Economy and industry

Despite a contraction of 1.9% last year, Thailand’s National Food Institute (NFI) expects food exports this year will grow by 5.8%. The optimism is based largely on rising demand for some food segments in neighbouring emerging markets and government efforts to boost exports. NFI president Yongvut Saovapruk attributed ...

Life has become different, and easier, for people who live high up in Vietnam’s mountains. That is because electricity has come to places in Lai Chau Province where there had not been electricity in the past. Sometimes people there would make electricity from an oil generator but the ...

Vietnam’s biggest dairy company Vinamilk has closed a US$12.5 million deal to export baby formula to Middle Eastern countries, with shipments expected to increase by around 10 percent a year.    The deal, signed at the week-long international food fair Gulfood wrapped up in Dubai on 25 ...

Cambodians were optimistic about the economic and political future of the Kingdom, according to a national survey on citizens’ perceptions released on 24 February by the Asia Foundation, although observers on 25 February questioned whether that optimism remains in light of the government’s recent crackdown on the ...

Southeast Asia is witnessing an explosion of organised crime thanks to increasing economic integration, according to a new United Nations report. The illegal trafficking of people, drugs, counterfeit goods and wildlife is already estimated to exceed US$100 billion a year – more than the GDP of ...

Myanmar hackers say they have attacked Thai government websites since early January and stolen data, part of a long-running, broader campaign against those critical of Myanmar’s government. The Blink Hacker Group said in Facebook posts and in an email interview that its attacks were in retaliation for ...

A feasibility study for a railway linking the Lao capital of Vientiane with Vung Ang seaport in central Ha Tinh province of Vietnam has begun, a senior Lao official has said. The study of the 550km-long rail line is set to take about two years to ...

A feasibility study on a proposal to build a tunnel diverting water from the Mekong River to the drought-stricken Northeast region will be wrapped up by year-end and will determine whether the multi-billion baht project is economically viable, a senior irrigation official says. Somkiat Prajamwong, director of the Project ...

Yangon’s traffic congestion is a major factor in fouling the city’s air, experts say. Speaking at an air quality seminar, Dr Than Htut, a retired head of the Occupational Health Unit, said it was the most important of three major causes of air pollution, the ...

Several new bus routes connecting downtown Hanoi with suburban districts will be put into operation between now and 2020, according to Nguyen Phi Thuong, head of the Hanoi Transportation Service JSC (Transerco). The capital bus network would be extended to a large number of localities including ...