CAMBODIAN goods are gaining significant traction in Vietnam, as prices for Vietnamese products rapidly increase. The Kingdom’s exports to its eastern neighbour increased more than 84 percent in the first half of 2011, totaling US$247 million, statistics from the Vietnam Trade Office in Phnom Penh show.

“The Vietnamese economy is facing an obstacle with a rising inflation rate this year that’s been very difficult for us,” said Vietnamese Trade Attache Tran Tu. “However, I think the government is trying its best to tackle the issue [of rising domestic prices].”

Yesterday, Vietnam’s National Assembly Economic Committee head Ha Van Hien said it would be “very difficult” for Vietnam to slow inflation to 17 percent by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Cambodia’s Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon has raised Cambodia’s 2011 inflation target this week to 5.5 percent.

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NORTH Korea aims to import rice from Cambodia, as well as explore for mineral resources, officials said yesterday. High-ranking officials from Pyongyang met with their Cambodian counterparts in Phnom Penh yesterday, signing agreements on economic and trade cooperation. The two countries had signed seven cooperation agreements beginning in 1993, but they were never implemented, said Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Secretary of State Ouch Borith following meetings.

The bilateral agreements range from cultural cooperation to trade promotion to establishing a joint IT committee. “The agreements have never been actually implemented. Therefore, [yesterday] we agreed to push for actual implementation in the near future,” he said.

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Mondulkiri province

Coffee plantations in Cambodia’s northeast are struggling to keep up with rising international demand for the increasingly lucrative beans, farmers and traders said. Orders for Cambodian-grown coffee beans from countries such as Japan and Korea as well as domestic demand has increased rapidly, while prices have jumped nearly 40 percent since 2009, traders said. Higher prices are ushering more farmers into the market, but supply from Mondulkiri province’s roughly 30 hectares of coffee plantation is falling short.

Im Saroeun, a farmer at the Coffee Plantation Resort in Mondolkiri province, said his plantation is turning down contracts from foreign importers. It simply cannot fill the orders, he said.

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PHNOM PENH, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has seen a sharp rise in cassava exports in the first half of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to the statistics from the Commerce Ministry's Camcontrol Department on Tuesday. The data showed that from January to June this year, the country had exported 212,018 tons of fresh and dry chip cassava, represented 87 percent rise from 113,068 tons in the same period last year. The country earned the total revenues of 8.7 million U.S. dollars during the six months of this year, up 200 percent from only 2.9 million U.S. dollars at the same period last year, showed the data. According to the report from the Ministry of Agriculture, the country grew 194,000 hectares of cassava crop and yielded 3.78 million tons in 2010-2011 harvest season.

Source : Dap News