Cambodia earned $991.77 million from exporting footwear and related products in the first nine months this year—a 25.1 per cent decline from $1.32 billion recorded during the same period last year. The fall is attributed to global economic pressures. The figure was around 5.9 per cent of the country’s total export value of $16.95 billion during the period, according to the general department of customs and excis
Cambodia’s Jan-Sep footwear export revenue $991.77 mn; 25.1% fall YoY
Cambodia deports 25 Japanese nationals suspected of operating online scams
Twenty-five Japanese nationals suspected of involvement in a cyberscam operation based in Cambodia were deported to Japan on Wednesday, said Gen. Khieu Sopheak, a spokesperson for Cambodia’s Interior Ministry.
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The Japanese government arranged a charter flight to transport the suspects, who were detained in September after Cambodian police received a tip-off from their Japanese counterparts, he told The Associated Press.
The 25 were arrested in the capital, Phnom Penh, according to Gen. Keo Vanthan, a spokesperson for the immigration police.
In full: https://qz.com/cambodia-deports-25-japanese-nationals-suspected-of-ope-1851002006
Chinese hackers widely penetrated Cambodian government networks, new report finds
China has deeply penetrated Cambodia’s government networks, compromising more than 20 agencies including its national defense ministry, according to new research by cyberthreat analysts at Palo Alto Networks.
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The intrusions are fresh, dating to September and October, and are linked to China’s Ministry of State Security — its foreign spy service — as well as a government contractor named Chengdu 404 Network Technology, according to the cyber firm’s Unit 42 threat intelligence group. Unit 42 identified Chinese hacking “infrastructure masquerading as cloud backup services,” it said.
The scope of the intrusion, while broad, makes sense, analysts say, given that China wields great leverage over Cambodia, where Western officials say it is building a Chinese naval facility for the exclusive use of its military. The facility would become China’s first such overseas outpost in the Pacific — a significant element of a strategy to build a network of military facilities around the world in support of its aspirations to become a true global power.
In full: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/08/cambodia-has-chinese-hacker-problem/
Cambodian prince heads joint venture with Police Tero FC
Thai League football club Police Tero on Monday announced a partnership headed by Cambodian Prince Norodom Ravichak aimed to bring the team back to greatness again.
The new partner is committed to developing football under Police Tero FC and leading the team to greatness again, which aligns with the goals of the current management, team manager Thanya Wongnak said.
The club’s goal is to reach the top 3 of the Thai League next year and participate in the AFC Champions League, he added.
In full: https://www.nationthailand.com/lifestyle/sport/40032614
Will Cambodia’s Private Debt Become National Debt?
Not all is well in the Kingdom of Hun.
Hun Manet, Cambodia’s new prime minister, who inherited the role from his father in August, prepares to meet with the business community on November 13 at the much-anticipated Government-Private Sector Forum. The government has been parlaying with business groups for months. But anger is brewing. The public is still angsty over possible tax rises. Hun Manet has denied that there will be any, but anyone who looks at his government’s Panglossian Pentagonal Strategy (an advanced economy by 2050!) knows that more tax is coming, as I argued here last month. I hear that a coterie of chambers of commerce has united to demand new reforms and guarantees from Hun Manet at the upcoming forum.
Most likely, though, proceedings will be dominated by talk about the imposing property market and the encroaching disaster of private debt. Put simply, tens of billions of dollars of Chinese money poured into Cambodia in the 2010s, leading to a housing bubble and rampant speculation, primarily from Cambodia’s middle classes, who thought that Chinese funds and soaring prices would never dry up. Loans and mortgages were taken to purchase land and homes. But the COVID-19 pandemic and a drop off in private Chinese investment have resulted in falling property prices.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/will-cambodias-private-debt-become-national-debt/
25 alleged fraudsters detained in Cambodia to be extradited to Japan
Twenty-five Japanese nationals detained in September in Cambodia for allegedly running a phone scam operation out of a Phnom Penh apartment will soon be extradited to Japan for arrest, investigative sources said Tuesday.
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Investigators from several Japanese prefectural police authorities were dispatched to the Cambodian capital to facilitate the transfer which will take place on Wednesday at the earliest. Damage from the alleged fraud scheme is thought to run to at least hundreds of millions of yen, the sources said.
The Japanese nationals detained by Cambodian authorities are men ranging from 20 to 42 years old. Investigators are trying to uncover the full extent of the operation including the group’s hierarchy, the sources said.
Rising energy prices rekindle Thai, Cambodian interest in disputed waters
A decades-old dispute between Cambodia and Thailand over potentially resource-rich waters is back in the spotlight as rising prices press governments to find new energy sources.
Thai officials have floated a new approach to long-stalled negotiations over the overlapping claims area (OCA), a 27,000-square-kilometer swath of the Gulf of Thailand claimed by both countries.
Estimated to contain up to 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas plus large oil deposits, the area has been contested since the 1970s. An agreement in 2001 set out a framework for talks on the issue that states any deal to develop energy resources must be negotiated “simultaneously” with another on territorial issues.
27-year-old Karnataka man held captive in Cambodia res ..
A 27-year-old man from NR Pura in Chikkamagaluru district, held captive in Cambodia where he was working, has been rescued and is on the way back home. Efforts are on to rescue a father of two from Kolar who is also said to be held in captive in that country, said Arathi Krishna, deputy chairman of NRI Forum, government of Karnataka.
It was in August 2023 that Ashok, son of a labourer couple in NR Pura, moved to Cambodia after he was promised a data entry job at a Chinese company.
Upon arriving, he was made to work for a different company on the Cambodia-Vietnam border. In October, his parents, both coolie workers, received distress messages from Ashok seeking help.
Cambodia, Singapore sign ‘Second Protocol’ amending earlier treaty
Cambodia and Singapore recently signed the ‘Second Protocol’ in Phnom Penh that amends the existing double tax avoidance (DTA) and the prevention of fiscal evasion treaty.
The protocol was formalised by Cambodian finance minister Aun Pornmoniroth and Singaporean ambassador to Cambodia Teo Lay Cheng.
The aim is to align the DTA with global standards.
Eight newborn rare dolphins recorded in Cambodia so far this year
A newborn Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin calf was spotted on Saturday, bringing the total number of newborn dolphin calves in Cambodia to eight so far this year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said.
The new calf was seen by a tourist boat operator on Saturday afternoon at the Kampi dolphin pool in northeast Kratie province’s Mekong River while swimming alongside six adult dolphins, the ministry said in a statement.
“The new calf is about two days old,” it said.
South Korean Head Of Multinational Drug Ring Linked To Nigeria, Cambodia, China Arrested
The police on Sunday said that they have arrested a South Korean involved in a multinational drug ring that operated in Cambodia, Nigeria and China and smuggled methamphetamine into South Korea.
According to the drug crime unit of Seoul Metropolitan Policy, the man identified only by his surname Song and in his 50s, was arrested after being deported from Cambodia on Wednesday.
KBS World reports that Song, who is the head of the Cambodian business of the drug ring, is accused of ordering a domestic drug distributor surnamed Kim in March to receive 20 kilograms of methamphetamine that Nigerian drug dealers had smuggled into South Korea and distributed across the country.
Japan’s wagyu beef exports to Cambodia tumble, bucking overall trend
Japan’s wagyu beef exports to Cambodia, once the biggest export market for the famous and pricey agricultural product, are declining significantly amid a tougher crackdown by Japanese authorities on smuggling.
The volume of wagyu beef exports to Cambodia shrank by about 60% in the January-August period of this year, compared with its most recent peak in the same eight-month period of 2021.
Cambodia is also said to be a “transit point” for wagyu beef smuggling into China, which regulates its imports. Japanese exporters have apparently squeezed shipments to Cambodia, as authorities step up their crackdown on inappropriate shipments overseas.
Cambodia attracts 3.92 million foreign tourists in first nine months of 2023; rise of 211% y-o-y
Cambodia recorded 3.92 million international tourists in the first nine months of 2023, a sharp rise of 211 per cent from 1.26 million over the same period last year, said a Ministry of Tourism’s report released on Friday.
Thailand topped the chart among the international arrivals to the Southeast Asian kingdom during the January-September period this year, followed by Vietnam and China, the report said.
Nearly 1.34 million Thais, 730,075 Vietnamese and 405,514 Chinese traveled to Cambodia within the above-mentioned period, up 189 per cent, 156 per cent, and 549 per cent, respectively, it added.
From Cambodia to Thailand, rubber producers brace for new EU rules
European Union rules aimed at stopping deforestation threaten widespread disruption for Southeast Asia’s rubber sector, from Cambodia’s 30,000 small farmers to major exporters in Thailand and Malaysia.
The EU’s deforestation regulation (EUDR) aims to ban imports of seven commodities — cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood items — if they come from land that was deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
Companies dealing in such imports will have to provide “conclusive and verifiable information” mapping their supply chains, including geolocation data for where products were grown, to ensure products are compliant. Compliance will become mandatory in December 2024 for larger companies and in June 2025 for smaller ones.
Amid a labour crisis, South Korea turns to migrant workers. Why are they more likely to die on the job?
In Bangladesh, Ajit Roy graduated from college with a chemistry degree, hoping to become a doctor or civil servant. But a run of bad luck derailed those dreams, sending him to look for work overseas.
He wound up at a farming machinery factory in South Korea. Six days a week, over shifts as long as 12 hours, he stood in front of a rack of metal cylinders, degreasing their surfaces with paint thinner and buffing them with a handheld grinder.
It wasn’t long before he began to have trouble breathing, and after nine months on the job, he found himself unable to walk without gasping for air. A doctor diagnosed him with a deadly lung disease that testing later suggested was related to his job.
Cambodia’s famed Angkor records 602,570 int’l tourists in first 10 months
Cambodia’s famed Angkor Archaeological Park received 602,570 foreign visitors during the first 10 months of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 256%, said a news release on Wednesday (Nov 1).
The ancient site made US$27.88mil in revenue from ticket sales during the January-October period this year, a year-on-year rise of 312%, said the news release from the state-owned Angkor Enterprise.
In October alone, the park welcomed 63,009 foreigners, earning US$2.92mil in revenue from ticket sales, the statement added.
Cambodia’s apparel-clothing accessory exports fall 17% YoY in Jan-Sep
Cambodia’s exports of apparel and clothing accessories—crocheted, knitted and non-knitted—saw a year-on-year (YoY) drop of over 17 per cent in the first three quarters this year to $5.926 billion from $7.175 billion.
Despite this, exports showed signs of recovery in recent months, the general department of customs and excise claimed.
GDCE’s international commodity trade statistics show exports of items made of knitted fabric were worth $4.145 billion during the nine-month period—a decline of 18.9 per cent YoY, and those of woven fabric totalled $1.784 billion—a 13.6 per cent YoY decrease.
PPAP-SNP MoU to raise efficiency, cut Cambodia-Vietnam shipping costs
Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Saigon Newport Corporation (SNP), which operates Vietnamese ports, to raise efficiency and reduce shipping costs between both sides.
The signing ceremony was held at an SNP workshop to explore ways to strengthen connectivity and develop logistic routes. The workshop was organised on the sidelines of the Vietnam-Cambodia Defence Economic Production Exhibition 2023 in Phnom Penh in October last week.
PPAP deputy director Hei Phanin said logistics between Vietnam and Cambodia has developed rapidly in recent years, strengthening ties along the common border, according to Vietnamese media reports.
Hydropower Dams Threaten Crucial Mekong Supply Chains, WWF Says
The rapid expansion of hydropower dam developments in the Lower Mekong basin could undermine important regional supply chains and threaten the viability of multi-billion-dollar industries, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims in a new report.
While there has been a lot of attention on the environmental and social impacts of dam projects on the Mekong and its tributaries, the report, released yesterday, highlights the possible indirect negative impacts on five industries: energy production, fisheries and aquaculture, rice production, sand mining, and textiles and electronics.
The WWF report sets out to qualify the claims of some lower Mekong nations that hydropower is a key to untold economic growth, citing one estimate that dams could generate up to $33 billion of economic benefits. It claims that “these arguments have been based on the purported benefits to the energy sector, with little consideration, or understanding, of the implications for other economic sectors.”
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/hydropower-dams-threaten-crucial-mekong-supply-chains-wwf-says/
Cambodian Propaganda: Playing the Victim to Get Away With Murder
In recent weeks, Cambodia’s state-aligned media has been flooded with articles attempting to recast the narrative around one of the ruling elite’s core economic interests: human trafficking-fueled scamming.
The evidence is overwhelming. Over the past three years, Cambodia has become the epicenter of a globally unprecedented phenomenon in state-facilitated criminality: an online scam industry that enslaves more than 100,000 foreign nationals, according to the (generally conservative and understated) estimates of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), this racket likely generates a staggering $7.5-12.5 billion per year in Cambodia alone.
Independent media reports corroborate the story of the probable scale of Cambodian scam operations and the profound abuse that accompanies them. Victim statements from counter-trafficking NGOs and network analysis by global experts in transnational crime offer further evidence. As do three years of complaints and hand-wringing by Cambodia’s regional neighbors, some of whom are warning their nationals against taking job offers in the country.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/cambodian-propaganda-playing-the-victim-to-get-away-with-murder/
