Economy and commerce

China may be slowing, but a commodities rebound is under way and the world’s biggest miner knows where the next growth story is building — emerging economies in Southeast Asia.Combined gross domestic product in the ASEAN-5 nations — Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam ...

Myanmar-based Olympus Asia Group and Korea’s Panko Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding on August 20 and are looking for land in Yangon, Bago or Ayeywarwady regions. Under the CMP model, a foreign buyer with financial backing and technical expertise will contract a garment factory, usually ...

Americans love shrimp. We import about $5 billion worth of it from all over the globe, including from India, Thailand and Indonesia. But over the past year, we’ve learned more about the downsides of global shrimp production. The Associated Press uncovered slave labor in Southeast Asia, ...

Building a digital economy will be very important for Vietnam to keep pace with rapid technology developments across the globe, a senior Australian scientist has said.“We are not going to create prosperity purely on hard work. It will be smart work, which is connected to ...

Cambodia once again renewed its support of Timor-Leste becoming the 11th member of ASEAN and a member of the World Trade Organization, according to a statement on August 21. During his visit to Timor-Leste on August 19-20, Prime Minister Hun Sen also said Cambodia would provide ...

The ministry’s International Trade Promotion Department will allocate the largest proportion of its trade-promotion budget for ASEAN markets, focusing on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Malee Choklumlerd, director-general of the department, said it had been allocated a budget of Bt2 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, and ...

ASEAN, now on its first year of economic unification, needs to decouple from China and become much better at telling the global community about its economic prospects, Citi’s regional fund services experts said. In the past, ASEAN had benefited from its robust trade with China, with ...

Thailand based Siam City Cement Public Company has agreed to purchase a 65% stake in cement manufacturer Holcim Vietnam HVL from French headquartered LafargeHolcim, according to an SCCC statement. HVL currently operates one integrated plant and four grinding plants with an annual cement capacity of 6.3 ...

Cambodia’s beleaguered rice sector convened an emergency meeting on August 16 to tackle falling rice exports and help rice millers currently in financial doldrums due to severe shortage of funds to buy harvested rice from farmers to be milled for export. The Kingdom’s rice exports fell by ...

The Southeast Asian economy is recovering, posting the sharpest growth in a year and a half in the April-June quarter. The real gross domestic product of five major countries in the region –  Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines – expanded 4.6% from a year earlier, surpassing the 4.4% ...