Trade policy and regulation

On June 30 in Hanoi, Vietnamese and EU officials signed a new free trade deal that could shift the balance of manufacturing in the region. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement will reduce tariffs and facilitate trade between the two parties. Vietnam will ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen called on World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states and development partners “to give close consideration” before removing preferential trade status from Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Speaking at the opening of the WTO’s 2019 Global Review of Aid for Trade in Geneva, Switzerland ...

The 34th ASEAN Summit, which ended on June 23, brought ASEAN leaders together to discuss regional economic, environmental and diplomatic challenges.   This time around, the biannual summit centred on sustainability. The bloc is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world, and sustainable development is a ...

The European Union kicked off a five-day fact-finding mission in Cambodia on Monday to determine whether it should continue to benefit from a tax-free EU trade scheme, based on the state of human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asian nation. In February, the EU announced ...

ELEPHANTS and elephant-related products can again be exported from Thailand under a new regulation from the Commerce Ministry, which may provoke controversy and debate over whether it violates the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). However, the National Park, ...

The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) marked its third anniversary last week with the announcement that China’s trade with the five Mekong member countries – Cambodia, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam – has reached over US$260 billion for the period, highlighting the overarching role China plays in ...

Restrictions on border trade with China are a big headache for many Myanmar merchants. China officially bans most rice imports from Myanmar, for example, but its border officials often turn a blind eye to the trade. In early February though the Chinese authorities launched a crackdown ...

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha urged Asean members on Wednesday to maintain a good balance between promoting cross-border trade and suppressing transnational crime, which he said holds the key to meeting the region’s sustainable development goals. He made the remark during a speech at Wednesday’s opening of the ...

Trade ties between Cambodia and Vietnam were strengthened on Wednesday following a meeting between high-ranking commerce officials in which both countries agree to drop tariffs on a number of goods. []“In the meeting, Vietnam agreed to grant zero duty privileges to 32 Cambodian goods, and agreed ...

It’s a long way from Whitehall and Brussels, but a study has found that the developing country that will be hardest hit by Brexit is the south-east Asian nation of Cambodia. With the deadline to reach a Brexit agreement looming in March, much attention has been given to ...