organisations said more than 700,000 people had been affected by land grabbing and forced displacement since 2000, including 51,000 in 2011.
“In Phnom Penh, at least 145,000, or approximately 10 per cent of the city’s population have been evicted since 2000,” the statement said, adding that 40,000 had been under immediate threat of eviction at the end of 2011.

Sia Phearum, secretariat director of the Housing Rights Task Force, said forced evictions had decreased in 2012, but the fact 611 families had fled from disputes last year suggested conflict hadn’t.
“We’ve noticed that actual evictions decrease in the lead-up to elections,” he said.

Recommendations put forward by those involved in yesterday’s press conference included that the government end forced evictions, demarcate state and private land, release imprisoned Boeung Kak lake mother Yorm Bopha, make the economic land concession (ELC) review process transparent and prioritise systematic land registration for poor communities.

Soveth said more than 1,000 people involved in disputes had been arrested since 2007, many as a result of the government cracking down on protests against ELCs.

“Often the court sentences these people without properly investigating.”
Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of NGO Forum, said it was essential that disputes were resolved and villagers’ rights protected.

“Currently, landlessness is estimated at between 20 and 25 per cent of the total population.”
Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said the government was doing a lot to help residents with land issues, including deploying students to demarcate land and issue land titles.
“This is a historic strategy, one that is very important for Cambodia,” he said.

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To contact the reporter on this story: May Titthara at titthara.may@phnompenhpost.com
Shane Worrell at shane.worrell@phnompenhpost.com

Time to invest in people (Cambodia)

Last Updated on 07 December 2012

By Pamela Cox

For more than a decade, Cambodia has sustained impressive economic growth.

The World Bank expects real gross domestic product to increase by 6.6 per cent this year – a figure to be envied in today’s fragile global economy.

At this pace, Cambodia can rapidly become the industrialised and productive economy it aspires to be.

Is this the future that Cambodians can rightfully look forward to?

The answer is yes, but only if Cambodia invests in its most precious resource – its people – to enable each individual to realise his or her potential and productively contribute to the nation’s economy.

Until now, much of Cambodia’s investment has focused on infrastructure, agriculture and manufacturing – priority areas during the early stages of the country’s economic development.

But with economic progress, it has become increasingly clear that these efforts are not enough to help the country achieve equitable, sustainable growth and, most important, reduce poverty.

Today, despite the nation’s economic achievements, roughly 20 per cent of Cambodians – that’s 2.8 million people – are still poor.

Nearly 40 per cent of children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition, and 28 per cent in the same age group are underweight.

Over the past decade, workforce skills of adults improved at a slower rate than in other East Asia countries, and the proportion of skilled workers among earners stagnated.

When the economy is booming, it’s tempting to turn a blind eye to such statistics.

But for the sake of Cambodia’s future, these are the figures we must confront, and this is where the World Bank can help.

Ending poverty, and building shared prosperity, are central to the Bank’s mission. 

Investments in human development, particularly in the areas of health and education, need to be a priority in Cambodia to create opportunities for all, especially the poor and vulnerable.

Interventions in these areas work hand in hand to build a country’s human-resources pool even before schooling begins.

Growing evidence shows the importance of adequate nutrition and health care during early childhood, to lay the foundation for intellectual progress and life-long learning.

The government has taken significant steps towards improving access as well as the quality of education, and 96 per cent of children aged six to 11 now go to primary school.

The average test performance of primary- and secondary-school students has improved, and higher-education enrolments increased fourfold between 2001 and 2011.

The World Bank is supporting health and education in Cambodia.

With the government and our development partners, we are financing health equity funds and school scholarships, having provided 2.5 million health-care treatments for poor people since 2009 and scholarships for 63,000 poor secondary-school students since 2005.

But much more needs to be done to improve the coverage, quality and governance of these sectors.

Although Cambodia’s economy is growing, employers report a mismatch between the skills university graduates bring to a job and the skills the labour market demands.

A recent World Bank study found that 22 per cent of foreign employers in Cambodia identify skills as a severe constraint to businesses.

This means many Cambodians earn less than they could if they had adequate education and skills.

For the country, this leads to lower productivity, limiting Cambodia’s potential to attract investment and improve living standards for all.

As a global knowledge and financial institution, the World Bank works with governments and a broad array of stakeholders gathering best practices and providing solutions for the most difficult development issues countries and communities face.

It draws from the knowledge and experience of other nations, and is able and ready to assist, inspire and inform Cambodia’s efforts to achieve its development goals.

In Indonesia, for example, the World Bank supported a social assistance program designed to address three lagging Millennium Development Goals – maternal health, child health and universal education – using a successful, community-driven approach.

Communities themselves took charge and allocated block grants targeting 12 health and education indicators, enabling 1.6 million women and children to receive nutrition counselling and support; helping 365,000 children receive immunisations; eliminating 185,000 cases of underweight children; and providing assistance to about 380,000 poor school students.

Tajikistan also has a high percentage of underweight children resulting from malnutrition exacerbated by the 2008 food-price shock.

The World Bank supported a community and basic health project to provide food packages and micro-nutrient supplements to about 50,000 women, infants and children.

By mid-2011, the project had trained 1,000 primary health workers and 300 community volunteers to deliver education on breast-feeding, good nutrition and the care of sick children.

Delivering these results requires a tremendous, co-ordinated effort by governments, donors, the private sector, civil society and others.

During my visit to Phnom Penh this week, I discussed with the government and our development partners how the World Bank can support Cambodia’s development strategy, to ensure all Cambodians can participate in, and benefit from, their country’s future prosperity.

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Pamela Cox is the World Bank vice-president for East Asia and the Pacific.

Xayaburi Dam: How Laos Violated the 1995 Mekong Agreement

Sun, 01/13/2013 - 8:45pm

By: Kirk Herbertson

 

 On November 7, 2012, Laos officially began construction on the controversial Xayaburi Hydropower Project, the first mainstream dam proposed for the Lower Mekong River. The process has not gone smoothly. Construction activities began almost two years before the official announcement. Vietnam and Cambodia called for a delay in construction because concerns over the dam’s transboundary impacts remained unresolved. Laos never conducted a comprehensive analysis of the transboundary impacts, instead insisting that the dam was engineered to be environmentally sustainable. The Mekong River Commission’s (MRC) Secretariat disagreed with many of Laos’ claims, but its advice went unheeded. Although the dam is going forward, its risks remain unknown.

The Xayaburi Dam was the first significant test for the Mekong Agreement, a treaty signed in 1995 by Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. The treaty is intended to promote shared use and management of the river basin. Instead of cooperating with neighboring governments, however, Laos began implementing the Xayaburi Dam while Cambodia and Vietnam voiced concerns about the project’s transboundary impacts. Thailand remained silent through much of the dispute, but quietly financed the project and agreed to purchase its electricity. By November 2012, Laos’ and Thailand’s implementation of the project had advanced so far that Cambodia and Vietnam had little leverage left to raise concerns.

Laos insists that the Xayaburi Dam complies with the 1995 Mekong Agreement. Few others have questioned this claim.

In a new report, we examine the requirements of the Mekong Agreement in closer detail. On its surface, the text of the Agreement is often ambiguous. In an effort to seek greater clarity, we examine the requirements of the Mekong Agreement in its entirety. We also examine: (i) the historical record of the negotiations that describes what the parties intended when they drafted the Agreement; and (ii) international law that describes the meaning of the words that were carefully placed in the Agreement. In doing so, a clearer picture of the Mekong Agreement emerges. We find that Laos has misinterpreted the Mekong Agreement and failed to comply with several of its key requirements.

The full report is available below, but key findings are summarized here.

Laos is required to seek agreement with its neighbors before beginning the project.

To balance the rights of upstream and downstream countries, the Mekong Agreement requires all four governments to make a “good faith” effort to reach agreement on whether a project goes forward. Instead of trying to reach agreement on the Xayaburi Dam, Laos claimed that it only must consider comments of the other governments. Laos made no efforts to compromise on its position or to reach a mutually agreeable solution.

Laos must provide other governments with opportunity to evaluate the project’s impacts.

The MRC’s “prior consultation” is the process where the four governments try to reach an agreement. The primary purpose of the prior consultation is to provide the governments with an opportunity to evaluate the project’s transboundary impacts. Yet for the Xayaburi Dam, Laos did not provide neighboring governments with an opportunity to evaluate the project’s transboundary impacts. In particular, Laos did not assess the transboundary impacts before starting the prior consultation in September 2010.

Laos is not permitted to implement the project while consultations are still underway.

International law and the Mekong Agreement prohibit the governments from implementing a project while the governments are still discussing it—this is part of the obligation to negotiate “in good faith.” Laos and developer Ch. Karnchang began implementing the Xayaburi Dam in late 2010 before the Mekong governments even met to discuss the project. Later, Laos incorrectly claimed that “preparatory work” was allowed under the Mekong Agreement while the consultations are underway.

Laos is required to study the project’s transboundary impacts before consultation can take place.

Under international law, governments are required to prevent significant harm to other countries, which includes setting aside enough time to assess the project’s transboundary impacts. After failing to assess the Xayaburi Dam's transboundary impacts in 2010, Laos refused to delay project implementation after Cambodia and Vietnam requested these studies during the prior consultation. Instead, Laos claimed that untested technologies proposed by consulting company Pöyry were sufficient to mitigate any harm.

Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand have a right to extend the prior consultation’s timeframe.

The default timeframe for the prior consultation is six months, but under international law the downstream governments have a right to extend it. Laos claims that the Xayaburi Dam's prior consultation ended automatically after six months. During this initial six month period, Laos failed to provide the information that other governments needed to evaluate the project’s impacts. This undermined the primary purpose of the prior consultation. Laos also began project implementation during this initial period.

Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam have a right to seek compensation for any harm caused.

Laos has an obligation under international law to stop the project immediately if it causes harm to neighboring countries. Downstream governments Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam can seek compensation for any harm that the dam causes. Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam will have difficulty seeking compensation, however, because there is insufficient baseline data at this time to measure how the Xayaburi Dam will change the Mekong River. All three countries now face the difficult task of closely monitoring the impacts caused by the dam.
The Xayaburi Dam has set a dangerous precedent that could undermine future cooperation. In 2013, work might advance on two other Mekong mainstream dams—the Don Sahong and the Pak Beng Dams. Unless reforms are made quickly, disagreements over the Mekong dams could escalate into a conflict with serious economic and political implications.

Attached files: 

 

Click here to download the full report

More information: 

 

• Please visit our Xayaburi Dam webpage for more information.