Cambodia 20260518

Mekong Memo Cambodia Weekly: Business, politics, finance, trade & legal news.

May 18, 2026

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Two Years in Uniform, Three Temples in Dispute

All 114 members of the National Assembly voted unanimously on Tuesday to extend mandatory military service from 18 months to two years, lower the conscription age ceiling from 30 to 25, and double peacetime jail terms for refusal to two years. “Wartime evasion” now means five years. Hun Manet told lawmakers that sovereignty was "being threatened" and that Cambodia needed troops who were "energized." Off the battlefield, the Culture Ministry sent another protest Saturday after a Thai subdistrict organization brought more than 200 dancers to Khnar Temple for a Buddhist ceremony “honoring Thai soldiers killed along the border.”

Read more: CNA (conscription penalties), Cambodianess (three temples), Khmer Times (200 dancers ceremony), Cambodianess (MoU termination, UNCLOS), CamboJA News (M79 denial, O'Smach)

Frozen Mansions Free Ministers

Mu Sochua was in Westminster putting the heat on the UK to move past asset freezes and to physically seize London properties tied to figures sanctioned over Cambodia's scam center networks. The 71-year-old opposition activist, in self-exile in the US since 2017, wants the proceeds made available to scam victims. The frozen portfolio already includes a £12 million mansion on Avenue Road and a £100 million office building on Fenchurch Street, as well as several flats, much of the property is held through British Virgin Islands shell corporations. She also reported that close family members of deputy prime minister Neth Savoeun reportedly own luxury London real estate that has (until now) dodged sanction. Not a single Cambodian government official has been sanctioned by the UK or US, despite an estimated 100,000 people forcibly working in the country's scam compounds.

Raids Big on Suspects and Light on Masterminds

Police raided scam compounds in several provinces, nabbing more than 150 people, as well as hundreds of mobile phones and computers from Prince Plaza along. The Phnom Penh office complex is connected to Prince Bank founder Chen Zhi, who was arrested and deported to China in January. The Tbong Khmum Provincial Court charged 40 suspects over the "7 House Condo" operation, but the alleged site owner, Xu Liang Cai, a Chinese national with Cambodian citizenship, has so far been able to stay at large on charges of organizing a cyber scam center and money laundering. The government says it has closed more than 250 scam locations and deported more than 13,000 people since July.

Read more: The Star (Prince Plaza seizures), Asian News Network (Xu Liang Cai fugitive), CamboJA News (masterminds uninvestigated)

Munna's Recruits Cost Two Grand Apiece

India's National Investigation Agency has charged five men with running a trafficking ring that brought young Indians to Cambodia with fake job offers before taking their passports on arrival and selling them to scam compounds for $2,000 to $3,000 a head. Alleged kingpin Anand Kumar Singh, alias Munna, is still on the run; three co-accused were picked up in February when they flew into Delhi from Cambodia. Workers who pushed back got electric shocks, forced confinement, and were denied food and water.

Read more: The Hindu (accused identities), Hindustan Times (Singh's sub-agents)

Sign Here and Stop Talking

Lom Sae, a representative of the Russey Srok Land Community in Preah Vihear, says Rovieng District police called him in on Wednesday and walked him through his options, which were to sign a document promising to stop organizing protests OR face a lawsuit from Global Green (Cambodia) Energy Development, a company tied to tycoon Try Pheap's network that has been clearing land farmed by more than 140 families since September. Sae decided to put pen to paper and signed. Police deny coercion.

Read more: CamboJA News (Licadho, Try Pheap sanctions), CamboJA News (Yang Sophorn dissent)

Phnom Penh Marks Down Its Forecast

Cambodia has cut its 2026 GDP growth forecast to 4.2% from 5.5%. Next year’s also going to be trimmed to 5% from the same starting point. Hun Manet's medium-term fiscal outlook puts the blame on Trump's tariffs, the border dispute with Thailand, and Middle East turmoil that’s promoting an energy crisis. Phnom Penh still foresees a rebound to 5.5%(-ish) growth for 2028 and 2029, provided that socio-economic activities return to what the document calls “pre-crisis conditions.”

Earning More but Worth Less

ACLEDA Bank's Q1 2026 net profit was $45.9 million, (up 7.2%), but its share price is 55% below where it sat at the 2020 IPO. The gap between earnings and market confidence is manifested in the bank’s NPL ratio, which is now 6.18% vs 5.5% a year ago. Impairment losses were $21.7 million vs $18.1 million a year earlier. Management plans to bring the ratio back below 6% by year-end. Total assets were reported to be $12.06 billion as of March 31.

Angkor Empties Out, Cargo Holds Fill Up

South Korean arrivals at Angkor Wat are down an astonishing 96 percent from pre-pandemic levels, and Malaysian visitors are. off 87 percent. Cambodia pulled in 5.57 million tourists in 2025, ~17% less than 2024, but revenue edged up 6.6 percent (to $3.878 billion) on higher-spending visitors. The government's response is a handful of pivots, from green-season marketing to ASEAN diplomacy. Air cargo through the three international airports was up more than a third in Q1, now 30,448 tons.

Read more: The Star (air passenger, cargo), Cambodia Investment Review (visa reform, $30M campaign), Khmer Times (green season campaign)

Pearl of Asia Gets a Glass-and-Steel Makeover

The $2 billion Foster + Partners airport that opened last October, with latticed ceilings nodding to traditional basketry and a satellite city-to-be connected to town by way of the newly christened Xi Jinping Boulevard, is an indication that Phnom Penh is being rebuilt for a different kind of traveler. The Shangri-La hotel has now joined the Rosewood in the city’s skyline. Cranes bristle over Koh Pich (which was swampland until the early 2000s), and Chinese-language investment banners now compete with gilded temple spires for street-corner real estate. The Vattanac Capital Tower was the tallest building in the country in 2022; a dozen new ones have topped it since. The French-colonial villas and art deco shop-fronts that earned the city its "Pearl of Asia" name keep coming down to make room for blocks of glass and steel. Progress?

Thai Sugar By Any Other Name

Kampot provincial governor Mao Thonin led a Wednesday raid on a workshop in Kampong Tnaot village where workers were pulling Thai-labeled sugar out of its original bags and resealing it into Vietnamese-labeled sacks, in an attempt to slip past Cambodia's consumer boycott of Thai products. Several tons were seized. Buyers found at the site have been ordered to give statements as investigators work backward to find out who was running the network.

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