DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Car sales sharply rise in Cambodia in 2012 due to strong economic growth” plus 3 more

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Demand for brand new cars in Cambodia has remarkably increased in 2012 thanks to robust economic growth, enhanced social security and political stability, major automobile dealers said Monday. "We sold about 800 units this year, up from 500 units last year, "Kong Nuon, president of Toyota Cambodia, the exclusive dealer of Japanese brand Toyota, told Xinhua in an interview.

According to Kong Nuon, the country's new car demands are around 2,000 units a year. Currently, more than a dozen of companies in Cambodia have imported brand new cars.

Those autos are imported mostly from Japan, South Korea, China, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, he said. "We set the target to sell about 1,000 units in 2013," he said.

China-made Great Wall brand automobiles also saw good sales this year, said Kan Pisey, general manger of Worldwide Garage, the exclusive importer of the cars from Beijing. "We have seen a steady increase in sales since our presence here in January 2010," he told Xinhua."We are new, but due to our promotion and our auto's good quality, many consumers have switched to use our cars."

Pisey declined to disclose the number of cars the company has sold out this year, citing business confidentiality. "We can say that Cambodia's car market has ample room for growth, "he said. "We are negotiating with the Beijing-based Great Wall Automobile Manufacturer in order to build an auto assembly plant here."

An exclusive dealer of the U.S.'Ford brand vehicle in Cambodia said that the firm saw 15 percent rise in sales in 2012. "In fact, demand was really larger than the supply this year. If we had enough cars for customers, the growth would be up by 50 percent, not by 15 percent, but we didn't have because our manufacturers suffered spare parts shortages resulted from the impacts of a devastated earthquake in Japan and massive flooding in Thailand last year,"said Ngorn Saing, deputy general manager of RM Asia.

He attributed the high demands to good economic performance, increased foreign investors, more newly-opened companies and better living conditions of Cambodian people. "Nowadays, more Cambodian people have begun to invest their money in luxurious and modern things thanks to their improved living conditions,"he said.

Besides brand new cars, the country's demands for the used cars are about 20,000 units per year.

The impoverished Southeast Asian nation has a population of 14. 5 million. The country's per capita GDP was 911 U.S. dollars in 2011, up 10 percent from 830 U.S. dollars in 2010, according to the government figures.

The country's economy is expected to grow by 7 percent to 15.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2012.

COLOMBO, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Police in Sri Lanka arrested 100 Chinese nationals who were involved in telephone fraud in China following a complaint lodged by the Chinese police, a police spokesman said Saturday.

Police Spokesman Priyashantha Jayakody told Xinhua that the arrests were made with the assistance of officials from the Chinese police in the country. "The Chinese police sought our help to arrest these people. We got a court order on Friday and arrested them after we identified where they were staying. They were arrested for crimes committed in China and not in Sri Lanka,"the police spokesman said.

He added that the Chinese nationals were arrested in the capital and its immediate suburbs after obtaining the court order.

In May this year, the police arrested 17 Chinese nationals in Rajagiriya, a suburb of Colombo, over similar charges and they were then deported back to China.

Those arrested were connected to a network of people from different countries who had been involved in telephone fraud.

The 17 arrested were part of over 400 Chinese arrested from several countries over a transnational telephone fraud.

Telephone fraud has become a major social security problem in the Chinese mainland. Suspects often use overseas servers to make phone calls from overseas, making it more difficult for mainland police to trace them.

Chinese police said that the swindlers frequently change their crime methods and shift their fraud dens to avoid the police, and the fraud shelters have been spreading to countries in South Asia and Oceania rather than traditional destinations such as Chinese mainland, China's Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia.

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Around 200 diabetes specialists from across Cambodia gathered here Saturday to discuss ways to treat and educate diabetes patients to live longer.

Speaking at the 1st annual conference of the Cambodian Diabetes Specialists Association, Dr. Koy Vanny, the association's president and specialist of diabetes and endocrine disorders, said that diabetes is one of Cambodia's silent killers and the majority of patients go undiagnosed.

A prevalence survey carried out in 2010 showed that as many as 2.3 percent of rural Cambodians and 6 percent of urban people, aged between 25 and 60, had diabetes,

Vanny said most people with the disease live for only a short time of less than 10 years after contracting the condition.

It was estimated that there are approximately 354,000 people living with type 2 diabetes in Cambodia. This number is expected to rise above 1 million by the year 2030.

He said that diabetes causes vary depending on genetic makeup, family history, health and environmental factors.

In Cambodia, diabetes is a devastating disease. Expensive clinical care is accessible only to the urban rich, while the poor remain untreated and die. "Exercise and diet of high calorie foods will reduce up to 50 percent of chance to contract diabetes," he said.