Economy and commerce

Several Vietnamese garment and textile companies would face more challenges from large rivals following integration, said Tran Quang Nghi, chairman of the National Garment and Textile Group (Vinatex). Nghi, speaking at a conference entitled “Garment and Textile – Opportunities and Challenges”, focusing on integration and held ...

Vietnam was among Cambodia’s top five investors as of last April with US$3.2 billion in 171 projects. It is also Cambodia’s third largest trade partner with bilateral trade topping $3.3 billion as of 2015, Vietnamese Commercial Counselor Nguyen Bao said. Keep reading ...

Vietnam was striving to perfect the market economy and committed to creating the most favourable conditions for foreign investors, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said at the Vietnam Global Investment Forum on 30 September. With improvements in the business climate, infrastructure and the financial markets, Vietnam ...

Only one month after the Ministry of Finance proposed increasing luxury taxes on cars with large engines to up to 75 percent, trade officials now say the maximum tax rate should be raised to 150 percent to restrict the use of expensive, fuel-hungry vehicles.  Keep reading ...

Thailand has slipped one place on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and is now ranked 32nd out of 140 economies analysed in a survey released by the World Economic Forum on 30 September. This year’s results reversed the uptrend that the Kingdom had been on in previous ...

The Finance Ministry proposes to cut the transfer and mortgage fee to 0.01 per cent of the appraised value for a period of six months to one year as part of the government’s stimulus measures for the property sector. The ministry also plans to relax lending conditions ...

The rural heartland of Thailand’s deposed leader Yingluck Shinawatra and her exiled billionaire brother Thaksin is hurting as a result of the military government’s economic policies, stirring discontent and the threat of protests. The removal of generous agricultural subsidies has left rice farmers in northeast Thailand ...

Garment worker unions on 30 September decried a preliminary, government-suggested increase to the minimum wage as being far too close to what they perceive as a lowball offer from employers. As tripartite wage talks continue, unions said officials from the government’s Labour Advisory Committee had on 29 ...

The Bank of Laos has proposed the postponement of direct lending to new state investment projects as part of measures to safeguard the banking and financial system of the country, according to the central bank governor. Mr Somphao Phaysith made the proposal at a meeting between ...

The Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Banking Group has become the last of nine foreign banks to receive a branch licence to operate in Myanmar. The Central Bank of Myanmar’s licencing committee announced it had awarded a licence to ANZ on 29 September, just days ahead ...