Trade policy and regulation

After a huge increase in exotic pests and diseases, Australian agriculture and environmentalists are demanding more focus on biosecurity.​ The past five years of failures ranges from the attacking red fire ants, banana diseases, myrtle rust and a melon disease to an exotic disease in ...

What the Trump administration will ultimately do to the shape of the global trade regime is difficult to foretell but there’s no question that it will change it forever, even if there is strong global push-back against Trump’s threat to unravel trade agreements and carry ...

Fukushima peaches are making inroads into Southeast Asian markets in what prefectural officials see as a model case of recovery in its farm produce. Fukushima grabbed the top share of Japanese peach exports to three Southeast Asian countries last year — 73.9 percent in Thailand, ...

Experts believe that Vietnam should focus on producing high-quality rice instead of striving to earn money from selling low-cost rice products. Soon after Vietnam began harvesting the 2016-2017 winter-spring crop, the Thai government announced it planned to sell all its stockpiled rice – estimated at 8 ...

The State Railway of Thailand has been asked to consider an electric train project linking Hat Yai to Padang Besar in Songkhla, said the Transport Ministry. The proposal which was made by the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, concerns the double-track railway ...

Sixty-six rice traders participated in the government’s auction of 2.86 million tonnes of rice on February 16, showing high market demand for the last lot of rice suitable for consumption from the government’s stocks. Duangporn Rodphaya, director-general of the Commerce Ministry’s Foreign Trade Department, said ...

Experts from ASEAN member countries and their development partners in the region are meeting in Vientiane to discuss issues relating to the 52nd ASEAN Working Group on Intellectual Property Cooperation and intellectual property protection. Topics centered on ASEAN economic integration with participants convinced that the ...

Bilateral trade and investment from the US into Vietnam are expected not to see drastic changes under US President Donald Trump. Michael Sieburg, associate partner at Asia-Pacific marketing strategy consulting firm Solidiance, talked to VIR’s Hong Anh about the impact of the American withdrawal from the ...

Actual work on the Laos-China railway project has yet to start in Luang Prabang and other provinces following the official construction launch in December last year. The railway will run from the Chinese border to Vientiane through the provinces of Luang Namtha, Oudomxay, Luang Prabang, ...

For nearly two decades, Poipet was a one-trick pony, relying on the casinos huddled around its Thai border crossing for its economic fortune. But now a different type of cluster is emerging on the frontier town’s outskirts, where industrial parks are attracting predominantly Japanese manufacturers ...