Economy and industry

Mekong residents demand transboundary impacts addressed. The first dam built on the Lower Mekong, Xayaburi, has commenced its commercial operation today with a big splash of advertising on almost every newspaper’s wraps in Thailand, convincing the public that it is in harmony with the nature. Its executive, ...

Vietnam’s leading dairy producer TH Group, the first Vietnamese enterprise granted transaction codes to export milk products to China, looked forward to tapping opportunities for Vietnam’s dairy products brought by the upgrading protocol of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA). At a ceremony marking Vietnam’s export of ...

The government will increase the minimum wage for civil servants, teachers, doctors, and armed forces in a move to improve their living conditions next year. Speaking in a cabinet meeting at the Peace Palace on Friday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that wages for both government ...

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Monday said he will lead Thailand to drive digital development in Southeast Asia as a means to strengthen connectivity among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members. Speaking at the “Digital Thailand Big Bang 2019” in Bangkok, Prayut said ...

Universal electricity access is a key pillar of ASEAN’s development goals. The regional bloc has committed to providing every citizen with an electricity supply by the early 2030s. To achieve this end, the region will need to increase its power capabilities by some 60% by ...

Thailand’s Department of Foreign Trade will announce on Monday the details of its suspension of duty-free treatment for some Thai products under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). This follows US suspension on Friday of such preferred treatment for Thai products worth around US$1.3 billion, citing ...

Despite the slowdown in global deal-making due to ongoing worldwide economic uncertainty, Vietnam remains active in M&A in 2020, according to a new report by Baker McKenzie. The firm’s fifth annual Global Transactions Forecast, jointly released with Oxford Economics, projects that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) will ...

In five days, the Xayaburi Hydropower Project on the Mekong River in northern Laos will formally begin operations. As the first dam on the lower Mekong mainstream, this marks a turning point for the Mekong River. The Mekong River is 4,350 kilometers (2,703 miles) long, ranked ...

Some 35 per cent of businesses in Thailand said their most significant cyber breach cost US$1 million or more in damage, a recent report noted. Cybersecurity technology is in high demand following the roll-out of the Cybersecurity Act and Personal Data Protection Act, as well as ...

The National Committee for Counter Trafficking (NCCT) has launched its National Plan of Action 2019-2023 to address new forms of human trafficking, including surrogacy and sex trafficking at nightclubs that have emerged through the permeation of the internet. NCCT secretary of state Chou Bun Eng said ...