Figures released on July 10 by the General Department of Customs and Excise (GDCE) confirm a trend that has held steady since January: Cambodia exported US$17.09 billion worth of goods between January and June 2026, up 19.5 percent from US$14.29 billion over the same period in 2025. This momentum extends a pattern seen month after month since the start of the year, with export growth never dipping below 17 percent.

After a surprisingly resilient 2025, Cambodia is heading into 2026 with growth slowing sharply. Surging oil prices, the prolonged closure of the Thai border, and rising bad loans in the banking sector are combining to paint a more mixed macroeconomic picture, according to the latest Annual Consultation Report from the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), published in July.

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has revised its 2026 growth forecast to 3.9 percent, a figure that stands in sharp contrast to the more cautious 3.0 percent published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier this month. The gap between the two institutions reflects the uncertainty weighing on an economy caught between external shocks — energy prices, trade tensions — and domestic fragilities, from the border dispute with Thailand to the crackdown on online scam ne

Bernard arrived in Cambodia eight years ago. He never left. Neither did his belly. Bernard orders his Anchor at 4pm sharp, knows every bartender's name going back to 2018, and for the past six months, he's even found love. Well, a version of love. And you hear him before you see him.

Somewhere on the dripping slopes of Mount Samkos, in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains, a flower pushes up through the leaf litter with no stem to announce it. It has no leaves, no visible roots, no chlorophyll. It lives for only a few days, grows nowhere else on Earth, and for more than sixty years the scientific world believed it had vanished. This is the story of Sapria poilanei, one of Cambodia's rarest and least-known plants.

From 4 August 2026, artist Anya Minko will take up a two-week residency at Art for Kep, turning her attention from the rivers and forests she has painted for years to the salt air, tides and fishing villages of Cambodia's south coast.

This text, originally published on social media, is signed by Raoul M. Jennar, an observer of Cambodia since 1989. A recognized specialist on Southeast Asia and particularly on Cambodian-Thai relations, the author offers here a critical and engaged analysis of the ongoing border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.

Sabine preaches happy simplicity to 47,000 followers from her lovely condo with shared pool. She has a cleaning lady and only ever travels by air-conditioned taxi. She calls it "living with less."

In the forests of Ratanakiri, an age-old gesture repeats itself, generation after generation: notching the trunk of a canopy giant to collect its fragrant sap. Caught between village subsistence, customary knowledge and mounting pressure from land concessions, the resin of Dipterocarpus — long known locally by its older spelling, Dichterocarpus — tells the story of an increasingly fragile balance between the mountain peoples and the forest that feeds them.

Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor's celebrated restaurant 1932 has unveiled four new Khmer tasting menus, crafted by Executive Sous Chef Dorn Doeurt and Executive Chef Memo Hernandez. Spanning royal history, 1960s glamour and a Latin American-Khmer fusion, the new menus build on the property's Khmer tasting menu programme first launched in 2023.

Off the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, a teardrop-shaped island holds centuries of rivalry, colonial line-drawing, and quiet diplomacy. Today a Vietnamese tourist paradise, Phú Quốc still carries, beneath its white-sand beaches, the layered history of a territory once claimed by two nations.

Come evening, wicker baskets and steaming pots show up on nearly every street corner in Phnom Penh. Inside: duck eggs that aren't quite what they seem. Pong tia koon tends to catch visitors off guard — but for most Cambodians, it's just a good evening snack, nothing more dramatic than that.

From TikTok fit-checks to the runways of Rosewood Phnom Penh, a new generation of Cambodians is rewriting what it means to dress Khmer. Between streetwear, sustainability and a fierce attachment to heritage, young Cambodians are turning fashion into a language of identity — and the country's creative scene is finally catching up.

Gilbert has never received a single invitation card in ten years. Yet he attends every diplomatic reception in Phnom Penh, without exception, with the reliability of a conscientious civil servant — except nobody ever hired him for the job. Nobody quite knows how he gets in. He himself never tells it the same way twice.

The museum devoted to Cambodia's economic and monetary history confirms its status as one of Phnom Penh's must-see attractions, buoyed by fast-growing visitor numbers and a programme that shows no sign of slowing down.

July 1942: a professor of Pali is arrested, without even his religious superiors being warned. He doesn't know it yet, but he has just set off the first major anti-colonial demonstration in modern Cambodian history. Dead in detention a year later, Achar Hem Chieu would go on to become a reference that generations of Cambodians would keep invoking — sometimes for causes that sit uneasily together.

Behind the great classics of Khmer sweets — num ansom, num kom, kralan — hides a quieter dessert whose story reaches back to a Chinese imperial envoy sent to observe the Khmer Empire at its height. Ta guan, a pudding of yellow mung beans served in a clear tapioca syrup, appears in no tourist guide. It passes on quietly, kitchen to kitchen.

From Kyoto to Boeung Keng Kang, ceremonial Japanese green tea powder has taken over Phnom Penh's trendiest cafés in just a few seasons.

A year after the armed escalation of July 24, 2025, December's ceasefire silenced the guns but not the grievances. With border crossings still shut, talks stalled on procedure, and nearly 900,000 migrant workers forced home, Cambodia is absorbing the economic and social cost of a century-old territorial dispute — while neither capital shows signs of yielding first.

July 24 marked a sombre anniversary for Cambodia: exactly one year since armed clashes broke out with Thailand along the shared border. To mark the date, Angelina Jolie chose to speak publicly, reminding the world that the humanitarian fallout from the conflict is far from over for tens of thousands of families.

L'Ambassadeur de France, M. Olivier Richard, a assisté aux côtés de S.E. Mao Havannall, ministre en charge du Secrétariat d'État à l'Aviation civile, à la signature d'un protocole d'accord entre VINCI Airports et WorldBridge, visant à créer un hub logistique à l'aéroport international de Sihanoukville.

Since July 24, a new US tariff regime has governed trade with 60 economies, from Brazil to Vietnam to the European Union. For Cambodia, the verdict is almost unexpectedly good: Phnom Penh avoids the heaviest rate and finds itself, for once, better treated than its main regional textile rivals. But the tariff relief does not dissolve a far older structural problem — the kingdom's near-total dependence on Chinese fabric.

CEO of Primalis Corporation and Vice Chairwoman of the Cambodia Rice Federation, Lynda Him discusses the role of women in Cambodia's agricultural sector, building the "Brand Cambodia" story, creating added value through exports, leadership in a competitive global industry, and her message to the next generation of Cambodian women leaders. Interview originally published in Cambodia Leadership Review — Khmer Women Voices 2026.

Brandon booked his flight on a Thursday night, somewhere between his second glass of white wine and a documentary about street children in Phnom Penh. By Friday morning he'd already ordered the polo shirt. Eight days later he comes home changed for life — just not quite the way he thinks.