Economy and commerce

Vietnam will strive to become one of ASEAN’s top five nations in international trade statistics by 2017. This is part of a plan for Vietnam’s integration into the ASEAN Statistics system in the 2016-20 period, as approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. According to the plan’s general targets ...

A project to build 10 warehouses to store rice paddy using Chinese funding has hit a roadblock, as the Cambodian government has been unable to meet criteria set by the Chinese for the project, according to an official associated with the project. Keep reading ...

Some of Vietnam’s top firms are carving out opportunities in its $37 billion agriculture and seafood sector and looking to expand overseas, helped by free trade pacts.   “We’ll have global food shortages by 2050. If we invest fundamentally and correctly, this market is infinite,” said Nguyen Duy ...

Thailand has clinched several deals to sell 765,000 tonnes of rice worth US$313 million to African countries. Commerce Minister Chatchai Sarikulya said during a five-day visit to South Africa that Thai exporters had signed 11 memorandums of understanding with African importers for the rice, worth 10.9 ...

A government ban, fines and the confiscation of goods has not stopped Chinese opportunists seeking to make a quick buck in Laos stone, reports the Shanghai-based China Business News. The popularity of Laos stone has investors betting that it could step up next to the greats ...

To welcome the launch of the Asean Economic Community and help Greater Mekong Subregion countries cope with e-commerce, an international conference was held recently to bring specialists and officials together to swap ideas and experiences. The 8 July event, titled “Mekong Forum 2015 – Modernising the ...

Foreign direct investment in the first seven months declined by 8 percent year-on-year to US$8.8 billion, Vietnam’s Foreign Investment Agency has reported.   Newly licensed projects were worth $6.9 billion, 1 percent up from last year.   Keep reading ...

Thailand’s worst drought in a decade appears to have ended, but the damage could cast a shadow on the economy for months to come. The crippling dry weather that first emerged in late 2014 is no longer present in the country’s 67 provinces, the deputy head ...

With the Obama administration pushing to conclude a vast Asian trade pact, the State Department on 27 July upgraded its assessment of Malaysia’s efforts to combat human trafficking, a move that could ease the country’s inclusion in the trade deal. Though the human trafficking report from the State ...

Local economists have advised the Vietnamese government to be extremely careful with spending because its public debt has reached a dangerously high level.    They raised their concerns after the World Bank reported that Vietnam’s public debt exceeded US$110 billion last year. The figure is higher than ...