Following a trip through Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri provinces to survey the effectiveness of European Union development spending, the ambassador of the EU delegation to Cambodia yesterday bemoaned the pace of communal land titling in the Kingdom.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, ambassador George Edgar noted that indigenous communities’ loss of land to economic and social land concessions “makes it difficult to sustain traditional lifestyles”.

The government must “speed up registration of communal land holdings” to address the issue, he continued. While granting that progress has been made in Mondulkiri province, the ambassador said: “In the country as a whole the process has been quite slow.”

A report by the NGO Forum previously characterised the government’s land titling scheme as seriously flawed.

Relevant officials from the Rural Development Ministry could not be reached.