News
Vietnam to invest $1.8bn in Mekong seafood development
The Vietnamese province of Kien Giang intends to invest VND 43 trillion ($1.85 billion) in boosting seafood production in the Mekong Delta region, reports Vietnam Plus, citing the provincial department of agriculture and rural development. It wants to transform inefficient rice fields to the model of rice-shrimp production. Kien ...
Undercurrent News
Covid and the climate crisis in SE Asia
‘A global reset”, “a sick planet”, “health security” are huge, heavy phrases that have been swirling in the global psyche for most of this Covid-19-marked year. They speak of the “must-do-something” type of issues that weigh on the minds of people everywhere, including in Southeast ...
JOHANNA SON
Germany supplies equipment to monitor Mekong River dam impacts
Germany has provided equipment to the Mekong River Commission to monitor the environmental impacts of two mainstream dams on the lower reaches of the Mekong River. The equipment, worth around $600,000, meant to help monitor the impacts of Laos’s Xayaburi and Don Sahong dams, was handed ...
Viet Anh
How Meaningful is the New US-Mekong Partnership?
On September 11, the United States and the five lower Mekong nations launched a new framework for multilateral cooperation amid rising concerns about China’s expanding influence in mainland Southeast Asia. In announcing the new Mekong-U.S. Partnership at a meeting in Hanoi, the U.S. State Department pledged at ...
Sebastian Strangio
Vietnam receives support for smart sensors to combat flooding
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) awarded a $400,000 grant to Griffith University researchers to develop a network of energy-efficient smart sensors that will help Vietnam combat flooding. The project aims to create a web of micro-sensors spread throughout Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City to ...
Samaya Dharmaraj
Power sector seeking ways to grow further
Vietnam is striving for a commercial electricity output of 337.5 billion kWh by 2025 and 478.1 billion kWh by 2030, down 15 billion kWh and nearly 230 billion kWh compared with those in the adjusted Power Planning VII. The revision was contained in a report from ...
Water agency seeks input on Moon River Basin plan
Nakhon Ratchasima: The Office of the National Water Resources (ONWR) yesterday kick started public consultations to draw up a water-management plan for the Moon River Basin. The plan is urgently needed to tackle severe drought and floods in 10 northeastern provinces, it says. The first consultation, which ...
PRASIT TANGPRASERT
Asia sees first regional recession in 60 years
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) says the Covid-19 pandemic has pulled the region’s developing economies into recession. It is the first time in six decades that “developing Asia” – a designation that includes 45 countries – has seen a regional slump. The ADB says developing Asia’s economy ...
Vietnam to issue rules on terrestrial mobile communication terminal devices
The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) last week held a webinar to assess the impacts of a draft circular on the national technical regulations on terminal devices of terrestrial mobile communication. According to the representative of the MIC’s Information Technology Department, the building of national technical regulations on ...
Samaya Dharmaraj
OPED: Plastic waste still an issue
When it comes to policy on waste management and recycling, the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration is generally deemed to be progressive. The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry in 2018 made a landmark decision to slap a ban on the importation of plastics and electronic waste which ...