Economy and commerce
Banking and financial services
Cambodia, Laos central banks to enhance ties
Central bank heads of Cambodia and Laos met on 7 December in Phnom Penh to discuss ways of strengthening cooperation of their banking sectors. Keep reading ...
Cambodian PM tells lenders to weigh drought
Prime Minister Hun Sen on 7 December called on lenders to go easy on farmers bedeviled by a fickle rainy season that has hurt production and incomes, though financial institutions quizzed yesterday had no plan yet in place to facilitate the request. This year’s powerful El Niño ...
GSB wants add-on to SME loans
The state-backed Government Savings Bank (GSB) is seeking Finance Ministry approval to expand a 100-billion-baht soft loan scheme for small and medium-sized enterprises by 50 billion. The extra amount reflects pent-up demand after 100 billion baht was already taken out, said GSB president and chief executive Chatchai ...
Myanmar Central Bank in spotlight over coins
The ire of MPs over the 11.95 percent supplementary budget request from the outgoing government was directed on 3 December toward the Central Bank. While its request for K59.059 billion represents just 2.3 percent of the K2.464 trillion budget proposal, MPs said it was a prime example ...
Financial illiteracy persists as banks blossom
Most Cambodians continue to have low financial literacy even as an increasing number of them are beginning to embrace the formal banking sector, according to a recent Standard & Poor’s report. The international credit rating firm’s Global FinLit Survey showed that only 18 per cent of ...
Revenue, debt alarms sounded in Thailand
Concerns about the private sector’s revenue and debt servicing ability have been raised at a joint meeting of two Bank of Thailand committees. The Monetary Policy Committee and the Financial Institutions Policy Committee held a joint session on 30 November to discuss financial developments and risks to financial ...
Companies begin to feel the heat as import costs climb
Myanmar’s plummeting currency has prompted a vicious circle of rising prices in the import-dependent economy, in which even export-driven companies face rising costs, say businesspeople. New laws and regulations are urgently needed to control the kyat, they said, which has fallen by more than 25 percent ...
Thailand 'to reap rewards' from IMF's yuan move
Thailand’s trade and investment will benefit in the long run from inclusion of the yuan in the special drawing rights currency basket of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says a senior central bank official. Greater use of the Chinese currency would help to slim down foreign ...
Vietnam rules out interest rate cuts despite record-low inflation
The State Bank of Vietnam said it will not lower interest rates any time soon even though inflation has been slowing down. Bank deputy governor Nguyen Thi Hong told a press conference late last week that low inflation is only one of many factors that have ...
Myanmar Government seeks $500m to cover forex losses
Inflation, flood relief and the depreciation of the kyat against the US dollar have prompted parliament to consider a government request for almost US$2 billion in supplementary funding for the current fiscal year. The additional cash, however, poses significant risks of overheating the economy by ...
