DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “ADB lowers Cambodia's economic growth to 6.4% in 2012 due to weak global demand” plus 6 more

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) slashed Cambodia's GDP growth to 6.4 percent this year, 0.1 percentage point lower than its April's forecast of 6.5 percent, according to the bank's Outlook 2012 Update released on Wednesday.

"Falling global demand, especially in Europe and the United States, means that the industry sector will grow at a slower pace this year," said ADB Senior Country Economist for Cambodia Peter Brimble. "However, buoyancy in the services sector, particularly tourism, offsets to some extent the slowdown in garment exports."

The bank predicted that Cambodia's gross domestic product to grow by 6.4 percent in 2012 and 6.8 percent in 2013, a slight drop from ADB's earlier projections of 6.5 percent and 7 percent in April.

Demand by major trading partners for Cambodia's garment and footwear exports has softened this year, with U.S. imports of garments and footwear from Cambodia growing by only 2.6 percent to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first 7 months of 2012, and imports to Europe increasing by 21 percent to 798 million U.S. dollars in the first 6 months, both decelerating sharply over 2011 levels, it said.

Dry weather has hurt agricultural production in some provinces, it added. Other sectors performing well include transport, finance, construction and tourism.

Approved investment in construction jumped by almost 85 percent to 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in the first 7 months, and tourist arrivals jumped by 27 percent to 1.8 million by mid-year, the bank said.

Inflation forecasts are lower than previous estimates both for this year and next, driven by more moderate price increases for food and fuel.

The bank projects inflation of 3 percent for 2012, with the rate picking up to 4.5 percent in 2013.

The ADB's revised forecast is contrary to the prediction by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Fund said Tuesday that Cambodia's economy growth could grow as high as 7 percent this year, 0.8 percentage points higher than its April's forecast of 6.2 percent.

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Container traffic through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, Cambodia's second largest port, increased by 16 percent in the first nine months of this year thanks to increasing import and export activities in garments and construction materials, the port authority said on Wednesday.

A port report released on Wednesday showed that from January to September this year, the port received about 70,000 twenty-foot- equivalent units, or TEUs, up 16 percent from 60,000 TEUs ( standard-sized containers) in the same period last year.

Goods go through the port including garments, agricultural products, construction materials, agricultural machinery, raw materials for garment production and consuming products.

Hei Bavy, the port's director general, said that the rise was due to the increasing import and export activities, especially in garments and construction materials.

In March last year, to meet with the increasing demand of shipments, the port began to build a container terminal with a total capacity of 120,000 TEUs per year under a Chinese soft loan of 28.2 million U.S. dollars. The construction of the new terminal will be completed in late 2013.

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- President of Cambodia's National Assembly Heng Samrin on Wednesday highly spoke of good diplomatic relations between Cambodia and Brunei, and urged Brunei to look into Cambodia's potential for trade and investment cooperation.

Heng Samrin made his remarks during a meeting with the newly designated ambassador of Brunei to Cambodia Shaikh Haji Fadilah Bin Shaikh Haji Ahmad.

"Cambodia's National Assembly is very satisfied with good ties between Cambodia and Brunei," he said. "Cambodia thanks Brunei for supporting its candidacy for the non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2013-2014 term."

The two nations are the same members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and they have very good diplomatic ties. However, the relations in trade, investment and tourism are relatively small.

The two-way trade was less than a half of million U.S. dollars in the first six months of this year, according to the commerce report. On the investment side, according to the Council for the Development of Cambodia, there has no any investment project from Brunei to Cambodia since 1994.

For tourism, some 560 Brunei people visited Cambodia in first seven months of this year, up 98 percent compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the new ambassador pledged to strengthen and expand bilateral relations and cooperation with Cambodia in all fields for mutual benefits during his mission.

Cambodia and Brunei forged diplomatic ties on June 9, 1992.

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 34,483 dengue fever cases were reported in Cambodia in the first nine months of this year, a 166 percent increase compared with 12,972 cases in the same period last year, a report of the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control showed Wednesday.

From January to September this year, the disease had killed 146 Cambodian children, up 147 percent compared with 59 deaths during the same period last year. "The disease continues to kill between 3 and 5 children a week," said Dr. Char Meng Chuor, director of the center.

He explained that there were more deaths this year because parents had sent their ill children to private clinics first, and when the treatment was ineffective and the disease became more severe, they would send them to public hospitals, but it was too late for them to be cured.

Dengue fever is a viral disease transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. The disease causes an acute illness of sudden onset that usually follows symptoms such as headache, fever, exhaustion, severe muscle and joint pain, swollen glands, vomiting and rash.

In Cambodia, the outbreak of dengue fever usually begins at the onset of the rainy season in May and lasts until October.

Char Meng Chuor said to prevent the outbreak, the center has distributed some 270 tones of Abate (a chemical substance used to kill larvae in water pots) to households this year.

Last year, the country reported 15,980 dengue fever cases and 73 children were killed.