AEC Feed

The State Inspection Authority (SIA) of Laos has reported its results from last year.
Officials from the agriculture sector in Saravan province were involved in document forgery, defrauding the state of 11.3 billion kip (Bt8.3 million), while officials from the province’s Department of Labour and Social Welfare embezzled more than 200 million kip.
Around 5.8 billion kip was embezzled by taxation and customs officials in Savannakhet province, and officials at the Ministry of Finance’s Taxation Department were found to have embezzled 6.9 billion kip last year.
At the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, it was found that about 20 billion kip had been misappropriated.
In his reading of a report at the annual inspection meeting which opened yesterday, SIA vice president Sinay Mienglavanh said officials had engaged in corrupt activities such as bribery, abuse of power, sub-standard or fraudulent construction methods and document forgery, and the defrauding of state and cooperative assets. - Vientiane Times 

Cambodia attracts five million foreign tourists last year

Cambodia welcomed more than five million foreign visitors in 2016
Cambodia’s foreign tourist arrival slightly increased, said Minister of Tourism Thong Khon.
Minister of Tourism Thong Khon projected that the total number of foreign arrivals to Cambodia in 2016 would see an increase between 5 to 6 percent compared to a year earlier.
“We hoped that Cambodia received over five million foreign visitors in 2016”, he underlined.
This year, if there are more direct flights from different destinations, we expect an increase between 7 to 8 per cent compared to 2016, he added.
The main foreign visitors were Vietnamese, Chinese, South Koreans, Japanese, Europeans and residents of Asean nations.
Cambodia is committed to attracting some seven million foreign arrivals by 2020, with two million of that figure coming from China, the minister said.
In 2015, about 4.5 million international tourists visited Cambodia. - Rasmei Kampuchea Daily