Government services

The Thai government hopes to ease its public debt burden by luring the private sector to invest more in multibillion-baht infrastructure projects, especially in telecommunications and transport, through public-private partnerships (PPPs).  Keep reading ...

Scoring only 18 out of 100 on an open budget index compiled by the International Budget Partnership, Vietnam’s budget transparency is deemed “scant” and far below the world average score of 45.   The performance is slightly worse than that of 2012, when the country scored 19, according ...

Experts have warned that construction costs estimated by the government are often much higher than market prices, creating opportunities for contractors and managers to work together and pocket the extra money. Keep reading ...

Lack of funding is impeding a new – and potentially significant – mechanism for decentralising social services, a recent study has found. The Asia Foundation study, “Municipal Governance in Myanmar: An Overview of Development Affairs Organizations”, was released on 1 September. The findings focus on development ...

The Australian government has said a deal to resettle refugees in Cambodia is on track, despite media reports to the contrary. Under an agreement signed in September last year, Australia is paying Cambodia to take in refugees rejected from its detention centre on Nauru island. But so ...

A plan to roll out monthly pensions for the elderly remains mired in a logistical tangle – and those who qualify could receive as little as K15,000 a year. While the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement received the green light in December 2014 to implement ...

The Kachin State government has ruled out providing aid to most people displaced by fighting in Sumprabum township because they have fled to areas close to Kachin Independence Army-held territory. The state government and Tatmadaw have in recent weeks blocked local aid groups from sending aid to ...

Vietnam will strive to become one of ASEAN’s top five nations in international trade statistics by 2017. This is part of a plan for Vietnam’s integration into the ASEAN Statistics system in the 2016-20 period, as approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. According to the plan’s general targets ...

Salaries for civil servants in Laos remain stagnant and will not be increased during the next fiscal year largely because of corruption, despite the rising cost of living in the one-party communist nation, sources inside the country said. Sila Viengkeo, vice minister of finance, told a ...

Stakeholders from the government, development partners, civil society organisations and the private sector gathered on 10 July to discuss and exchange information on food and nutrition security in Laos. Meeting at the Policy Dialogue on Food and Nutrition Security and the Asean Integrated Food Security Framework in ...