“I bought my mobile phone for 8 million kips (about Bt34,500) by using First Choice because that facility enabled me to make the payment over 15 months,” a customer of the brand, Somkhith Chitdavongsor, said last week. It was the first time he had made a purchase ...

A confluence of drought and dams along the Mekong River has renewed concerns about the future of the 4,700-kilometer waterway, upon which tens of millions of people depend for their livelihoods in China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The number of dams impeding the Mekong’s flow ...

For the first time in 20 years, education specialists are overhauling the curriculum used in Myanmar’s state schools. The process, which began in 2014, will be completed in stages over the coming years.  U Myo Thein Gyi, director general of the Department of Myanmar Education Research Bureau, said ...

Thailand slipped one position to 43rd out of 63 economies in the World Talent Ranking 2019, while its regional peers Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines advanced, according to a report conducted by the IMD World Competitiveness Centre (WCC). The sixth edition of the ranking takes into ...

It was not until he got to medical school that Narong Khuntikeo finally discovered what caused the liver cancer that took both of his parents’ lives – their lunch.Like millions of Thais across the rural northeast, his family regularly ate koi pla – a local ...

Vietnamese steel manufacturers are importing more and more scrap steel for domestic production, as this is the easiest and most profitable way to make steel. According to Bui Van Muu from the Metallurgy and Material Technology Faculty of the Hanoi University of Technology, the steel production ...

Several projects are carried out to assess marine resources within the national marine boundary that benefit coastal provinces.The project is aimed at protecting our marine interests. The ultimate goal is to make our ocean and marine lives sustainable. The goal is in line with the ...

Outbound tour operators expect increasing demand for vaccine tourism in the fourth quarter because of the delay in procurement of high-quality vaccines in Thailand.Suthiphong Pheunphiphop, president of the Thai Travel Agents Association (TTAA), said even if local travellers are able to take outbound trips in ...

Activists representing Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam yesterday urged their respective governments to consider the lives of people living around the Mekong River when building infrastructure projects. Some of the activists urged governments to increase impact assessment initiatives, while others called for the suspension of all ongoing ...

The Royal Irrigation Department (RID) is speeding up efforts to mitigate the impacts of the looming drought after water levels in several major reservoirs fell below the levels of last year. Eighteen major reservoirs are holding less than 30% of their storage capacity including Pasak Jolasid ...

There has been an almost never-ending stream of negative news about Southeast Asia’s energy market, once one of the globe’s most active. A decade of political unrest in Thailand, creeping nationalization in Indonesia, conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, and territorial disputes in Vietnam’s offshore market ...

Several colleges of teacher training in the Mekong Delta provinces have closed in the last several years because of a shortage of students. The Cà Mau Province’s College of Teachers Training, for example, was dissolved by the provincial People’s Committee late last year. Trần Hồng ...

The Mekong River Commission Council yesterday approved a five-year strategy until 2025 which allows Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to prepare for and manage drought collectively. The approval comes as the MRC’s preliminary data analysis shows that severe to extreme drought is expected to hit countries ...

Thailand health officials say the number of people requiring treatment for dengue fever has already topped the 50,000 mark in the first eight months of 2018.According to the Ministry of Health’s Bureau of Epidemiology, a total of 50,079 cases have been reported from the 77 ...

Ninety-seven kilometres of rocks in Thai waters stand between Beijing and dominance over the Mekong, a mighty river that feeds millions as it threads south from the Tibetan plateau through five countries before emptying into the South China Sea. China has long wanted to dredge the ...

Cambodia’s usually low-key dispute over an unmarked stretch of its remote 540-km long border with northern neighbour Laos made international headlines last August when long-time Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a stern six-day ultimatum for Laotian troops to withdraw from the disputed region or ...

Large outbreaks of the mosquito-borne virus happen every three to five years. In February, the National Malaria Center observed that dengue cases reported in January were similar to those recorded in 2007 and 2012, when the country last saw dengue epidemics. Dr. Sovann said the ministry ...

The tourism industry should have a competitiveness enhancement fund to transform businesses in order to avoid a massive collapse in the post-pandemic era, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the objective of such a fund is not to remedy ...

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam have paid little attention to the nearing formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), while larger companies with a “national brand name” are actively preparing for the regional integration process. Le Thanh Hai, the deputy manager of the Viet Nam ...

The Finance Ministry is preparing to release an incentives package to support environment, social, governance (ESG) related investments. The package, which is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2024, will include tax deductions for investments in such projects.According to the Finance Ministry’s ...