Economy and industry

Laos has started building a railway station in Vientiane to service rail links with China slated to being operating next year. Laos and China hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the project in the Lao capital on Friday, the Vientiane Times reported. The station is a main hub for the ...

Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have urged Laos to better assess transboundary impacts, and strengthen proposed measures to reduce any negative effect as it moves ahead with the construction of a dam. At a special joint committee session of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) earlier this week, ...

Thailand’s economy is expected to be impacted severely by the COVID-19 pandemic, shrinking by at least 5 percent in 2020 and taking more than two years to return to pre-COVID-19 GDP output levels, according to the World Bank’s latest Thailand Economic Monitor, released today. The COVID-19 pandemic ...

Innovative Thai start-ups are pushing technology to add value in agriculture and raise incomes Saraburi, a verdant central Thai province north of the capital, Bangkok, is known for spectacles like fields of sunflowers spreading beneath hills, and dragon fruit piled high like rubies at roadside stalls. ...

The Myanmar government has signed two power purchase agreements (PPA) to buy electricity from two liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants totalling 580 megawatts. The project company of CNTIC VPower Group inked two five-year PPAs with the Ministry of Electricity and Energy’s Electric Power Generation Enterprise (EPGE) ...

Neighboring countries have called on Laos to consider the cross-border environmental impacts of a hydropower plant it plans to build on the Mekong River. Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand expressed concern after the Mekong River Commission (MRC) completed a six-month consultation process for the Luang Prabang Dam project ...

Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam requested Lao PDR to conduct rigorous transboundary impact assessments and enhance proposed measures to mitigate potential adverse impacts from the 1,460-megawatt Luang Prabang hydropower project, as the Mekong River Commission concluded a six-month prior consultation process for the project. At a ...

Vietnam has given the green light to almost a hundred new wind energy installations, indicating the nation keeps powering ahead with renewables amid fears of looming power shortages as industry and population boom. The Vietnamese government on Thursday (25 June) formally approved 7 gigawatts (GW) worth of ...

Laos is pushing ahead with a hydropower project on the Mekong River, despite reservations aired by neighbouring countries over its potential to harm fisheries and farming downstream, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) said on Wednesday. The 1,400-megawatt (MW) Luang Prabang project will be Laos’s third and ...

Venue closure, curfew and state policies enforced to contain the spread of Covid-19 are affecting the labour force severely. Workers experience the impact in different magnitudes, with some getting less pay and seeing their working hours reduced. Others manage to work from home. Some lose ...