Government
Provincial and local governments
Vietnam PM urges Dong Nai to maintain high growth rate
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the opening ceremony of the southern Dong Nai province’s party congress on 29 September. The PM praised the province’s accomplishments over the last five years and urged Dong Nai to become a leading force in the country’s modernisation and socio-economic ...
Flooding from dam washes out homes, rice fields in southern Cambodia
Local government officials in a southern Cambodian province failed to evacuate villagers in time to prevent their homes and rice fields from flooding after the operators of a Chinese-built hydropower dam informed them a day earlier that they would open the facility’s gates to release ...
Hanoi's tap water to cost more next month
Hanoi’s tap water rate will be raised by 20 percent to at least 30.5 US cents per cubic meter from next month, the capital’s water utility has said. Keep reading ...
Vietnam plans to drop fines for some tax defaulters
The Ministry of Finance plans to forgo fines imposed on businesses which were behind their tax due date if their partners, including state agencies, had failed to pay them on time in accordance with contract terms. Keep reading ...
Campaign period starts, but only for some parties
As with most deadlines and dates this election season, the start of the official candidate campaign period is rolling by only partially heeded. Political parties had to miss scheduled campaign kick-off events – and the unveiling of campaign songs and slogans – because the candidate ...
Funding shortfalls hinder new development bodies
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 ...
Sumprabum IDPs miss out on state government aid
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 strives to improve its trade statistics for ASEAN
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 ...
Vietnam’s name-and-shame corporate tax list enjoys success
Vietnam has found an effective way to crack down on tax laggards as it struggles to fund infrastructure projects and curb rising debt: make the names of the offending businesses public to shame them into paying up. The Ministry of Finance published a first-ever list of ...
Civil sector workers in Laos lose out to corruption and rising cost of living
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 ...
