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Cambodia needs 1 bln USD for sustainable rural electrification by 2030: report
Thursday, 31 March 2011 09:04 DAP-NEWS
PHNOM PENH, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia needs one billion U.S. dollars to develop all types of electric powers over twenty-year period to reach its political targets of 70 percent of rural households connecting to electricity by 2030, said a new report released on Wednesday.
The one-year-studied report, titled "Sustainable Rural Electrification Plan in Cambodia", said that the estimated one million U.S. dollars investment will be used to build sub- transmission networks, hydro-mini-grids, biomass mini-grids, new diesel mini-grids, distributions (transformers and meters), solar home systems, Photovoltaic (PV) services for community facilities, solar battery charging stations.
"Currently, only 15 percent of rural households can access to electricity," Sat Samy, secretary of state for the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME), said Wednesday during the receipt of the report from the French Ambassador to Cambodia, Christian Connan.
"The report will be a roadmap for Cambodia to achieve its political targets of 70 percent of rural households connected to electricity by 2030," he said.
The report had been conducted by a French firm, Innovation Energie Devlopment, upon the request of the MIME with the financial support by the government of France.
Cambodia's strategy is to supply electricity to all villages in Cambodia by 2020, and by 2030, at least 70 percent of the Cambodia 's rural households will be able access to electricity.
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Cambodia needs 350 mln USD to achieve its rice export target by 201
Thursday, 31 March 2011 09:04 DAP-NEWS
PHNOM PENH, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia needs 350 million U.S. dollars to boost rice paddy production and rice exports to hit one million-ton a year from 2015, said a senior finance official on Wednesday.
Of the amount, 200 million U.S. dollars will be used to purchase rice paddy from farmers for processing and 150 million U. S. dollars for building hi-tech post harvest technology, Hang Chuon Naron, secretary of state for the Finance Ministry, told reporters after a seminar on environment, agriculture and development.
"Currently, the country's high-tech rice mills are capable to process only 200,000 tons of rice per year, so to meet the target of exporting 1 million tons a year by 2015, it needs to invest other five times, or around 150 million U.S. dollars, in building sophisticated rice mills," he said.
"So far, we have mobilized about 50 million U.S. dollars from banks and development partners for this task," he said.
The country, in August last year, set up a rice paddy production and rice export policy aiming to increase rice exports in Cambodia to one million tons a year from 2015.
Hang Chuon Naron said that the target markets that Cambodia focusing on are the Europe and China.
Chan Sarun, minister of agriculture, forests and fisheries, said in the seminar that in order to meet the need in foreign markets, the ministry has actively advised farmers to grow ten types of rice seeds that are popular among foreign countries.
"Now the issue that we need to give more attention to is sanitary and phyto-sanitary in order to adapt to international agreements in protecting interests of our trade partner countries," he told the seminar with 150 participants, who are government officials from the ministries of agriculture, commerce, finance, environment, industry, and rice exporters, millers, bankers as well as development partners.
Cambodia produced 8.25 million tons of rice paddy in the harvest season 2010-2011. Of this figure, the country has 3.9 million tons of rice paddies, or 2.5 million tons of milled rice left over for exports this year, said Chan Sarun.
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Cambodia sees high growth in telecommunication in 2010: report
Thursday, 31 March 2011 09:03 DAP-NEWS
PHNOM PENH, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication earned revenues of 28.5 million U.S. dollars in 2010, up 53 percent from 18.6 million U.S. dollars in a year earlier, said the ministry's report released Thursday during its annual conference.
The revenues came from tariffs from telecommunication companies, internet operators, license fees, postal service and air waves, according to the report.
Currently, the country has two fixed phone operators -- Telecom Cambodia and Camintel Co. and nine mobile phone operators: Cam GSM (Mobitel), Mfone, Hello Axiata Company Limited, Applifone (Star- Cell), CADCOMMS (QB), Metfone (Viettel), GT -Tell (Excell), Sotelco (Beeline), and Smart Mobile.
By the end of 2010, the number of mobile phone and fixed phone users has sharply increased to about 10.9 million or 76.2 percent of the country's 14.3 million people. It was up 69 percent from only 6.44 million users by 2009.
Among the 10.9 million users, 10.54 million have been using mobile phones and 358,750 people using fixed phones.
Vietnam's Metfone has the largest users of 4.52 million, followed by Mobitel of 2.7 million and Mfone of 1.1 million, said the report.
Also, in the kingdom, there have been 20 internet service providers serving 193,858 customers to date.
"We see that telecommunication industry has rapidly developed both scopes and operational infrastructure expansion to rural areas in recent years," Minister of Posts and Telecommunication So Khun said during opening the annual conference. "This reflects the confidence of foreign investors in Cambodian telecommunication market."
"In the vision of Cambodian government, the development of posts and telecommunication sector is one of the priority sectors for the economic growth and the country will put all its efforts to develop it to be as developed as those in advanced countries," he added.
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Cambodia receives 127,053 deportees from Thailand and Vietnam in 2010
Thursday, 31 March 2011 09:02 DAP-NEWS
PHOM PENH, March 30 (Xinhua) - Cambodia has received 127,053 deportees from Thailand and Vietnam in the whole year of 2010, according to a government's statistics.
The statistic seen Wednesday showed that in the whole year of 2010, there were 127,053 deportees, among them 38,572 were women, 76,610 men and 11,871 children who were under 15 years of age.
At two important international border points with Thailand, that is, at Poit Pet in Banteay Meanchey Province and Cham Yeam in Koh Kong Province, there were 126,467, while at two major international border points with Vietnam at Bavet and Bos Morn, both in Svay Rieng Province, there were 586 deportees.
Human trafficking becomes one of the major issues being discussed worldwide, especially, in Asia.
In the last two decades, many Cambodian people have been migrated into Thailand and Malaysia and as well as Vietnam.
There are many reasons that cause to both legal and illegal migration to those neighboring countries.
Among those reasons were poverty, lack of education, desires to improve family economic condition, lack of domestic markets, lack of understanding about human trafficking and others.
The illegal migrants are normally lured by deceptive brokers, and they are later ended up with facing challenges of violence, exploitation and human rights abuses in the countries where they were taken to.
According to Cambodia's law, human trafficking is a serious crime which involves in the cheating or deceiving of people into sexual servitude or labor for the purpose of exploitation.
