Economy and industry

Myanmar has jumped into large markets, getting ready to become the No 1 in the world in rice exports, according to Vo Tong Xuan, the leading rice expert. According to Xuan, Myanmar has great advantages in growing rice. Its land area is three times larger than ...

Project was touted as a tool to prevent floods but those claims have been watered down and new threats are eroding confidence – and riverbanks. The floods have wreaked havoc in the east, leaving 237 people dead and another 93 missing. That is on top of ...

By 2030, poverty and hunger should be history, every human being should have access to clean energy, and the impacts of climate change should be reduced. These are just three of the 17 promises the global community made last September when it adopted the Sustainable Development ...

The dream of opening a business back in Myanmar is what brought Moe Moe to Singapore two years ago. What she did not know is that it would be nine months before she received her first salary. For the first nine months everything went to the ...

Instead of speeding up the equitisation process, Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment has stirred up controversy with proposal to set up another unit to supervise and manage state capital and assets in state-owned corporations. This super unit will directly manage the capital at 30 state-owned corporations ...

Cambodia and five other countries that share the Mekong River have agreed to open their borders to more commercial truck and tourist bus traffic as part of a transnational agreement aimed at promoting regional logistics and tourism, a senior transport official said on 19 July. Chem ...

There would be more auctions of shares from oil and gas companies in the second half of 2016 under the directives of the government on equitisation of state-owned firms. On July 15, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung told the first half meeting of the PetroVietnam ...

Foreigners working in Myanmar will soon need work permits, the labour ministry has announced, in a move that has been welcomed by businesses. The Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population will submit a draft law to the attorney general later this month, deputy director general ...

Malaysia and Singapore signed an agreement on 18 July to build an ambitious high-speed rail link touted as a first for Southeast Asia that will knit the historically fractious neighbours more closely together. Authorities have yet to provide cost projections, but analyst estimates have been as high ...

Thailand may buy 9,000 megawatts of electricity from Laos this year to ensure sufficient supply to meet rising demand, says a senior official at the Energy Ministry. That is nearly 30% higher than thethe 7,000MW Thailand currently buys annually from Laos, according to the most ...