Economy and industry

Electricity-starved Cambodia will not develop new hydropower dams on the Mekong River for the next 10 years, a senior energy official said on Wednesday, as it reviews its policy to seek energy from coal, natural gas and solar. The decision means that neighboring Laos, which has ...

A Ministry of Energy official said Tuesday that Cambodia will not develop new mainstream hydropower projects on the Mekong River for the next 10 years. Villagers and fishing communities along the Mekong River long have been in the dark over whether proposed dams, including the massive ...

A new dam is set to go up in southern Laos, in the district where two years ago a major dam collapse caused a flood that was described as the country’s worst in decades. On July 23, 2018, water poured over a saddle dam in Attapeu ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen said China has financed the construction of more than 3,000 kilometres of roads in the Kingdom. The figure was shared at the inauguration ceremony of National Road No. 55 with a total length of 182.16 kilometres and the groundbreaking for ...

The Laos Ministry of Energy and Mines said the domestic distribution of electricity is likely to rise to 28,886 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) by the end of 2020. The information was shared by a ministry official at a recent annual meeting of the energy and mines sector ...

The building of hydropower projects on the Mekong River’s mainstream must ensure that they do not cause negative impacts, including cross-border effects, on the environment and socio-economic development of the countries along the river, especially the nations in the downstream region, in line with international practice and regulations ...

Rackety trucks rush across China’s border with its backwater neighbor, stirring up clouds of dust and drowning the tweets of tropical birds. Chinese projects to construct roads in one of Asia’s poorest countries date back to 1962 when Laos was subject to a proxy war between the global Cold ...

Consumption of clean water increased to 331 million cubic metres in 2019, as the government aims for its 2025 goal to have 100 percent of households in urban areas connected to potable water. According to current figures from the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft, 4.9 million ...

On February 12, the European Union Commission pulled the plug on Cambodia’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), citing “serious and systematic violations of human-rights principles,” partially withdrawing the country’s preferential access to the EU. The decision resulted in uncertainty for Myanmar’s industries, especially the garment and shoemaking ...

What would Vietnam be without the Mekong Delta? Envisioning such a reality is difficult, but it is entirely possible that this will come to pass, albeit long after anyone reading this in 2020 is dead. The delta is Vietnam’s most vital agricultural region, producing 50% of the ...