Vietnam looks to raise its minimum monthly salary by just above 10 percent next year, the lowest level since 2013, a move that apparently bows to the growing pressure of the corporate sector.   Under a government decree that took effect early this year, Vietnam raised the ...

While there are natural catastrophes all over the world, Asia is a unique confluence of people and perils.​ More than half of the world’s population lives in Eastern, Southern and Southeast Asia. The region hosts more than 1.6 billion urban inhabitants and seven of the ...

Myanmar authorities seized over 510 tonnes of illegal timbers across the country over one month, according to a release from the Forest Department under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation on Wednesday (Oct 6). The seizures were made in the country’s regions, states and ...

Union officials have applauded the Ministry of Labor which is preparing to ratify some International Labor Organization’s conventions, including two that unions, factory workers and domestic workers have long demanded. The Labor Ministry said on November 30 that to promote and protect the rights, benefits and ...

Vietnam’s renewable energy production costs remain higher than other countries as the country still does not have a competitive solar energy market. Many people in the country have saved money by using solar energy. A solar energy system with capacity of 1 KW was installed on the ...

President Choummaly Sayasone marked 40 years of communist rule in Laos on 2 December touting the stability and security of his landlocked Southeast Asian nation, but some Laotians lamented their country’s corruption, rising debt and dependence on China and Vietnam. 2 December marked 40 years since the communist ...

Overseas credit card companies are looking to Myanmar as the country shifts from cash to card payments. U.S.-based Visa teamed up with Myanmar’s Co-operative Bank (CB Bank) on Jan. 17 to issue credit cards with limits of between 4 million kyat and 5 million kyat($2,946 and ...

Tuy Sros, 34, was one of the hundreds of people at a land protest in late December last year, in the northwestern border province of Banteay Meanchey. The dispute was similar to other land conflicts in the country; villagers had been displaced from land they ...

The government as well as the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia have strongly rejected and condemned the United States move to impose sanctions on Union Development Group (UDG), with Defence Minister General Tea Banh considering it part of US “geopolitical ambitions.” Academics also said yesterday the move ...

Even as more Singaporeans had babies last year, Singapore’s population growth remained low, rising 1.3 per cent to reach 5.61 million in June. The statistics, released on September 27 by the National Population and Talent Division in its annual Population in Brief report, also showed that ...

State-run power companies in Laos are raising electricity prices, putting a squeeze on businesses suffering from the coronavirus pandemic shutdown and angering customers who say they deserve cheaper power after a decades-long hydroelectric dam building boom, sources in the country told RFA. The government of Laos ...

While welcoming the government’s decision to subsidise the rice trade by another Bt20 billion, paddy growers and analysts on November 1 said the move might be too little and short-term to tackle problems in the entire system.The Rice Policy Management Committee on November 1 increased its budget ...

A lack of tourist attractions combined with overly-optimistic developers has left around 80 percent of Nay Pyi Taw hotel rooms empty on any given day. But the chair of a local tourism industry body believes better marketing can help the city improve its visitor numbers. U ...

The Greater Mekong Sub-region has the potential to become a major global production center due to its favorable geographical location and its proximity to economic powerhouses in both Southeast and South Asia,  Prime Minister Hun Sen said on October 25. Speaking in Hanoi at the opening ...

Work on the fifth Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River, linking Pakxan district in Borikhamxay province to Bueng Kan province in northeastern Thailand, is now 23 per cent complete. The bridge is expected to be fully complete in 2024 and will serve to boost trade ...

An excavator operator was lucky to escape with his life on Monday evening after striking a 1970s-era Mk-82 bomb while digging in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district. Chum Touch, police chief of Lbaing I commune, where the unexploded ordnance was found, said the excavator had unearthed ...

Despite the presence of a blanket ban by the Cambodian government on all trade in Siamese rosewood since 2013, exports of the precious timber to Vietnam increased in the third quarter of this year, according to Vietnamese customs data compiled by US-based NGO Forest Trends. ...

The government sought to set the record straight on December 22 after local media outlets erroneously reported that the Kingdom’s public debt had reached $10 billion at the end of 2015. Without naming which media outlets had published the skewed figure, which was shared widely on ...

Popular beaches in southern Thailand, empty of tourists due to closures and restrictions related to the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, are seeing the return of rare wildlife, officials said on Sunday (April 19). “As we fight the Covid-19 outbreak, nature is also rejuvenating and creating balance,” Warawut ...

The Centre of Biodiversity Conservation, GreenViet and the Management Board of Chàm Island has inked an Memorandum of Understanding on the protection of flora and fauna in the forest of the island. The Management Board said the MoU will allow surveying of the current terrestrial plants ...