Economy and industry

The Chinese government has expressed confidence that it will overcome political and financial obstacles to be able to speed up the development of the Eurasian Trans-Asian Railway, the China Economic Weekly reported. According to the report, the railway will offer China great opportunities to tap into ...

Laos aims to sharply boost its hydropower generation to 10,000 megawatts by 2020 and is exploring for shale gas as part of plans to export electricity to its neighbours, its vice minister of energy and mines said on 26 October. Laos is among Asia’s poorest countries ...

Long beset by low-paying jobs and a lack of skilled labour, Cambodia launched its first national policy for employment last week in an attempt to provide better employment opportunities for its people. The 13-page document, which took five years to draft, aims to improve the productivity ...

A rice-milling company has admitted to letting pieces of plastic from its machinery make their way into bags of rice after residents and authorities in Banteay Meanchey’s Poipet town raised fears of “plastic rice” upon finding their rice abnormally sticky since the Pchum Ben holiday. Keep ...

Preah Sihanouk provincial authorities have told residents around the Kbal Chhay waterfalls to leave the area or risk being ejected, amid concern over pollution of the popular tourist attraction. Keep reading ...

The international hacking collective called Anonymous declared cyberwar on the Thai government on 22 October, leaking documents on the single gateway plan and stealing data from CAT Telecom customer accounts. Keep reading ...

With a fast-growing mobile market of more than 136 million subscribers, Vietnam is now at the dawn of a new technology upgrade. But how fast should the country switch to hi-speed services remains a question.    At a conference in Hanoi on 21 October, Tran Tuan Anh, an ...

With nearly half of their exports going to the 11 other countries that are set to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Vietnam, seafood businesses have become the latest supporters of the controversial and secretive free trade agreement. Keep reading ...

Northern Laos is emerging as an important source of fresh bananas for the Chinese market, with several different investors from China itself understood to be establishing plantations covering thousands of hectares across several different regions. The investors have been drawn to the region by good availability ...

A Myanmar domestic worker in Singapore fell 18 storeys from a condominium and died on 19 October, according to police reports. The incident has once again cast a spotlight on Singapore’s maid industry, which continues to thrive despite bans and restrictions. Keep reading ...