Three #Cambodian cities chosen for Asean urban planning scheme

Phnom Penh, Battambang, and Siem Reap have been included in the Asean Smart Cities Network, and will benefit from the assistance of the Japanese government in creating technologically advanced urban spaces.

The Asean Smart Cities Network (ASCN) is a collaborative platform where cities from Asean member states work towards the common goal of smart and sustainable urban development. The project is supported by the Japanese government.

The chosen Cambodian cities will benefit from Japanese investment into modern facilities to improve the lives of their citizens, according to representatives of the Japanese government who yesterday attended the first meeting of the ‘Public-Private Platform for Urban Development between Cambodia and Japan’.

.

Booking your Flight, Hotel or Resort now  

The forum – attended by 58 Japanese delegates and companies as well Cambodian officials and members of the private sector – served to introduce ASCN to local authorities and companies.

Yuki Fumihiko, Japan’s Vice Minister of Land, said that given Cambodia’s rapid development, careful urban planning must be prioritised.

He said the ‘Public-Private Platform for Urban Development between Cambodia and Japan’ will allow Cambodia and Japan to keep an open line of communication to discuss urban development.

Ozawa Kazuo, counsellor for global strategies at Japan’s Ministry of Land, said ASCN allows the region to benefit from Japan’s experience in urban planning.

“Our goal is to help Cambodia and Asean avoid the same mistakes that we made in the past in urban development.

“We want to create smart cities that use modern technologies to tackle planning, development, management and operation issues.

“The ultimate goal is to create better spaces for future generations so that they can live comfortably and sustainably in urban spaces,” he said, adding that the programme focuses on key issues like traffic, green spaces, energy efficiency, and recycling systems, among others.

“Today we seek your support and cooperation to bring what we have already achieved in other countries to Cambodia. Together we can make this project a success,” he told his audience.

Chea Sophara, the Cambodian Minister of Land Management, said, “The platform today seeks to boost investment opportunities in urban development for Japanese businesses, including residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, as well as infrastructure.

“This first platform is a very good initiative and shows the confidence Japanese investors have in Cambodia. I believe this programme will further strengthen the relationship between our nations.

.

.

“The ministry is ready to support Japanese investors who want to participate in the programme. The government supports this initiative of the Japanese government which will benefit Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Battambang,” he added.

Mr Fumihiko invited all Cambodian officials and businesspeople at the event to participate in ASCN’s next high-level meeting, which will take place in Tokyo in October.

Source - Khmer Times

#Cambodia - Unique LGBTQ hotpot debuts in Phnom Penh

Tucked away on the nondescript street 256, behind Preah Kossamak Hospital, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh is a small unsuspecting food outlet.

Its unusual sign – a picture of a woman closely resembling the late English singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse – smiles next to the outlet’s signature dish – ‘LGBTQ Hotpot’.

Owned by actress and model Som Sreyneat, the small outlet located inside a street-side gazebo has enticed people to this lesser trodden section of the capital with its unusual and colourfully named soup made from a family recipe.

She opened the business with her two brothers last month, with the name a celebration of the hotpot’s uniqueness from many other Cambodian hotpots.

“It’s a bit sour and a bit sweet. Its taste is unique, and that is why we wanted to give it a name that stood out,” Sreyneat said.

The hotpot set comes with a plate of free-range duck meat, beef meatballs, egg, shrimp, pig blood and white sesame. In addition, it has a basket of vegetables, including needle mushrooms, Chinese white cabbage, okra, water spinach, thyme, coriander and Khmer basil.

A full LGBTQ hotpot set is 25,000 riel ($6.28) and can feed 2 to 3 people. Because of its affordable price point, many of her customers are students.

Source - TheNation

Cambodia - Central bank links up for Thai pay system

The Kingdom’s central bank unveiled plans on Wednesday to collaborate with its counterpart in neighboring Thailand to launch a QR code payment system, a bank official said.

The system, which would allow people from either country to rapidly send funds to one another, is aimed at those who travel often for business or tourism.

An announcement from the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) said it would let users bypass the need to use costly exchanges to turn Cambodian riel into Thai baht, or vice versa.

The systems will also allow Cambodian workers in Thailand to transfer money to their families at home.

.

FOR THE BEST GLOBAL HOTEL & FLIGHT BOOKINGS

.

 The NBC’s director-general of central banking, Chea Serey, said the initiative will receive support from financial institutions in both countries and that leaders would meet up later this year to define rules and procedures.

She said the system was set to go public next year.

“This is another effort to promote the use of riel. [It] will allow Cambodians to use their own currency abroad and will prove to the public that it is internationally recognised,” she said.

The system will only work for users whose bank accounts utilise Cambodian riel, and aims to be a catalyst to boost riel usage.

Cambodian imports accounted for $15.5 billion in total last year, in which the imports from Thailand was 16.5 per cent of total imports. It is second only to China, whose products account for 41.7 per cent of imports to the country.

In September of last year, the NBC signed an agreement with the People’s Bank of China in Guangxi to set up an official yuan-riel exchange rate, allowing businesses to conduct settlements without having to use the US dollar.

#Cambodia / #Thailand - Silence on suspended dam deal as Prayut and Hun Sen agree to stronger bilateral ties.

ONLY DAYS after Thailand halted the Bt40-billion Stung Nam hydropower project, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen yesterday agreed to enhance economic ties and connectivity.

Prayut led a Thai delegation at the 3rd Thailand-Cambodia Joint Cabinet Retreat in Phnom Penh yesterday to discuss cooperation in various fields including trade, investment, border security, migrant workers and culture.

Thailand is willing to provide more assistance to Cambodia to improve its farm products and speed up the opening of more border checkpoints to facilitate trade and travel, Prayut said in a joint press conference after the meeting.

 On connectivity, both sides agreed to fulfil an agreement on the rail link from Thailand’s border province of Sa Kaew to Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh, he said. It would be a historic railway project to connect Thailand and other neighboring countries in the Mekong basin, he said.

Hun Sen said both countries would boost bilateral trade and Thailand had agreed to buy more farm products from Cambodia as well as open four additional border checkpoints in the near future.

Both countries have set targets to improve bilateral trade to reach US$15 billion (Bt496 billion) by 2020, according to Thai Deputy Government Spokesperson Werachon Sukhondhapatipak. To reach the target, the two countries have to facilitate border crossings and trade as well as contract farming, he said.

The two premiers also witnessed the signing of two documents – the Joint Declaration for the 3rd Thailand-Cambodia Joint Cabinet Retreat, to reaffirm both countries’ commitment to promote “Enhanced Partnership for Peace and Prosperity” and the Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who was also part of the delegation, said relations and cooperation between the two countries on security matters was excellent at all levels. 

The defence ministries, armed forces and other joint mechanisms had good relations and worked well, he said, and they would establish a communication hotline at all levels to coordinate security matters, he said.

Among the issues for border security was illegal logging, notably of rosewood, according to spokesman Werachon, who added that the number of timber smuggling cases, as well as clashes between smugglers and Thai security forces, reduced significantly over the past year.

However, the controversial Stung Nam hydro power project, which was suspended by Prayut shortly before his departure to Phnom Penh, was not discussed, Werachon said. 

The plan to purchase electricity from the 24-megawatt dam in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province and get free fresh water for the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) was put on hold because the electricity price was too expensive and the investment cost for a pipeline to transport water from the border to the EEC was too high. 

Cambodian investor Ly Yong Phat of LYP Group told local newspaper Khmer Times that the delay in the deal was due to time constraints by both sides that could not process the documents on time.

Source - TheNation

#Cambodia closes 15 radio stations

The Ministry of Information on Thursday claimed its shuttering of 15 radio stations across the country was not targeted at independent broadcasters, and took aim at the Cambodia Daily for failing to pay a huge tax bill, hours after the US State Department labelled the tax measure exorbitant and biased.

On Aug. 21, Phnom Penh-based Moha Nokor – a radio station airing shows produced by Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and the Cambodia National Rescue Party – and its three provincial affiliates were asked to stop broadcasting and to shut down operations for allegedly violating their contract with the ministry.

Meanwhile, near-identical documents on the Information Ministry’s website showed that seven other media owners were asked to stop broadcasting from the 11 radio stations they owned across 10 provinces, in line with ministry spokesman Ouk Kimseng’s claim on Wednesday that more than 10 stations would be closed.

Pa Nguon Teang, director of independent news outlet Voice of Democracy, said broadcaster Sarika FM had cited “administrative and technical” reasons for taking its content off the air.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith Thursday maintained that the closures were not linked to the station’s programming – a claim keenly contested on Wednesday by CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann – but because they had failed to report how much airtime they were selling, and to whom.

“So some radios have not asked for permission from the ministry. The ministry has to shut them down in order to uphold the law on media,” he said, adding that VOA and RFA broadcasts were still available on other stations.

Kanharith said the directive was in line with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s call for authorities to ensure there wasn’t a repeat of the 2013 post-election protests, saying media reports questioning the soundness of ink used for voting, accusations of voter fraud and false reports on votes being cast by “Yuon”, a derogatory term for ethnic Vietnamese, fuelled the demonstrations.

Kanharith said the radio station run by the Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia (WMC) had similarly erred by giving more airtime to RFA and VOA, but had been granted leeway in light of its social work.

The closures come as part of a government clampdown on NGOs and media organisations, which have found themselves answering to the Tax Department.

The Cambodia Daily has been singled out with a $6.3 million tax bill that was leaked to the media, with Prime Minister Hun Sen and Tax Department Director Kong Vibol asking the English-language paper to pay up or face closure.

Shifting his focus to the Daily, Kanharith made two new claims yesterday – that the Daily’sstaffers had leaked a document showing their own $6.3 million tax bill, and that a foreign-owned news outlet in Cambodia had reported the Daily’s alleged tax fraud.

“If the tax man had leaked it, he would leak all the details. Therefore the one who leaked it was from the taxpayer,” he said.

“I cannot talk about it since I do not want the problem to happen, but they [the foreign-owned newspaper] have paid the tax. So they have demanded for two years already to tell Cambodia Daily [to] pay the tax so that they can compete fairly,” he said.

Kanharith’s comments come shortly after US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert pulled up the government for targeting the Daily and other independent news organisations, saying US Ambassador William Heidt had taken up the issue with the Tax Department.

“So our ambassador has had conversations with the head of what I’ll just refer to as the tax agency there to try to get them to regard taxes or impose taxes in a fair and neutral fashion,” she said on Wednesday.

Referring to Cambodian government officials’ frequent use of US President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media as a justification for similar assails in Cambodia, a reporter questioned Nauert if Trump’s remarks undermined the State Department’s push for free speech across the world.

“Our conversations between the ambassador and his counterparts and also the prime minister of Cambodia – I do not anticipate that changing,” she said. “We care about freedom of the press; that’s not going to change.”

Reacting to Kanharith’s allegations, Daily Deputy Publisher Deborah Krisher-Steele once again placed the blame at the feet of “government mouthpiece” Fresh News for leaking the tax assessment.

“If the Minister really is at a loss for who is leaking, perhaps he could ask his own mouthpiece,” she said in an email, adding the tax bill was a thinly veiled attempt to “seize a foreign investor’s assets”.

The Tax Department and Krisher-Steele have tussled for the past three weeks on the fairness of the purported $6.3 million in back taxes and penalties. Krisher-Steele has said she was unaware of the “debt” she took over when buying the newspaper from her father and founder Bernard Krisher and asked that his charitable donations – in the tens of millions of dollars – be accounted for in the assessment.

Tax authorities have refused both those claims and, in a detailed rebuttal, said the acquisition of a company was never exclusive of its financial liabilities and that Krisher’s charitable activities were never reported.

Douglas-Steele, the newspaper’s general manager, said he will meet with the tax authorities today and would be accompanied by the outlet’s operations manager and an accountant.

“I’ll take the meeting, take notes and request information on how they arrived at the $6.3 million figure and why a process that should take many months in accordance with the law is being done in days,” he said.

 This article appeared on the Rasmei Kampuchea Daily newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post

#Cambodia - As region cracks down on migrants, agencies provide costly, illegal passport service.

Amid crackdowns on undocumented migrants in Malaysia and Thailand, demand for passports among Cambodian migrants has seen large spikes in recent weeks, with many making the costly journey to Phnom Penh to get their paperwork in order. 

However, several Cambodia-based travel agencies told The Post that they could, defying official policies, make passports for Cambodian citizens abroad – if the citizens had the wherewithal to pay around $600, or six times the official amount.

 BR

Though the agents stopped short of using the word “bribe” to describe their payments to Passport Department officials, by taking advantage of the “unofficial process”, the agencies fill in for a service that advocates say should be readily available at Cambodian embassies overseas – with one official insisting that it technically is, for workers and students.

But apparent confusion over that policy, along with what some have characterised as a lack of political will, leaves often low-paid migrant workers in the unenviable position of having to choose between paying to return home, or paying exorbitant fees from abroad to obtain the essential documents.

One travel agency employee, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said that while her agency took $115 to $235 to facilitate normal and express passports, respectively, for customers inside Cambodia. Her agency asks $590 from customers abroad, with $570 going to the Passport Department directly. 

Officially, passports cannot be made from abroad, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The documents cost $100 for a normal passport and $200 for a one-day expedited passport at the department’s offices in Phnom Penh.

However, the travel agency employee said migrants could send a photo of themselves, their old passport, a copy of an ID card, their family book and a copy of the passport of another Cambodian guarantor who confirms the person is abroad.

“The Messenger brings all of those documents to the Passport Department, then leaves the documents with the police there. The police process everything,” she said. 

And if, for example, the person did not have the family book, “we can still do it”, she said.

As those applying from abroad cannot give their thumbprints, the department “may reload it from the previous thumbprint of the passport owner when they made the old passport”, the employee added.

Thus, the new passport would have the same information as the old one, except for the updated photo.

She gave the example of a student in Canada who was unable to return. “His old passport nearly expired. He had an exam and couldn’t come home – so we did it for him,” she said.

The deputy director of the Passport Department, Sok Sophorn, denied the claims. “I don’t know about this service … I don’t know how they do it,” he said. 

Sophorn maintained that there was one possibility of getting a new passport when abroad, namely going to the embassy, which would send a diplomatic note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in turn would submit a request to the Interior Ministry to issue a new passport.

This was only applicable, he said, for “migrant workers or students if they are busy and cannot go back”, and only the older five-year version of the passport could be issued. “For the new [10-year] one, we need the person to come back, as we need their finger prints.” 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said he had never heard of this procedure. “For the moment, Cambodians have to go back [to Cambodia to get a passport],” he said. 

Despite the denials from the Passport Department and Foreign Ministry, Cambodian migrants in Malaysia told The Post earlier this month that they had to pay agencies fees of more than $800 to obtain new passports abroad, with multiple Cambodian agencies giving similar accounts.

Oeung Hong, the general manager of the RTR agency in Phnom Penh, also said migrants could get passports made from abroad through his company. “For $600, we can do it,” he said.

Of this, about $590 went to the passport department. “This is an unofficial process,” he said.

He said the Interior Ministry checked “the background of the passport owner” to confirm that the person was unable to travel back.

Another agency also confirmed that they offered the service – again for $600. An employee said it would take three weeks to process the passports, and that they would bring all documents – copy of ID card, photo and old passport – to the Interior Ministry. 

It remains unclear whether passports can be bought without an old passport.Preap Kol, Transparency International executive director, said the Interior Ministry “should promptly conduct an investigation to find out if there is any misconduct or corruption as being alleged”.

“If any misconduct or corruption is found, the punishment shall be made according to the laws,” he said.

Moeun Tola, of labour rights group Central, said that such high passport fees forced migrants into illegality. “If true, that is the main root cause that puts migrants into the undocumented status. If you can’t afford $600, you have to stay illegally,” he said. 

In the first two weeks of July, 79 Cambodian undocumented migrants were arrested in Malaysia in a crackdown by the Malaysian government, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. 

Officials at the Cambodian Embassy there said yesterday that they did not have updated figures, but noted that about 30 Cambodians were seeking shelter at the embassy. The officials directed all other questions to the Foreign Ministry before hanging up. 

Tola said the embassy indicated it didn’t have the resources to repatriate arrested undocumented workers because the Cambodian government allocated no resources.

“It’s not even about mass repatriation – also for individual cases they always approach the [International Organisation for Migration]. But IOM doesn’t fund unless they’re victims of human trafficking.”

The IOM could not be reached for comment yesterday. If passport and recruitment fees weren’t reduced, he said, migrants would continue to be pushed into undocumented status.

“That’s a big failure of the Cambodian government.” 

Additional reporting by Touch Sokha

Source - PhnomPenhPost