The popularity and consumption of E5 bio-fuel remained below the government’s expectations due to inadequate support with regard to lowering its prices and ensuring supply. Nguyễn Phú Cường, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Science and Technology Department, recently said that Ron A92 would ...

CHINA plans to further invest in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) and the country’s agricultural technology as part of its effort to support the Thailand 4.0 policy while furthering its own one Belt, one Road (OBOR) initiative. China is committed to facilitating a strong partnership ...

A prominent environmentalist has warned that hydropower-reliant countries will face significant negative impacts in the long-term and could see a repeat of the tragic bursting of the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam in Laos last July that killed dozens. Ian Baird, a professor at the University ...

Vietnam’s handicrafts face many challenges in producing and finding export markets, while integrating into the world economy although it has the potential for economic development. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agricultural Trade Promotion Centre, there are nearly 1,750 traditional craft ...

With Myanmar’s deadly jade industry increasingly under international scrutiny after hundreds of scavengers were buried in landslides, the Amyotha Hluttaw is taking the infamously unregulated extractive industries sector to task. The illegal plundering of natural resources will be put to an end, according to National League for ...

In the aftermath of the deadly flooding that devastated Rakhine State, one third of paddy acreage in the northern part of the state is littered with fallen trees and branches, dead animals and the detritus of wrecked houses. Deep deposits of mud dumped by the ...

The sea water along the busy central Pattaya beaches in Thailand is of poor quality and could endanger human and marine life, Regional Environmental Office has said. According to Thanapong Rattanawutthinun, of the Chon Buri provincial office of Natural Resources and Environment who also attended ...

The manager of a highway project linking Hanoi with Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, has estimated the cost for the 707-kilometer route at US$4.52 billion.    In its latest plan submitted to the transport ministry, the project’s manager Unit 85 said the six-lane highway will go through ...

As soon as 25-year-old Jin Xiang landed a job at a Chinese steel factory in Thailand’s eastern Chonburi Province, he knew he would be part of the growing factor in propelling the Belt and Road Initiative and Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). The Chinese young ...

Gender in the workplace remains a hot issue in Thailand, not least because the number of senior managerial positions are growing at a snail’s pace. Female workers quickly hit the proverbial glass ceiling which limits opportunities for women to be promoted to higher position and ...

Last week, the United States and Vietnam jointly launched the most recent iteration of what has become an annual disaster response exercise and exchange for the mainland Southeast Asian states along the Mekong River, one of the world’s largest, longest, and most resource-rich rivers. The ...

Efforts are being scaled up to stem a further spread of drug-resistant malaria in Southeast Asia. “The emergence of resistance threatens worldwide malaria control and treatment since there is no alternative to this drug if its efficacy decreases further and the resistance spreads outside the ...

Kachin activists are promising a fierce fight over the future of the suspended Myitsone dam project, with one prominent spokesperson threatening a fight “to the death” if the incoming government allowed the project to go ahead. President U Thein Sein won plaudits for announcing the suspension ...

Thailand has gained a US$99.4 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to help upgrade some of the country’s highways and improve road safety in the Northeast. []“Transport infrastructure is an important driver of growth for Thailand’s economy,” said Subramaniam. “Improving the country’s road network ...

Thirteen illegal Lao labour immigrants who were rescued from an alleged “slavery farm” in Nakhon Pathom are being treated as witnesses in a suspected human trafficking case. The immigrants, some as young as 15 years old, will not be charged with illegal entry into Thailand because they ...

For centuries Laos has been known as the Land of a Million Elephants. Now there are fewer than 900 of the iconic creatures – and less than half of those are wild. If the population continues to decline at the current rate, elephants will be ...

Life has become different, and easier, for people who live high up in Vietnam’s mountains. That is because electricity has come to places in Lai Chau Province where there had not been electricity in the past. Sometimes people there would make electricity from an oil generator but the ...

Around 100 policies and documents related to ethnic minority groups in the Mekong Delta have been implemented to develop essential infrastructure and production, reduce poverty and improve the living standards of local residents. According to Hung Thi Somaly, an official from the Government’s Committee for Ethnic ...

Global mass extinction from extreme climate change is imminent and we are certainly not ready for it, warn scientists. The first half of this year has been a turbulent one, with many extreme, unusual and unpredictable climate disasters, which cost more than US$30 billion (Bt979 ...

A key gauge of Chinese manufacturing activity plunged to a two-year low in July, an independent survey has showed, the latest data suggesting the world’s second-largest economy faces challenges in the third quarter. The final reading of Caixin’s Purchasing Managers’ Index came in at 47.8 for ...