International relations

Though all countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region had signed a cross-border trade agreement 14 years ago to enhance the sub-region’s economic connectivity, the CBTA, however, is yet to be ratified in individual Mekong nations for its full implementation. This was revealed last week by ...

China is willing to work with all parties to build roads, railway lines, air and sea route networks in East Asia to improve regional connectivity and trade flows, Commerce Minister GaoHucheng said on August 4. These goals can be achieved through the cooperative framework of ...

The government is seeking to develop ways of increasing the benefit felt by Cambodia from economic corridors opened throughout the Greater Mekong Subregion as part of ASEAN integration, an official has said. The economic corridors are intended to spur economic integration in ASEAN and boost infrastructure ...

The Ho Chi Minh City Blood Transfusion Hematology Hospital has begun a training course in hematopoietic stem cell transplant for Cambodia’s Calmette Hospital. Dr Sok Sothea of Calmette said a team of three doctors, two nurses and a technician would attend the five-month course that has ...

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen their cooperation in promoting their countries as a single tourism destination. The countries’ leaders agreed on their tourism partnership during the “Four Countries, One Destination” conference held in Yangon, Myanmar, on July 31 under the ...

One of the five major drug smuggling groups operating in the region has been crushed and its 26 networks destroyed by the Safe Mekong Joint Operation, Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya announced on Wednesday.Gen Paiboon was briefing the media on progress in the third phase of ...

FPT Corporation has been selected by Myanmar Payment Union as the prime investor to implement a national financial switching system, the company said on 1 August. The entire financial switching system will be funded and implemented by FPT in a year. Currently, over 95 percent of transactions ...

The ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum which is to take place on 2 August in Dili, Timor-Leste appears to be clouded by uncertainty and fears. Concerns have emerged as there have been no indications that the three-day meeting, as stated during preparatory events in March and ...

Situated in Laos’ Luang Namtha province, Boten is China’s gateway to Southeast Asia and will be a critical link in both the North-South and East-West economic corridors. In terms of the North-South corridor, it is the transit point for the Kunming-Bangkok Expressway, which passes across ...

Keith Richburg is the director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. He spent more than two decades as a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post covering Africa, Europe, China and Southeast Asia, making his first visit to Cambodia ...