Malaysian group gets rights to open Pizza Huts in Cambodia

Monsters and Critics.com – Aug 8, 2008

Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian restaurant operator QSR Brands Bhd has obtained rights to operate outlets of the fast-food chain Pizza Hut in Cambodia, a news report said Friday.

The company, which opened the first KFC fast-food chicken outlet in Cambodia on March 2, obtained approval from the international restaurant company Yum Restaurants Asia Pte Ltd to open the Pizza Huts, The Edge Daily, a Malaysian financial newspaper, reported.

KFC is currently being operated via Kampuchea Food Corp Co Ltd, a joint venture of QSR, Royal Group of Companies and Rightlink Corp Ltd, the report said.

The company said a new wholly owned subsidiary would be set up under the joint venture to undertake Pizza Hut operations in Cambodia.

Cambodian election results to be announced

Monsters and Critics.com – August 8, 2008

Phnom Penh – Cambodia’s National Election Committee said Friday it would announce temporary results from the July 27 national polls within 24 hours.

The committee said the results would be announced at 8 am (0100 GMT) Saturday on state media and a number of other outlets.

It said the 11 participating parties then had 72 hours to appeal.

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party had won 90 of 123 seats in early counts and appeared to be unassailable.

But interest still remains in whether the royalist Funcinpec party, once a driving political force, can salvage more than the two seats it held in early polling – down from 26 in the 2003 election.

Cambodia has so far largely avoided the violence associated with previous elections, although security was expected to remain tight.

International observers, including from monitors the US and EU, concluded after polling that improvements to the electoral process still needed to be made, but overall declared them free, if not entirely fair due to the ruling party’s dominance of the media.

ASEAN, India to sign free trade pact in December: official

August 08, 2008

BANGKOK (AFP) — Southeast Asian nations will sign a free trade pact with India in December on the sidelines of a regional summit in Bangkok, an official said Friday.

Talks in Brunei removed the remaining obstacles to the pact, which will liberalise trade in goods between India and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an official with its secretariat told Dow Jones Newswires.

“With the development in Brunei, negotiators would now be working on finalising the text of the (agreement) which is targeted for signing on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Summit in December,” the official said.

ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan told AFP on Thursday that the negotiations had been concluded on the deal covering billions of dollars in trade but not services.

Talks were supposed to have wrapped up last year, but bogged down over differences on products which India wanted excluded from tariff cuts. New Delhi had submitted a list of 1,414 products, while ASEAN’s target number was 400.

At their annual summit in Singapore last November, ASEAN officials said the grouping would not resume negotiations with India until it came up with a better offer.

It was not clear how the issue had been resolved and ASEAN officials at the regional bloc’s Jakarta secretariat were not available to comment.

India adopted a free-market economy in the early 1990s and is keen to expand trade ties with ASEAN, but it also wants to protect sensitive sectors such as agriculture and textiles, which provide livelihoods for millions.

ASEAN aims to create a single market of more than half a billion people by 2015 to help battle competition from China and India.

The bloc is also seeking alliances with the fast-rising regional giants. ASEAN has signed a landmark deal with China to create the world’s biggest free trade zone by 2010.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Rice Needed To Lift Cambodia Out Of Poverty

PHNOM PENH, Aug 8 (Bernama) — Prime Minister Hun Sen said that global inflation may prove a boon for Cambodian agriculture, predicting the kingdom’s rice paddies would yield the “white gold” needed to lift the nation out of poverty.

Cambodia exported 2.5 million tonne of rice last year, Hun Sen said, adding that new irrigation methods will soon quadruple rice exports.

“Before Cambodia’s gold was rubber trees, but now it is rice,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying in a local daily Friday.

Hun Sen said better irrigation would allow 2-3 rice crops each year, with more intensive farming methods increasing yields to 3-4 tons per hectare.

In this respect, Cambodia will not only be able to meet its domestic demands, but also will be able to export more than Vietnam does, he claimed.

Cambodia: Thai PM plans to visit Preah Vihear area

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) — Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is scheduled to visit the area near the Preah Vihear Temple in the eponymous Cambodian province, English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily Friday quoted official as saying.

“He has a plan to visit the Preah Vihear area, not the Preah Vihear Temple,” said Cambodian Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith, adding that specifics on the visit are yet unavailable.

“We will welcome (Samak) if he visits there,” he said.

Meanwhile, Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Cambodian Council of Ministers, said that Samak needs to inform the Cambodian government before visiting the disputed area near the temple.

He dismissed the possibility of the visit on Saturday, because Samak is scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Cambodia and Thailand will hold the second foreign ministers’ meeting in Thailand on Aug. 18 to seek peaceful solution to the 25-day-long military standoff over border dispute.

On July 15, Thai troops went into the border area to fetch three trespassers who had intended to claim Thai sovereignty over the Preah Vihear Temple. The troops stationed there ever since, thus triggering the military stalemate.

In the following days, both sides gradually increased their military personnel to a thousand-strong at the border area to showoff their determination for territorial sovereignty.

During the time, Thai troops occupied one pagoda and one temple that the Cambodian government claimed should belong to its kingdom.

The Preah Vihear Temple straddles the Cambodian-Thai border atop the Dangrek Mountain and was listed as a World Heritage Site on July 7 by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice decided that the 11-century temple and the land around belongs to Cambodia, which rankled the Thais and has led to continuous disputes in late years.