Economy and industry

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Rakhine since the start of the year, joining perilous journeys on the boats of human traffickers through the Bay of Bengal. But local officials say no one has been arrested for trafficking in the Myanmar state that supplies the ...

Thai police continue to investigate trafficking in south Thailand, following the discovery of scores of jungle graves on the Thai-Malaysia border in May. Yet there are questions about the long-term effectiveness of Thailand’s crackdown on resilient and lucrative trafficking syndicates.Witnesses have been intimidated, police say. Key suspects are ...

Listed Chinese companies have rushed to halt trading in their shares today as the rout on the Shanghai and Shenzen exchanges continues. The South China Morning Post reports that 51 per cent of mainland Chinese stocks, representing some US$2.2 trillion in market capitalisation, have asked for voluntary ...

Vietnam is celebrating the 55th anniversary of its tourist industry amid a mountain of challenges, highlighted by falling international tourist numbers. Fifty-five years after the tourist industry was founded in 1960, the industry has obtained many achievements, but “new challenges and difficulties have also arisen,” Vietnam ...

An ILO project that provides free lunch at garment factories is proving to be a hit with workers, but whether or not this 50-cent per worker “experiment” catches on will depend on factory owners and the brands they supply. Last July, eight garment factories in Phnom ...

On July 4, the leaders of Japan and the five countries in the Mekong subregion – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam – convened for the Seventh Mekong-Japan Summit in Tokyo. True to form, much of the media focus was on the dollar amount that Japan ...

China’s plan to cut carbon emissions commits Beijing to a surge in construction of ecologically destructive hydropower dams that heralds the end of free-flowing rivers in the country, experts say. Beijing last week formally submitted its 2030 goals for generating energy from non-fossil fuels, garnering international praise as nations ...

Vietnam looks to raise its minimum monthly salary by just above 10 percent next year, the lowest level since 2013, a move that apparently bows to the growing pressure of the corporate sector.   Under a government decree that took effect early this year, Vietnam raised the ...

Vietnam’s leadership have signed off on visa waivers for five more European countries — France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the UK — and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has continued to press ahead with further visa exemptions.   In a directive dated July 2, Dung asked that ...

Thailand’s Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has invited Japanese small and medium sized enterprises to invest more in the Mekong Subregion- by taking advantage of its logistic transport links, with the expectation that the region will be able to take a step forward together. Prayut spoke ...