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Aug 03, 2026

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EU Sanctions Chen Zhi After DC and London

The EU Council sanctioned Prince Holding Group and chairman Chen Zhi, freezing assets and putting a travel ban into effect. The sanctions hit the same targets that Washington and London designated in October. Chen is currently in Chinese custody facing an intentional injury charge that could bring the death penalty, but Brussels seemed little comforted and said his compounds "continue to operate" anyway. The listing also caught Sihanoukville-based Jin Bei Group and its chairman Zhu Zhongbiao, who ran the Jin Bei 4 complex with Prince. Prince Holding Group has denied the allegations and said it will defend itself in all relevant jurisdictions.

Svay Rieng police raided three rental houses in Bavet before the EU announcement, arrested 34 Vietnamese and four Bangladeshi nationals, and temporarily closed the properties. OpenAI also shared that a ChatGPT account network it traced to Poipet had been used to draft romance-scam scripts, translate messages to targets, and document staff "recruitment, immigration status, working conditions, and employee discipline."

Read more: CamboJA News (EU case), Khmer Times (Bavet raid), OpenAI (ChatGPT misuse)

Thousands Displaced, No Bigwigs Charged

Tom Andrews finished 12 days in Cambodia with a bleak scorecard. More than 20,000 of the 650,000 people displaced by last year's border fighting with Thailand are still unable to go home, with some finding their villages behind Thai barbed wire and shipping containers. On scam enforcement, the numbers look a little better, with more than 600 locations closed, 29 casino licenses revoked or suspended, and about 3,000 operators facing criminal proceedings. But Andrews said he raised prosecuting the senior officials and powerful figures he says are credibly connected to the scam industry, and got no commitment. He met Hun Manet, Hun Sen, and opposition figures without restriction, and took a tour of the border camps with Kem Sokha, who was recently pardoned by the King after a five-year foreign-travel ban. His findings will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in October.

Read more: AP News (Andrews visit), Straits Times (border economy), Cambodianess (women in politics), Anadolu (Trump pact), Ratopati

Thailand Finishes Border Fence; Trade Down 40%

Thailand has finished work on a 1.3-kilometer stretch of reinforced border fence. Two-way trade fell almost 40 percent in the first five months of 2026, to $1.15 billion. The human cost is showing up in village ledgers. One returnee registered with his village chief for government job placement, was told ministry officials would call, and never heard back, leaving him to service microloan debts with no wage coming in. Cambodian officials told the ASEAN Observer Team, led by Commodore Glenn Dizon, that demarcation work is still stalled because Thai troops continue to hold contested ground, while Phnom Penh says it remains committed to negotiating under international law. Dizon's team has yet to set a timeline for troop withdrawal or for restarting survey work.

Read more: SCMP (microloan debt trap), Khmer Times (Pen Bona)

SchneiTec Clears the Wrong Patch of Forest

SchneiTec, lead developer on the country's first wind farm, cut about half a hectare of tree canopy and a 142-meter access road along the border of the Phnom Prich and Keo Seima wildlife sanctuaries before provincial officials stopped their work and called the company in to explain. Mondulkiri environment director Has Vibol said it might have been "a technical error," with the approved site nearby. CamboJA reporters who visited found the road network longer and the cleared area larger than officials described. SchneiTec's slice of the $185 million, 900-megawatt project will cover almost 40 hectares and 49 turbines, all but one planned inside Keo Seima, on land Bunong communities say they were never really consulted about. SchneiTec has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Oknha's Daughter in Fatal Hit-and-Run

Sam Meychou, 27, daughter of Oknha Tong Hok Seng, was taken into custody over the hit-and-run death of Kuoch Limhan, a 35-year-old Ministry of Public Works and Transport official killed while riding home. Police say her vehicle crossed the centerline while overtaking on Street 1003 in Sen Sok district around 11:30pm, colliding head-on with Limhan's Honda Scoopy. Video showed two young women leaving the scene by tuk tuk as the body lay in the rain. DAP News initially reported that she was detained at Techo International Airport trying to board a flight to Singapore, but the Phnom Penh police commissioner later said her father cooperated with investigators in locating her and handing her over. Both vehicles are impounded. This will be another interesting case to watch to see how the country’s justice system deals with children of the elite.

High Power Costs Hold Back Manufacturing

AMRO's latest read on the country's industrial base is that electricity tariffs are about double Vietnam's, and the grid still can’t keep up. Outages hit more than four in ten businesses (overall) during CY2023, including more than half of manufacturers, and more than 80% of garment factories, a sector the country is heavily reliant on. Affected companies are about 11 percent less productive than peers who are able to get stable power. The report connects this disconnect (Ed: sorry!) directly to why the economy is unable to move beyond past assembly work.

Gov’t Weighs Visa Rethink as Thai Arrivals Crater

Thai arrivals dropped 96 percent in the first half of 2026, the biggest decline from ten major markets that all went backward. Overall arrivals fell by almost half to 1.75 million. PATA Cambodia's Thourn Sinan says the government is getting ready to revise visa conditions to try and stem the tide. Land and waterway entries fell about two-thirds; ticket revenue at Angkor Archaeological Park was down almost 30 percent to $18.5 million.

Central Bank Bets Second Half on Garments, FDI

Governor Chea Serey told the National Bank of Cambodia's mid-year review that he expects that growth will rise from 3.5 percent in H1 2026 to 4.3 percent in H2, putting the full year at 3.9 percent before finding a 5 percent footing in 2027. She is counting on garments, non-garment manufacturing, farm exports, and foreign capital to do the lifting. Tourism has weakened (see previous story), and construction and real estate remain moribund. The Council for the Development of Cambodia approved 276 projects worth $4.7 billion in H1, with a Korean manufacturing delegation, early France talks on health and green energy megaprojects, and KNN Automotive's $28 million Kandal assembly plant among the recent additions. Details on how much represents committed cash versus paperwork have not been released.

Read more: VietnamPlus (growth forecast), Construction & Property News (investment approvals)

Hun Manet Chases 4 Million Missing Land Titles

Almost 14 million land plots have been registered but only 10 million have titles, and Hun Manet wants the gap closed by the end of next year. The fix will come in the form of a centralized database that will connect provincial land offices to the General Department of Taxation, replacing what he called a system that has no unified document flow at the local level. Owners whose titles are with banks and microfinance institutions as loan collateral will be able to retrieve or swap paperwork through a new arrangement with the National Bank of Cambodia, without voiding the loan guarantee. A full penalty waiver on overdue stamp duty is running through 2027 for cases with court orders more that are more than three months old, and land transferred repeatedly at the local level between 2017 and July 2026 will be taxed once, on the final owner, rather than at every step along the way.

Reserves Slip to $25.3 Billion/ Eight Months

Foreign reserves were down about 8 percent in the first half of 2026 to $25.3 billion, down from $27.5 billion at end-2025, on lower bank deposits, mandatory reserves, and reduced gold holdings. That amount is still enough to pay for eight months of imports, well above the three-month benchmark economists think is appropriate for developing economies. The National Bank says the drop is the result of reserve composition, not because of balance-of-payments pressure. A little more than 6 percent of reserves is now in green and ESG-related bonds, a new disclosure that’s meant to lure climate-linked financing.

ADB Puts Up $250 Million for RISE

The ADB approved a $250 million loan for the RISE program, which is aimed at more than a million IDPoor households, including at least 350,000 that are headed by women, through income support, debt relief, and help with agricultural inputs. The AIIB may add up to $250 million and JICA up to $188 million, which would push combined financing to $688 million. Neither co-financing commitment is confirmed.

Submarine Cable Connects Sihanoukville to HK

A 3,000 km submarine cable connecting Sihanoukville to Hong Kong has been wired up, running through the Gulf of Thailand, past southern Vietnam, and across the South China Sea to a landing station in Tseung Kwan O. China Unicom, the state-owned telecom that funded the SHV-HK project, says it is part of the Belt and Road’s digital cooperation work. Pricing and rollout dates for local carriers have not been made public yet, but the cable promises faster overseas connections for all of Cambodia.

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