Economy and commerce

Vietnamese businesses are continuing to import outdated Chinese technology despite repeated warnings by scientists that the country could become a ‘technology landfill’. The latest report of the Ministry of Science & Technology shows that technologies used in most industries in Vietnam are outdated, causing serious pollution ...

Kneeling and sobbing before a top commerce ministry official, a Phichit farmer appealed to the government on October 30 to help growers suffering from the fall in rice prices to 5,000 baht a tonne, the lowest level in decades. Sanit Kaho, a 63-year-old farmer, held the legs ...

Much-needed improvements to Bokeo airport may have to wait a few years more because the government cannot afford to pay for the upgrade of this provincial facility. Minister of Public Works and Transport Dr Bounchan Sinthavong last week informed Assembly members of the situation when speaking ...

Gems traders in Mandalay plan to hold a protest tomorrow, calling on the government to take action to bolster the region’s slumping jade market. According to U Than Win, one of the protest’s leaders, the market for jade in Mandalay has been in decline for ...

The Government must create a law on bad debts settlement to tackle difficulties during the process, experts said at a recent conference held by the State Bank of Việt Nam. Nguyễn Quốc Hùng, chairman of the Việt Nam Asset Management Company, said on October 26 the ...

The world’s whaling watchdog moved on October 27 to curtail Japan’s annual whale hunt, conducted under scientific licence but blasted by critics as a commercial meat haul. A resolution on “improving” the review of deadly research programmes, which Japan alone conducts, split the 70-year-old International ...

The large-scale rubber plantations that arrived in force in Cambodia a decade ago as global rubber prices moved to historic peaks are facing sober prospects as trees they planted before the commodity’s prices headed south begin to reach maturity. While international rubber prices have been ...

Ticon Industrial Connection Plc, a Thai-based factory and warehouse developer, is expanding its operations into fast-growing Southeast Asian economies, including Cambodia, to help offset sluggish growth at home. Lalitphant Phiriyaphant, the company’s chief financial officer, said Ticon has already invested $20 million into expansion in ...

The compensation to be paid to the owners of parcels of land and buildings that will be used or demolished to make way for the Laos-China railway may not be enough. Ministers addressed this issue at the National Assembly’s ongoing debate session on October 26, ...

The Vietnamese government has been accused of a slow response, and a lack of transparency and accountability, in the first independent report into the environmental disaster that killed millions of fish off the central coast earlier this year. The report by the unregistered civil society organisation, ...