PPM Turns 30, Confirel Turns 25: The Double Anniversary of a Cambodian Venture

Phnom Penh, 12 September 2026. On the same evening as the Kinal and Thnot d’Or awards ceremony, the PPM-Confirel Group gathered nearly three hundred guests at its Chom Chao headquarters to celebrate a double anniversary: the 30th year of PPM (Pharma Product Manufacturing), a pharmaceutical laboratory founded in 1996, and the 25th year of Confirel, an agri-food company founded in 2001. Two sister companies, born five years apart and both built by the same man — Dr Hay Ly Eang.

This edition had a distinctive flavour: alongside Cambodian teams, partners and dignitaries, the ceremony brought together a delegation of some twenty executives, distributors and commercial partners from six French-speaking African countries — Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal — accompanied by the Group’s Africa Export Director, Ms Coumba Diallo. Having arrived in Phnom Penh on 8 and 10 September, these representatives extended their stay until mid-September to visit the Chom Chao production site and meet the local teams.

Their presence is far from incidental: PPM today exports more than half of its production to some fifteen countries, with particularly strong demand in Senegal and Mali; Confirel, for its part, is expanding the distribution of its health and wellness products there, such as the KEM probiotics.

Among the dignitaries in attendance were H.E. Mey Kalyan, Senior Advisor to the Supreme National Economic Council (SNEC), Neak Oknha Hun Lak, Vice-President of the Cambodian Oknha Association, Mr Ang Vong Vathana and his wife, Mr Nao Thuok, Mr Hok Sothik of Sipar and his wife, Mr Bun Youdy, co-founder of BUN & Associates, and Mr Chhay Mony, President of KOFI Co., Ltd.

Tribute to the Group’s Longest-Serving Staff

The ceremony was also an opportunity to pay heartfelt tribute to the Group’s longest-serving employees, several of whom have been alongside Dr Hay Ly Eang since PPM was founded in 1996 — nearly thirty years of loyalty. Eleven historic figures of the company were called to the stage to receive a special distinction: Ms Sakett Elitda, Mr Tr Yorn, Mr Hay Pisey, Ms Coumba Diallo, Dr Tout Sokhom, Ms Ung Thavy, Ms Chhim Voleakphea, Mr Hak Tel, Ms Lay Leapsin, Mr Line Senghoeung and Mr Phork Visal. Each of them, in their own way, embodies the living memory of the Group: the women and men who, day after day, in the laboratories, in production, in logistics, in packaging or in export, helped PPM and Confirel grow alongside their founder. “Without them, nothing that we are celebrating tonight would have been possible,” said Dr Hay Ly Eang as he presented them with their tokens of recognition.

The Launch of Hope of a Spring

A highlight of the evening: the ceremony was also marked by the official launch of Dr Hay Ly Eang’s new book, Hope of a Spring. This volume follows Beyond the Cambodian Storms, published in 2015, in which Dr Hay retraced his personal and professional journey — from his childhood in Cambodia to his years in exile, and on to the founding of PPM and Confirel. With this second volume, Dr Hay Ly Eang continues his narrative and offers, in the form of a meditation shaped by experience, his vision for Cambodia’s future: a country he wishes to see fully reclaim its economic, health and food independence by drawing on its youth, its land and its know-how.