Six Southeast Asian countries, led by Laos, have much higher external debt levels than the developing world average, sparking concern that the region may be heading for a debt crisis. Keep reading   ...

Residents of Kampot province continued to feel the devastating effects of widespread flooding in the area caused by the opening of the Kamchay Hydropower Dam, which has left thousands temporarily homeless and crippled local businesses. Keo Vy, spokesman of the National Committee for Disaster Management, said ...

A dozen ethnic Montagnards who sought refugee status in Cambodia willingly returned to their home country of Vietnam Thursday after Hanoi gave assurances it would not punish or discriminate against them, according to rights group and United Nations officials. The 12 were part of a group ...

Justic Minister Somsak Thepsuthin and Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) today (December 27) to remove Kratom leaves from Thailand’s list of narcotics.It aimed to study the impact of using marijuana and kratom leaves for other purposes, instead of ...

For Seng Voleak, a 23-year-old bank employee in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, her commute home has become easier thanks to buses donated by China. []Meanwhile, a raft of projects within the LMC framework are well under way, such as the Kunming-Bangkok Road, China-Laos Railway, China-Thailand Railway, Long ...

Government agencies and private companies are pushing forward the development of CoolMode clothes, which can help reduce 3.6 billion tons of carbon-dioxide emission each year. The Executive Director of Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization (TGO), Prasertsuk Chamornmarn, said the TGO is working with Thailand Textile ...

Myanmar’s agreement to receive a delegation from the United Nations Security Council is a positive step towards improving relations with the international community, which has been highly critical of the Southeast Asian nation for months over its handling of the Rohingya crisis, former politicians and ...

The 3.6 hectares in southern Vietnam that double as rice paddy and shrimp pond for farmer Nguyen Thi Tam have become a wasteland. After the worst drought in 90 years, almost nothing grows. It’s not that easy to switch, said Nguyen Trung Kien, vice chairman of ...

Ten people were jailed in Vietnam Monday for joining explosive protests that swept across the communist country last month after a draft investment law triggered widespread anger. The rare rallies in the one-party state – where even peaceful demonstrations are outlawed – drew thousands to the ...

Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed to US$3.8 billion in the first 11 months of this year, from the $4.1 billion recorded for the first 10 months. According to the General Statistics Office, the reduction was thanks to an $18.8 billion trade surplus achieved by foreign direct investment ...

Banned sugar re-exporters must balance their inventories by month-end, according to a letter from the Directorate of Trade, one sugar trader told The Myanmar Times. The order comes amid an oversupply of sugar in Myanmar and collapse in the price of sugar bound for China, from ...

Ethnic political leaders are concerned over their marginal collective role in Myanmar’s next Parliament, with the majority of ethnic parties enjoying few gains in 8 November’s general election. “It’s like we have been hit by a tsunami,” said Sai Aung Myint Khaing, a central committee member of ...

The government and the China’s Yunan province are finalising an agreement for Myanmar to export cattle to meet rising demand in the Chinese market. China’s beef consumption has steadily increased to 8.4 million tonnes annually, according to Beijing. China is expected to allow 14 beef-exporting ...

Southeast Asia’s construction sector is looking at wide variations of growth in 2019, according to the latest International Construction Costs Report from Arcadis. The report found that the construction industries in the Philippines and Vietnam ranked third and fifth worldwide, respectively, for forecast annual real ...

Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (TEOW) is a biogeographic regionalization of the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity. Our biogeographic units are ecoregions, which are defined as relatively large units of land or water containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities sharing a large majority of species, dynamics, ...

Business leaders have welcomed the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) thumping victory in the 8 November election, saying the opposition is well poised to drive economic growth when it forms the next government in March. Industry insiders say that the change of government is certain to lead ...

The astonishingly high rate of anemia among adult women in Cambodia has for years been a major health concern, but the main cause of the problem—long believed to be iron deficiency—is still a mystery, according to a study released last week. Frank Wieringa, the study’s author, ...

Commerce Minister Sonthirat Sonthijirawong visited Chiang Rai province to inspect the development of Chiang Khong Border Area Special Economic Zone.  []The area is planned to be developed into a joint Special Economic Zone between Thailand, China, Laos, and Myanmar, as it is home to the 4th ...

Upper- and middle income people need to come out and vote if they want to stop parties pitching populist policies to the poor from regaining office, says Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. They should decide what they want at the polls or someone else would do that for ...

The Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) has vowed to push ahead with a regulatory system for digital certificate issuers and digital identification service as key missions next year.Digital certificate issuers, known as Certification Authority (CA), act as a third party to help confirm authenticity of ...