The public debt of Laos may increase to as much as 65 to 68 per cent of GDP in 2020 following a sharp fall in national revenue collection alongside an increase in loans due to the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, according to a government official. Revenue collection ...

After initial rejection and amid some continued reluctance, most employers are now ready to accept the K3600 a day minimum wage, provided a few conditions are met, the Ministry of Labour said.    During a meeting on 25 July with employers who had objected to the government-proposed ...

China will consider giving Filipino fishermen conditional access to disputed waters in the South China Sea after the presidents of the two countries meet in Beijing this week, two Chinese sources with ties to the leadership said. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte plans to raise the plight ...

When Thai Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul met with Pfizer company representatives in Bangkok in late 2020, the businessman-cum-politician declined to place a Covid-19 vaccine order because in his words the shot was not yet proven effective on “yellow-skinned people”, according to government sources familiar ...

With the concrete beam of the last span over Mekong River put in place, the main section of Luang Prabang cross-Mekong River railway bridge has been completed on Sunday, seven months ahead of schedule. The closure of the Luang Prabang Mekong River Super Major Bridge, one ...

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has asked HCMC to deal firmly with environmental pollution caused by two major waste treatment facilities. The ministry’s order was prompted by numerous residents complaining about the environmental pollution caused by the Tam Sinh Nghia Investment Development Joint Stock ...

The head of Vietnam’s parliament has resigned over unspecified “violations and shortcomings”, the ruling Communist Party has said, as a major anticorruption campaign in the Southeast Asian country continues. The party’s Central Committee held an extraordinary session on Friday and approved the resignation of Vuong Dinh Hue ...

The masons tasked with rebuilding hundreds of crumbling pagodas in Bagan will receive training from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Bagan Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library later this month, department director U Aung Aung Kyaw told The Myanmar Times.`A 6.8-magnitude earthquake near ...

Debate has raged in Vietnam over the use of legal chemicals to artificially ripen fruits, after a facility in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong was caught ripening numerous immature durians this way last week. on September 1, an inspection team raided a fruit facility ...

The Ayeyarwady River, dubbed the lifeblood of Myanmar and home to a threatened species of dolphin, is being suffocated by tonnes of plastic being dumped into it every day. It has been ranked the ninth most polluted river in the world, behind the Philippines’ Pasig ...

Thuong Kon Tum dam, which is built in the Dak Snghe River watershed, is one of the biggest hydropower projects in the basin of the Se San river. The effect of the dam is still questionable but it raises concerns about environmental impacts as the ...

Ho Chi Minh City is constantly flooded, while Bangkok continues to sink below sea level. It sounds like a science fiction movie set in Southeast Asia. But it’s what experts predict will happen within the next two to three decades in the major Vietnamese and Thai ...

On a recent November morning, farmer U Soe Myint Aung was busy collecting rice from his harvester and loading it into bags. It is heavy work but still he knows he is lucky; with 17 acres of paddy field situated alOng a road in Kwinyar village, ...

Vietnam, as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, is set to develop a roadmap to implement market-based carbon pricing tools as part of its effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Nguyen Tuan Quang, deputy director of the Climate Change Department under the Ministry of ...

Myanmar is caught in a conundrum as the government attempts to clean up the country’s illegal drugs trade. The country stands alongside Afghanistan as one of the top illegal drug producers in the world. And the illegal drug cartels have kept up with the times ...

A long-running territorial standoff over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea has seen vessels dumping enough raw sewage to threaten the marine ecosystem there — and the degradation is extensive enough to be seen from space. on July 12, U.S.-based geospatial tech company Simularity ...

Domestic energy-consuming companies will get the chance to improve their core competitiveness and sustainable development ability, but still face many challenges after China and the US ratified the Paris climate deal, experts said on September 11. China and the US, the world’s two largest emitters of ...

One of the main issues facing natiOns in the MekOng River CommissiOn, including Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, is that China has refused to share informatiOn about the operatiOns of its hydropower dams. As a result, the MRC countries are cautious about using their limited ...

Recorded water levels in the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMB) saw significant increases during the last seven days as a result of heavy rainfall and sudden water releases from dams, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) reported. However, as of 28 July 2021, river levels across all ...

Most people felt frustrated by economic problems in 2023 although in general they were fairly happy with the year, according to the results of a survey by the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll. The poll was conducted on Dec 12-20 by telephone interviews ...