Economy and industry

ildlife trafficking, like drug and human trafficking, is often a trans-boundary crime. Animal parts and products, non-timber forest products, and living creatures heading to the pet trade find their way across borders every day, passing fluidly between jurisdictions and human societies. Given legal and language barriers, ...

To Tibetans, it’s known as Dza Chu, or the River of Rocks, and to the Chinese it’s the Lancang Jiang, the Turbulent River. The Lao refer to it as the Mother of Waters, in Cambodia it’s the Great Water and by the time it reaches ...

Before being officially declared extinct by scientists late last month, the Chinese paddlefish, a native to the Yangtze River system, had been listed along with the Mekong giant catfish as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The extinction of the paddlefish, one ...

The Don Sahong hydropower dam in Laos has begun operations and this week connected its power grid to Cambodia, a Cambodian official said on Wednesday as the country steps up electricity imports after continued power outages last year. Don Sahong, which was designed for an installed ...

Rapid technological development has given people more ways to access and share information on the internet. It has also created conditions for more sophisticated cyber-attacks. Like other countries, Vietnam has a cybersecurity law to safeguard information and protect national security. According to a recent press release, the country ...

Vietnam’s electricity firm EVN has signed five new deals to buy electricity from Laos starting from next year, the state-run company said. The southeast Asian nation faces severe power shortages from 2021, as demand outpaces construction of new plants, with demand expected to exceed supply by ...

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has unveiled a database on Vietnamese land and people, which is set to serve research and studies. The database at  was built for two years as a joint effort of the ministry’s Library Department, public and private libraries, publishing houses, relevant agencies, and leading ...

Some environmental disasters present themselves over years; others come with a bang — or a splash. The latter happened one day in August, when residents of Binh My, a commune in Vietnam’s lush Mekong Delta, heard a loud cracking sound. They went outside to watch ...

Laos and Vietnam are preparing to upgrade two more local crossing points to official border crossings to facilitate international visits between them. The facilities to be upgraded are the Pa Hang-Long Sap crossing point between Laos’ Huaphan province and Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province, and the Dak ...

Past policies that have enabled Laos to meet the UN’s least developed country (LDC) graduation thresholds are no longer adequate to ensure sustainable development. The focus of future policies should be on fostering greater productive capacity, increased economic diversification and enabling a stronger business environment. The ...