Economy and industry

Over the past 20 years, Niwat Roykaew, a teacher, activist and founder of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group in Chiang Rai province has been campaigning to bolster the grassroots movement he initiated to protect the Mekong River, a crucial lifeline for countries in the Mekong ...

The Mekong Delta’s famed floating markets, where local speciality produce is sold on boats, provide a unique scene that draws both local and foreign visitors. In addition, the markets illustrate the southerners’ custom of trading and travelling on the river. Nham Hung, a cultural researcher, said floating ...

In a position statement, the ETI points to a Commission of Inquiry into the decline of workers’ rights in Myanmar established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in March, noting such a move is the ILO’s highest-level investigative procedure which is generally set up when a member state ...

Milton Osborne mischaracterises the Mekong River Commission when writing last month in The Interpreter that the regional organisation “ignores reality”. To say we were “celebrating” the health of the river at our Mekong Day event on 5 April overlooks the fact that on that day I continued ...

As foreign funders drive the construction of major new infrastructure projects in Cambodia, an inconsistent regulatory approach may be opening lanes for shoddy construction. Last month, an inspection by the Ministry of Public Works found irregularities in the builds of National Roads 2 and 22,  which ...

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported this week that officials in Laos will soon take an important step forward on a new hydropower project, the seventh large-scale dam project to be undertaken on the mainstream of the Mekong River. The report cited an unnamed government official as saying that ...

Lao officials will soon submit plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant to the Mekong River Commission for review, but villagers whose livelihoods would be hurt by the construction worry they will be left out of the process. Thailand’s Charoen Energy and Water Asia ...

Lower Mekong River water levels have increased by 20-30 percent compared to the same period of previous years as China releases dam water. According to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the Mekong Delta region, where the Mekong River reaches the sea, has received a volume ...

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Việt Nam Nguyễn Phú Trọng has called for joint efforts to drive the growth of Mekong Delta and augment the prosperity and development of the ‘land of the nine dragons’ river.’ He made the remark while chairing the Politburo’s ...

A fleet of unmanned surface vessels numbering in the hundreds could be a key tool in helping Southeast Asia countries adapt and prepare for an increase in the frequency of severe weather. Oceanographer Ruth Patterson of Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia, believes unmanned surface vessels ...