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

Oct 05, 2026

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IMF Cuts 2026 Growth Forecast to 3%

The IMF expects growth to slow to 3% this year, in perhaps surprising contrast with the ADB's far more ambitious 3.9% forecast. International tourist arrivals fell by almost half in the first six months, and the absence of close to a million migrant workers remitting money from Thailand through the ongoing Thai-Cambodian standoff has hit the national balance sheet. The IMF figures that inflation could reach 5.6% on energy costs. The government is a bit more bullish, expecting 4.2% growth on non-garment exports, foreign investment and state spending. PM Hun Manet says all large scam compounds have been shuttered, but the IMF says the reputational damage is still keeping investors away and also warns that bad loans are getting close to 8% of lending and wants banks, payment firms and casinos to vet their real owners, which local law, unusually, does not require.

Hun Manet Bumps Garment Wage to $212

Garment workers will start to get a $212 monthly minimum wage from January after Prime Minister Hun Manet added $2 to a council vote that wanted to keep it at $210. Unions were asking for $225, and there was a band of 125 civil society groups who were asking for a $250.66 “living wage” based on median household spending of $391 and take-home pay of $287. Labor Minister Heng Sour is taking a rosy view, saying bonuses and housing and transport allowances bring the real figure to $231.50. Employers wanted no increase and say rising shipping costs and the closed Thai border are already hitting margins. The sector employs 1.1 million workers.

Read more: Xinhua (exports), CamboJA News (employers), Cambodianess (living costs), Khmer Times (workers)

Vietnam Trade $6 Billion, Far From $20 Billion Goal

Two-way trade with Vietnam was $6 billion in the first eight months of 2026, up 7%. The relationship is becoming more critical as the Thai land border remains closed. Cambodia sent $2.96 billion in rice, rubber, cashews and other farm goods and received $3.02 billion in construction materials, machinery and fuel. That’s a $63.2 million trade gap, down from $92.5 million for the previous period. Vietnam has become the third-largest trading partner after China and the US, and is responsible for about an eighth of trade. Kandal and An Giang provinces have opened a new international crossing at Chrey Thom-Khanh Binh, though traders still question the quality of Vietnamese goods and Vietnam still hasn’t given China-bound Cambodian cargo transit rights.

Read more: Khmer Times (connections), Khmer Times (investment)

Thai Troops Raise Flag at Pursat Checkpoint

Thai troops (and monks!) raised their flag at the Thmar Da International Border Checkpoint in Pursat, resulting in another formal protest from Phnom Penh. The Foreign Affairs Ministry said the ceremony is an attempt to assert an "unlawful occupation" and said it was in breach of the December 27, 2025 ceasefire. They also referred again to maps drawn under the 1904 Franco-Siamese Convention and the 1907 Treaty.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (UN response), Cambodianess (border ceremony), Khmer Times (government response)

Hun Manet Calls Exiled Critics “Traitors”

Prime Minister Hun Manet is painting exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy and US-based commentator Muong Nareth of treason, saying their claims about last year's fighting with Thailand demoralized the military. At a road inauguration in Pursat, he angrily denied that Cambodian troops fired on Thai civilians or operated from the Preah Vihear Temple complex. CamboJA News said it wasn’t able to actually find the Sam Rainsy comments that Manet was referring to and Nareth, a former Radio Free Asia host who runs a YouTube talk show, said on Facebook that the accusations were fabricated.

Singapore Takes S$39M in Prince Group Case

Singapore police have taken possession of all S$39 million resulting from the sale of 2 Jalan Kilang Barat, a commercial building that the US Treasury claims was the address of 11 companies connected to Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi. A shell company set up by Chen Xiaoxuan (25-year-old daughter of businessman Tan Yew Kiat) bought the property in 2023. Police arrested Tan in November 2025 on laundering money charges related to Prince Group. The company tried to sell the building for S$50 million, but authorities forced a withdrawal of the listing and placed a caveat on it, later allowing for a S$39 million sale to Jackspeed Holdings. Chen Zhi is still waiting on proceedings in Beijing after his extradition from Phnom Penh, and Singapore still has a warrant out for Karen Chen Xiuling, another related party who is believed to still be in Cambodia.

DFI Retail Takes Over Starbucks Licensee

DFI Retail Group, the parent of Lucky Supermarket, is taking ownership of Maxim's Coffee Concepts, which is the Starbucks licensee that operates more than 1,100 coffee shops in seven Asian markets. The deal with Hongkong Caterers is expected to close by the end of March 2027. Daily operations will remain unchanged, and the businesses will continue sharing procurement, supply chains and the yuu Rewards program. DFI has operated locally since 2012 and owns 70% of the company running Lucky Supermarkets. Starbucks entered the market in 2015 and now has 60 stores in eight cities.

Phnom Penh to Take Afghan Refugees From Qatar

A 16-member task force led by Interior Ministry Secretary of State Kirth Chantharith will decide how many of the roughly 1,100 Afghans stranded at Qatar's Al-Sayliyah camp to accept. Washington asked Phnom Penh to help clear the backlog from the 2021 Kabul evacuation. The group will arrange flights, housing and security, but the order doesn’t make clear how long the Afghans would stay or who would pay.

Garment Workers Cook as Heat Rules Lag

Phnom Penh saw more than a hundred days of 35°C or hotter from 2020 through 2024, which is more than triple the rate seen in the late 2000s. Garment workers are, as a result, “cooking” on factory floors. At one supplier, a thermometer that followed a 46-year-old veteran's shifts showed that the heat index was “dangerous” or “extremely dangerous” for nearly four-fifths of her working hours. At subcontractors outside TAFTAC or Better Work monitoring, the share was above that 80% benchmark, and workers didn’t even get the seniority pay and social security that had been offered by audited suppliers. The Labor Ministry is working to get temperature limits fixed in order to replace a toothless 2002 rule, but nobody’s seen the draft yet.

Read more: Pulitzer Center (GIZ report), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (factory measures)

UN Envoy Counts 100+ Political Detainees

UN Special Rapporteur Thomas Andrews told the Human Rights Council that the government presides over "two Cambodias." One has ratified eight of the nine core rights treaties and accepted more than four-fifths of its Universal Periodic Review recommendations. The other is holding more than 100 people for exercising their basic freedoms. Worryingly, that’s a trend going in the wrong direction as it's three times the number at the start of 2024. Rights groups say there are currently 110 detainees including five journalists, five Mother Nature environmental activists and two student organizers, all who have been repeatedly denied bail.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (government response), Human Rights Watch (Commune Law)

Conscription Drive Draws 3,000 on Day One

Nearly 3,000 young Cambodians picked up military service forms on the first day, about a third of the roughly 8,500 recruits the Defence Ministry says it needs for this year. District military police bases will accept completed applications from October 10 to 15. Hun Manet cautiously said that the opening is a trial and that quotas remain under review. If too few people volunteer, a lottery will be used to fill the gap. Men aged 18 to 25 are required to serve for 24 months.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (officials), Khmer Times (critics), CamboJA News (law)

Anti-Scam Commission Shuts Online Betting at 24 Casinos

The anti-scam commission says 24 casinos stopped online gambling by the September 30 deadline that it had set. It says livestreamed games, football betting, online lotteries and bird-fighting wagers have come to a stop and the equipment is gone, but didn’t go so far as to say how many of the Cambodia’s almost 200 licensed casinos offered online betting, or whether the 24 that stopped include any of the 18 casinos that lost their licenses or the nine that were already suspended. In it’s trumpeting, it also seems to have set aside the awkward fact that online gambling has been fully banned since 2019.

Angkor Visitor Numbers Down a Quarter

Angkor Archaeological Park saw 510,528 foreign tourists in the first nine months of 2026, which is a drop of more than a quarter from a year earlier. Ticket revenue fell in line with that drop to $24.23 million. Tourism Minister Huot Hak blamed the reputational damage from scam compounds, the Thai border standoff and higher global fuel costs. September brought a sliver of relief as arrivals held almost steady at 35,535 and ticket revenue edged up to $1.69 million.

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