Phnom Penh - Cambodia's foreign minister was recovering in hospital after almost collapsing Sunday during an opening ceremony for a new consulate in the United States, a government spokesman said Monday. Hor Namhong was rushed to hospital after he almost fainted while giving a speech at the new Cambodian consulate in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said.

"The doctors in the emergency department said he was suffering from fatigue and was recovering well," Koy Kuong said.

Lowell is home to about 30,000 Cambodians, many of whom fled the South-East Asian country during the 1975-1979 rule of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime and the subsequent two decades of civil war.

Cambodia has an embassy in Washington DC and consulates in Seattle, New York and Los Angeles. (dpa)