Land
Smallholder farmers to face land shortage, study finds
They will need land!, a report commissioned by the NGO Mekong Region Land Governance, predicts that by 2030, the amount of land required to sustain Cambodia’s smallholder farmer population will have increased by anywhere from 10 to 64 per cent of 2015 levels, or 320,600 ...
Central Highlands up efforts to prevent soil degradation
The degradation of soil in the Central Highlands has increased, impacting production and ethnic minority groups, according to Nguyen Dinh Ky, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Geography Association. According to Ky, degraded soil is mainly caused by deforestation, the loss of natural plant layers, the farming ...
SEZ polluting Bavet canal, villagers say
Villagers living along a canal in Svay Rieng province’s Bavet town say its water has been polluted by untreated discharge from the nearby Manhattan Special Economic Zone, rendering it unusable. Three communes live along the Tapov canal – Bati, Prasat and Bavet – with villagers from ...
Laos - China’s gateway to Southeast Asia
Situated in Laos’ Luang Namtha province, Boten is China’s gateway to Southeast Asia and will be a critical link in both the North-South and East-West economic corridors. In terms of the North-South corridor, it is the transit point for the Kunming-Bangkok Expressway, which passes across ...
Sanctions help Asian banks gain foothold in Myanmar
AT the CB Bank branch in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone near Yangon, there’s a dedicated “Japan desk”, where an employee of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ sits to handle any Japanese corporate business that comes their way. The Japanese bank’s presence at Thilawa is no ...
SEZs lure 39 projects worth B7bn
Investment is starting to flow into the government’s planned special economic zones with 39 projects worth 7.2 billion baht applying for promotional privileges from the Board of Investment. The Special Economic Zone Policy Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, on 27 July acknowledged the investment ...
Government, plantation managers trade blame
The managers of some of Cambodia’s most controversial agribusiness plantations on 21 July blamed their many land disputes on the government, accusing officials of failing to educate communities about the benefits of their giant farms. Rights groups blame economic land concessions for some of Cambodia’s worst problems, ...
Lao workers returning home to work in SEZs
Speaking to Vientiane Times on 13 July, Chairman of the Champassak Provincial SEZ Authority Mr Khamphon Nuansengsy said that his authority conducted a survey recently and found that many more Lao people wanted to return to work in their hometown as long as jobs were available. In the ...
ARLO land-reclamation kicks off in Wang Nam Khieo
The first operation to reclaim the Agricultural Land Reform Office land will officially kick off tomorrow at a 600-rai plot in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Wang Nam Khieo district. Meanwhile, Piangjai Hanpanich, 92, – founder of real-estate firm Land and Houses – returned a 1,263-rai plot in ...
Protest leader arrested in Mondolkiri after reoccupation attempt
An anti-eviction protester who police claim orchestrated several large-scale reoccupation attempts on a planned rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province was arrested on 11 July, police and a rights monitor said. About 500 families living on the land were evicted in 2012, three years after the Pacific ...