People and government
IACD boosts education and cultural exchange project
The Institute of Asian Culture and Development and the Ministry of Education and Sports will work together to improve education and cultural exchange in Laos after reaching a grant project agreement. The agreement was signed on 19 July in Vientiane by IACD Country Director Dr Hosik ...
The business of achieving the sustainable development goals
By 2030, poverty and hunger should be history, every human being should have access to clean energy, and the impacts of climate change should be reduced. These are just three of the 17 promises the global community made last September when it adopted the Sustainable Development ...
Maid in Singapore
The dream of opening a business back in Myanmar is what brought Moe Moe to Singapore two years ago. What she did not know is that it would be nine months before she received her first salary. For the first nine months everything went to the ...
Concerns raised over a new super state agency
Instead of speeding up the equitisation process, Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment has stirred up controversy with proposal to set up another unit to supervise and manage state capital and assets in state-owned corporations. This super unit will directly manage the capital at 30 state-owned corporations ...
Students migrate, leaving school at the border
Before she dropped out of school in April, following her cousin to a factory in Thailand where a week of making mattresses pays $48, Dong Sreyda was ranked third in her ninth grade class in Banteay Meanchey province. Pring Morkoath, deputy director of the Ministry of ...
Thai transport quotas to rise
Cambodia and five other countries that share the Mekong River have agreed to open their borders to more commercial truck and tourist bus traffic as part of a transnational agreement aimed at promoting regional logistics and tourism, a senior transport official said on 19 July. Chem ...
NEDA and JICA sign MOU on Mekong sub-region development cooperation
The Neighbouring Countries Economic Development Cooperation Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency have recently signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the development of the Mekong sub-region and promote social and economic advancement in the region and foster connectivity along the Mekong economic corridor. ...
Draft law on work permits for foreigners heads to attorney general
Foreigners working in Myanmar will soon need work permits, the labour ministry has announced, in a move that has been welcomed by businesses. The Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population will submit a draft law to the attorney general later this month, deputy director general ...
ASEAN and the logic of collective action
The ten member states of ASEAN aspire to “One Vision, One Identity, One Community.” Their foreign ministers meeting in Laos this July demonstrated again how far the distance is between goal and reality. Like the European Union, the regional organization of Southeast Asia is pulled ...
China woos Myanmar, tries to massage its public image
According to the State Council Information Office of the Chinese foreign ministry, Beijing has invited more than 100 journalists, government officials and members of parliament to visit the country, as well as 100 students to study in China. In what seems likely to be a concerted and ...
