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Headlines:
King's Cancer, Hun Sen's Throne
Phnom Penh Asks to Talk, Bangkok Rolls Wire
Trade Booms as Poverty Looms
Shovels Before Settlements
Scam City: 10,000 Desks and No Surprise
Sokha's Appeal: Don't Call Us
Huione's Frozen Customers Return, Empty-Handed
Beijing Banks the First Gigawatt Battery
Moscow's Sub Surfaces at Sihanoukville
Diesel Drops, But the Road Home Still Costs Too Much
Malaysian Money Dials Into 5G
King's Cancer, Hun Sen's Throne
King Norodom Sihamoni, 72, said Friday that Chinese doctors have diagnosed him with prostate cancer and he'll stay in Beijing for treatment that’s going to take between one and three months. The monarch left for China on February 27 for what was supposed to be a routine checkup, one of the twice-yearly medical trips that have become a fixture of his reign. Senate President Hun Sen is staying on as acting head of state while Sihamoni undergoes treatment.
Sources: AP News (father's precedent), Nation Thailand (UN ambassador role), UCA News (Khmer New Year), Arab News (background)
Phnom Penh Asks to Talk, Bangkok Rolls Wire
Hun Manet posted on social media asking Thailand to start border demarcation talks again "quickly and with sincerity." Hours earlier, Thailand's foreign minister said Bangkok wasn't ready, saying it needed to follow "its own procedures." Thailand's defense minister warned of a possible "third conflict," causing analyst Chhang Youk to say the remarks were “provocative.” The two countries shook hands on a ceasefire in late December, but the situation has remained tense.
Sources: Straits Times (Thai FM response), Nation Thailand (ceasefire reference), Ratopati(casualty figures), Cambodia Daily (analyst criticism), Cambodia Daily (ICJ question)
Trade Booms as Poverty Looms
The economy grew at a 5.2 percent clip through 2025, but the Asian Development Bank is saying that three shocks coming together could push as many as 250,000 people (about 1.5 percent of the population) into poverty, and cut 2026 growth. The risks are the Middle East conflict driving up energy costs, the uncertainty of a shifting U.S. trade policy, and continued issues about cross-border trade with Thailand. The warnings land against Q1 2026 data showing total trade rose 17.1 percent to $16.93 billion, on exports that are up 17.7 percent. Agriculture, long the backbone of rural livelihoods, contributed just 0.1 percent to GDP growth last year despite rising export volumes. Women returning from Thailand are facing the greatest challenges - they’re reportedly 18 times more likely than men to drop out of the workforce entirely.
Sources: The Star (Q1 dollar figures), Khmer Times (sector breakdown), Cambodianess (poverty projections)
Shovels Before Settlements
Construction has started on the second section of the Funan Techo Canal, even as families along the first section are still waiting for their compensation checks. The PM asked affected communities for their understanding at the ceremony in Takeo Province, promising his team would resolve compensation "appropriately." Nearly $71 million has been budgeted for payouts. The first section, a 26-kilometer stretch inaugurated in August 2024, remains quiet. Dim Mech, a businessman living along the route in Prek Takeo since the late 1990s, said there's been neither clear compensation information nor any visible construction work in his area so far. The $1.17 billion project has been sold as a way to connect Phnom Penh to the sea by 2028 through a roughly 180-kilometer waterway. Chinese investors own 49% of the venture, Cambodian shareholders hold the balance.
Source: CamboJA News
Scam City: 10,000 Desks and No Surprise
Officials kicked out more than 1,000 foreigners in the first five days of April, nearly half of them Chinese nationals who have been connected to online fraud, as the government races toward a self-imposed deadline to “get rid of” scam operations by month's end. The deportations overlapped with a Thai military media tour of an 80-hectare compound near O'Smach, emptied after cross-border fighting in December 2025, where journalists found handwritten chat guides still open on desks coaching scammers to pose as Singaporeans and extract salary details from victims. The Thai military says that 10,000 people operated from the site, which featured its own hospital, pharmacy, and hair salon.
Sources: Asian News Network ($10B U.S. losses), Cambodia Daily (deportations), Cambodia Daily (device seizures)
Sokha's Appeal: Don't Call Us
The Phnom Penh Appeal Court finished two days of hearings on Kem Sokha's treason conviction Thursday and said it would hand down a verdict at an unspecified “later date,” more than 18 months after its previous session. The 72-year-old opposition founder is serving 27 years under house arrest for allegedly colluding with the United States to (try to) topple the government. His lawyers asked the court to overturn the conviction, saying that prosecutors built their case around a 2013 speech Sokha gave to diaspora Cambodians in Melbourne and couldn't name a single foreign country that had actually colluded with him. Diplomats from the US, Australia, Germany, Britain, and the EU were present for the hearings.
Sources: CamboJA News (defense arguments), CamboJA News (diplomat attendance)
Huione's Frozen Customers Return, Empty-Handed
About 200 Huione Pay and H-Pay customers protested at the National Bank on Tuesday, their second gathering in four days, over their frozen money woes getting no resolution three months after US sanctions reached the payment platforms. The central bank offered H-Pay users a possible meeting with company reps, but gave Huione Pay customers nothing, despite both groups having registered their details back in December. One Sihanoukville construction boss with $600,000 frozen and 700 to 800 workers on her payroll has had to mortgage her house to keep food on the table for her staff. Neither platform has offered a timeline for any release of funds.
Source: CamboJA News
Beijing Banks the First Gigawatt Battery
Work began Friday on a $1 billion pumped storage hydropower station in Koh Kong, the Cambodia’s first gigawatt-scale energy storage project, bankrolled by Chinese investors. The 1,000 MW facility will use four reversible turbines to store power and smooth renewable energy peaks. The mines and energy minister says the project will help push clean energy's share above 70 percent by 2030.
Source: Xinhua
Moscow's Sub Surfaces at Sihanoukville
Three Russian naval vessels, the corvette Gromkiy, the submarine Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky, and the support vessel Andrey Stepanov, pulled into Sihanoukville port from April 5 through 8. It's the second Russian naval call in a year after three ships docked last April following the upgraded Ream Naval Base's inauguration. Russia's ambassador Anatoly Borovik and Rear Admiral In Sokhemara, deputy commander of Ream, welcomed the arrivals. The program included a friendly football match and some vaguely described technical exchanges. Phnom Penh has backed a UN resolution condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine.
Source: Cambodia Daily
Diesel Drops, But the Road Home Still Costs Too Much
The price of diesel fell almost 16 percent to 6,900 riels/ liter after the ceasefire was announced in the Middle East, but workers heading to their provinces for Khmer New Year say they're still scaling back travel or staying put. The government is running about 600 free buses over the six days that started yesterday.
Sources: Cambodianess (price drops), CamboJA News (union president)
Malaysian Money Dials Into 5G
Maybank gave Smart Axiata a $50 million financing facility for the build out of 5G and digital infrastructure. Smart is a subsidiary of Malaysia's Axiata Group, and this is Maybank's first new economy deal in Cambodia. The bank is setting aside $25 billion for more deals of a similar stripe throughout ASEAN between now and 2030.
Source: Cambodia Investment Review
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