Pchum Ben: the PPM-Confirel Group at prayer in Chongruk pagoda

On the first day of Pchum Ben, Saturday 26 September 2026, Dr Hay Ly Eang, Chairman and CEO of the PPM-Confirel Group, visited Chongruk pagoda in Kampong Speu province. He was accompanied by his wife, Lok Chumteav Chan Zana, their children, family friends and several senior executives from both companies. Together with the pagoda's nuns, achars and worshippers, more than seventy people attended the monks' prayers and presented them with the traditional food offerings.

The second most important festival in the Khmer calendar after New Year, Pchum Ben lasts fifteen days at the end of the Buddhist Lent and culminates on the fifteenth day of the tenth lunar month. Its name combines “pchum”, meaning “to gather”, and “ben”, the rice balls offered to the dead.According to Khmer Buddhist tradition, the souls of the dead, especially those that have not found peace, return during this period to wander among the living. For the first fourteen days, known as “Kan Ben”, families go to the pagoda at dawn to offer dishes to the monks and to throw balls of sticky rice, sometimes mixed with beans, called “bay ben”, across the temple grounds to feed hungry spirits. Through these offerings, the living transfer their merit to the deceased to ease their suffering.