The Mekong Memo

Laos 20260429

August Whitcraft — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 01:38:57 GMT

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Headlines:

Washington Runs the Same Play, One Country Over

Diesel Doubles, Cabinet Convenes

Sixty-Five Years and Counting the Receipts

Laos Keeps the Lights On in Hanoi

Tourist Count Climbs Toward Six Million

Rain Does What Policy Couldn't

Vientiane Talks Insurance with the Hub Builders

Washington Runs the Same Play, One Country Over

The US Commerce Department has announced their preliminary antidumping duty of 22.46% that will be added to countervailing duties imposed in February, bringing total preliminary tariff exposure for Lao solar exporters to roughly 103%. The Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, whose members include First Solar and Hanwha Qcells, filed the petition last July. The complaint alleges that Chinese-owned factories shifted production to Laos and Indonesia to sidestep duties that had previously been put on Chinese goods. The same alliance has run this exact play before against Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam last April, and some of the rates are as high as 3,400%. Laos, India, and Indonesia together sent $4.5 billion in solar imports to the U.S. in 2025, about two-thirds of the total. Lao duties aren't going to be locked in until Commerce finalizes the deal and the International Trade Commission releases its injury determination on October 19. At that point, collected deposits will either become permanent or be refunded.

Read more: NDTV Profit (India, Indonesia rates), PV Magazine USA (total stacked duties), Laotian Times (Laos local impact)

Diesel Doubles, Cabinet Convenes

Inflation rose above 10% in April, up from 6.2% in February, diesel was responsible for most of the damage. A liter that cost roughly $0.93 in February was priced at more than $2 by April, and that’s dragged transport costs 23.7% higher year-on-year as well as pushed housing and utilities up 19.4%. Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone chaired a two-day cabinet meeting starting April 28 to work through inflation, exchange rate management, and a draft 10-year capital market strategy through to 2035. The government is also reviewing a minimum wage increase - proposals there range from LAK 2.7 million to LAK 4.1 million ($125 to $190) monthly, up from the current LAK 2.5 million ($116), pending confirmation from the Prime Minister's Office. April's print is still below the 11 to 15% levels we saw during the same period last year.

Read more: The Star (cabinet agenda), Laotian Times

Sixty-Five Years and Counting the Receipts

Bilateral Chinese trade was $9.817 billion in 2025, up 19.3 percent year-on-year, and China's cumulative investment in Laos is now in excess of $18 billion. Xi Jinping and President Thongloun Sisoulith swapped formal congratulations on April 25, the anniversary date of 65 years of diplomatic relations, and Xi said Laos is "a priority in China's neighborhood diplomacy." The railway, which gets no end of mention in this newsletter, and which has moved more than 80 million cumulative tons of cargo, is getting most of the credit for the rising trade figures. More than 80 percent of Lao agricultural exports, including rubber, durian, and high-quality rice, get to Chinese consumers directly on that line.

Read more: The Star (event timeline), Asian News Network (tourist arrivals), Xinhua (action plan), Laotian Times (language enrollment), CGTN (Xi)

Laos Keeps the Lights On in Hanoi

Laos sent 2.92 billion kWh across the border to Vietnam in Q1 2026, nearly 120 percent more than they did in the same quarter last year. That figure is 3.8 percent of Vietnam's total use. The increase came on the back of a few projects that came online through 2025, including the 600 MW Monsoon Wind farm and the 81-kilometer Tuong Duong to Do Luong 220kV line that opened in November. Vietnam's approved import pipeline is now involving 47 Lao projects totaling 8,260 MW, of which 2,379 MW is already delivering power, up from 1,700 MW in 2024. The 2030 target is 5,000 MW, going up to 11,000 MW by 2050.

Read more: The Star (Oudomxay solar, China line), Laotian Times (Monsoon Wind timeline)

Tourist Count Climbs Toward Six Million

Q1 brought 1.36 million visitors to Laos, up 8% year-on-year, making the government's 2026 target of 5 to 6 million look like it will be less of a stretch than it did in January. Thailand still sends about a third of all arrivals, but the interesting bit is happening on the margins. US arrivals were up 38.8%, Europe as a whole rose 52%, and the UAE posted 215% growth off a low base. Brazil and Greece each came in around 152%. Chinese visitors are expected to reach 2 million this year, continuing to be helped along by the Laos-China Railway and the 65th anniversary of bilateral ties. Interestingly, for the Lao New year period, Luang Prabang specifically saw a big change in demographics this year. The celebrations pulled in just 68,126 visitors this April, down from 126,846 a year earlier, and festival revenue was cut almost in half ($52.2 million from $97.5 million). Chinese arrivals more than doubled to 2,102 while Thai visitors collapsed 75 percent to 1,207, a reversal that would have seemed far-fetched two years ago. Vietnam rose 142 percent to round out the top three. Domestic tourists fell hardest in volume, off 48 percent. The international visitors who did show up stayed an average of five days and spent about $300 per person per day.

Read more: Laotian Times ($13B revenue target), Travel and Tour World (2025 target exceeded), Laotian Times (Luang Prabang New Year)

Rain Does What Policy Couldn't

Three days of light rain after the Lao new year dropped Vientiane's AQI from more than 200 (unhealthy) to between 26 and 37 (good). The dry season had thrown up more than 16,000 fire hotspots nationwide in the first quarter, daily counts went above 2,200 in mid-April. Phou Phanang National Protected Area has lost more than 1,400 hectares to the flames this year as holiday temperatures got as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109.4F).

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane Talks Insurance with the Hub Builders

Officials from Lao ministries, insurers DBV, Willis Towers Watson, and QBE came together in Vientiane on April 24 to talk through insurance and risk management for the energy and mining sectors. Vietnam's Ambassador Nguyen Minh Tam also made an appearance. The agenda covered cybersecurity, third-party liability, price volatility, and climate risk, a fairly complete checklist of things that have gone unmanaged as the country has built itself into a would-be regional energy hub. Vietnam, is Laos' second-largest investor, and has been the chief financier of the hydropower projects and cross-border power lines that make the question of who pays when something breaks a more pressing issue than it once was.

Myanmar 20260428

August Whitcraft — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 05:09:27 GMT

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Headlines:

Min Aung Hlaing Offers Peace, Brings Death Penalty

Wang Yi Drops By to Bless the New Boss

Three Fronts, and a Junta Stretched Thin

Sold on a Fault Line

Ta'ang Spring, Beijing Winter

Brussels Hits Snooze on Sanctions Until 2027

ASEAN Asks Nicely for the Other 22,000

The Junta Doesn't Like What It Can't Read

Mae Sot Bridge Stirs, Maybe

Min Aung Hlaing Offers Peace, Brings Death Penalty

Min Aung Hlaing signed emergency ordinances on Friday that put 60 townships in nine states and regions under direct military command, transferring all executive and judicial authority to Regional Military Commands for 90 days. Military tribunals have been given permission to hand down death sentences without any right of appeal. The order is for territories in Shan, Rakhine, Sagaing, Chin, Magwe, and Mandalay Region, including 14 in Rakhine, most of them already held by the Arakan Army. Just a few days earlier, he was assuring visiting Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow that he was doing his best to find peace, even though he also set a July 31 deadline for ethnic armed organizations to come to the table or face "necessary action." The martial law list includes territories held by the TNLA and United Wa State Army, groups that have already accepted his presidency.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Ye Win Oo delegation), DVB (death penalty appeals), DVB (inauguration)

Wang Yi Drops By to Bless the New Boss

Wang Yi went to Naypyitaw on April 25, the first senior Chinese official to call since Min Aung Hlaing took the presidency, and apparently left with everything both sides wanted. Min Aung Hlaing got diplomatic cover. Beijing offered "firm support" for his sovereignty, a promise to speak up for the regime at the UN, in ASEAN, and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation forum, and Wang's quotable belief that Myanmar "will become a developed country" under his leadership. China received security guarantees in the form of a personal assurance that no activity harming Chinese interests would be permitted on Myanmar soil, renewed momentum on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, and more commitments on the Mandalay-Muse-Kyaukphyu railway. Wang's visit was his third to Myanmar since the 2021 coup and came days after a similar call by Sihasak.

Read more: AP News (ASEAN, border talks), The Irrawaddy (Myitsone Dam revival), Nation Thailand (Wang Yi), The Irrawaddy (junta military losses), New Day Myanmar (Min Aung Hlaing)

Three Fronts, and a Junta Stretched Thin

The KNLA surrounded the regime's Waw Lay command base (71 kilometers south of Myawaddy) on Saturday, leaving it standing only because airstrikes and suicide drones kept resistance forces back. In Rakhine, the military sent troops and heavy weapons to at least seven positions west of Sittwe between April 21 and 23, after Arakan Army chief Twan Mrat Naing set an end-of-2027 deadline to take Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Man Aung. The one bright spot for the generals came on April 25. After a six-month village-by-village grind, troops retook Falam in Chin State. Rihkawdar, the resistance-held trade hub on the Indian border, is reportedly next on the list.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Thai border spillover), The Irrawaddy (Falam casualty toll), BNI Online (Sittwe fortifications)

Sold on a Fault Line

The regime's 14th public meeting since December pitching the revival of the Myitsone Dam took place in Myitkyina on April 25, well-timed to Wang Yi's swing through Naypyitaw. The 6,000-MW, $3.6 billion project is 25 km from the Sagaing Fault (that’s the one that caused last March's 7.7 shaker). Kachin's junta-appointed chief minister again repeated the story about how the dam will solve local electricity needs. Early construction has already displaced more than 15,000 people. The Kachin Independence Army, which currently controls large areas of the state, says its opposition comes along with overwhelming local sentiment.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Ta'ang Spring, Beijing Winter

The PSLF-TNLA, which captured all or parts of 13 townships during Operation 1027 and built a civilian-led Ta'angland Council as a counter to Chinese-style top-down rule, congratulated Min Aung Hlaing on taking (no pun intended) the presidency on April 15, 2025. Chinese pressure pushed the TNLA to sign the Haigen ceasefire in Kunming last October, after which it pulled out from Mogok and Momeik. In March the MNDAA overran Kutkai with Chinese connivance. The TNLA still holds six Ta'angland townships.

Brussels Hits Snooze on Sanctions Until 2027

The EU rolled over its Myanmar sanctions for another year on April 27, keeping asset freezes, travel bans, and an arms embargo in place on 105 people and 22 entities through the end of April next year. One name was removed from the list, but that’s because they died. The UN has numbered the conflict's displacement at 3.6 million, and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has confirmed nearly 8,000 killings and close to 31,000 arrests since February 2021. Brussels said it "stands ready to impose additional restrictive measures."

Read more: Brussels Times (dual-use export ban), Anadolu Agency (military training ban), Devdiscourse (Min Aung Hlaing), Internazionale (detention toll)

ASEAN Asks Nicely for the Other 22,000

The Philippines, as ASEAN chair, called on the junta April 24 to release more political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, whose 27-year sentence was trimmed by a sixth as a result of the April 17 amnesty. Sihasak passed along ASEAN's concerns to Min Aung Hlaing, who said "good things" were being considered for the 80-year-old and that she was being "well looked after."

The Junta Doesn't Like What It Can't Read

Three news agencies, Khonumthung Media Group, Chin World, and Myatmaukkhit News Agency, lost their publishing licenses on April 24, with the ban backdated to April 9. All three are accused of publishing content detrimental to "national security, the rule of law, and public peace." Two of them mostly covered happenings in Chin State. Khonumthung's editor Salai Robert said the outlet had declined to renew its license under an administration that treats independent media as an enemy, and that the revocation fits a pattern stretching back to the 2021 coup, when 7Day, Mizzima, DVB, Myanmar Now, and Khit Thit lost their licenses on the same day.

Mae Sot Bridge Stirs, Maybe

The Myawaddy-Mae Sot Friendship Bridge No. 2 is reportedly expected to reopen for commercial traffic within days. If it comes to pass, it will be the end of a closure that began August 18. The bridge is a main artery on the East-West Economic Corridor, and its eight-month shutdown has brought official border trade to a standstill. Border traders say no official announcement has come through yet, so the re-opening is, as of now, still a rumor.

Cambodia 20260427

August Whitcraft — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 02:13:31 GMT

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Headlines:

Washington Names a Senator Phnom Penh Won't

Phnom Penh Counts the Bodies, Not the Bosses

Wang Yi Brings a Shopping List to Phnom Penh

Bangkok Rips Up the Gulf Deal

Class of 2026 Gets the Call

Phnom Penh's Finest, Now in the Dock

NBC Offers Apologies, Not Refunds

Washington Returns With a Smaller Check

Two-Thirds of Trade Now Rides on RCEP

Twenty Billion Dreams, Two Billion Reality

Washington Names a Senator Phnom Penh Won't

The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Cambodian Senator Kok An and 28 associates on Thursday, accusing the Crown Resorts tycoon of running pig-butchering compounds out of his casinos in Poipet, Sihanoukville, and Bavet, where trafficked workers were reportedly beaten for missing daily contact quotas with American targets. OFAC made a claim on more than $700 million in cryptocurrency, took control of 503 domains, and named Heng Feng Cambodia Bank as well as his security conglomerate Anco Brothers. Thai police had already raided his border properties last July, taking $33.8 million in assets, and he now faces an arrest warrant there. Kok An is the second senator Washington has sanctioned for ties to the industry, after Ly Yong Phat in 2024. The Senate's spokesperson said Kok An has "immunity" as a sitting member, and that questions should be directed to U.S. authorities.

Read more: Bangkok Post (political shield angle), Unchained Crypto ($10B annual losses), PBS ($21B 2025 losses), CamboJA News (compound closures), OCCRP (Hun Sen ties)

Phnom Penh Counts the Bodies, Not the Bosses

The government released its tallies, and they're impressive on paper. More than 250 scam centers raided, 91 casinos shuttered, 13,039 foreigners deported from 33 nationalities since early 2025, and another 241,888 who read the room and left on their own steam between mid-January and mid-April. A new anti-scam law issued on April 6 adds teeth, offering life sentences for operators whose schemes result in a death. CENTRAL executive director Moeun Tola said "Without holding the masterminds accountable, these online scam networks cannot be destroyed."

Read more: Nation Thailand (Wang Yi meeting), Khaosod English ($19B GDP share), The Star (four working groups), CamboJA News (low-level targeting critique)

Wang Yi Brings a Shopping List to Phnom Penh

China sent both its foreign and defense ministers to Phnom Penh for the first meeting under a new "2+2" strategic dialogue, an idea Xi Jinping floated during his state visit last year. The format is going to be upgraded to "3+3" with the addition of Cambodia's Interior Ministry and China's Ministry of Public Security. Wang Yi used the trip to tell Hun Manet that scam centers must be "completely eradicated," a demand that’s now formalized along with growing law enforcement cooperation. Interestingly, Wang then brought a message to Bangkok, telling the Thai PM that Cambodia "no longer wants to fight." Cambodian-Sino trade was almost $20 billion last year, overwhelmingly in China's favor.

Read more: AP News (Ream Naval Base), Khaosod English (Thai PM), Arab News (scam center), Xinhua (Hun Sen meeting), CamboJA News (Cambodia-Thailand border)

Bangkok Rips Up the Gulf Deal

Thailand's National Security Council has confirmed that it scrapped the 2001 maritime MoU with Cambodia. The deal was how the countries had previously agreed to jointly tap hydrocarbons in their overlapping continental shelf claims in the Gulf of Thailand. The Thai PM announced the decision on Thursday, but it won’t go into effect until after cabinet review. The Royal Thai Navy's explanation is that too many years have passed without progress. Phnom Penh's Foreign Ministry called the unilateral Thai withdrawal "deeply regrettable," and said the agreement was the "genuine will and common interest" of both nations. Bangkok's preferred alternative is UNCLOS, a venue Cambodia has only recently joined.

Class of 2026 Gets the Call

The cabinet approved a new conscription law on Thursday that will see Cambodian males aged 18 to 25 to serve 24 months in the military. The new rules replace a 2006 law that has been unenforced for two decades. The upper age limit is down from 30, and the service expected is longer (from 18 months to 24). Hun Manet telegraphed the change last July as things started to heat up with Thailand. One independent monitor has already flagged the possibility of ghost soldiers on the existing payroll.

Read more: CamboJA News (socioeconomic disparities), Asian News Network (corruption warnings)

Phnom Penh's Finest, Now in the Dock

Cambodia's Anti-Corruption Unit referred Deputy Director-General of Immigration Uk Heisela and Phnom Penh Deputy Police Commissioner Sor Samnang to court on Wednesday over allegations of bribery tied to scam networks and money laundering. Pro-government outlet Fresh News named Samnang's wife and a man identified as Yat Kosal as additional suspects. Authorities say they have shut down hundreds of scam compounds this year, deported around 48,000 foreign workers from them, and opened cases against some 750 alleged ringleaders.

Read more: CamboJA News

NBC Offers Apologies, Not Refunds

About a hundred protesters, mostly Chinese, blocked the road outside the National Bank of Cambodia on Friday, some holding photos of Xi Jinping, after a third round of talks ended the same way as the first two did, with the NBC telling Huione Pay customers to sue somebody else. The central bank says Huione Pay and H-Pay are separate entities, which sidesteps the inconvenient detail that customers were told to migrate to H-Pay after Huione Pay ran out of funds. H-Pay's license was yanked on April 10, and liquidation now falls to Reachs & Partners, whose CEO told claimants the firm had only secured office premises the night before opening its doors. When customers asked whether holdings in USDT could be refunded, he told them to file their documents first, then added that "USDT is illegal."

Read more: CamboJA News

Washington Returns With a Smaller Check

The US and Cambodia signed a five-year, $36 million health deal on April 2, the first America First Global Health Strategy agreement in Asia, for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis programs. Washington is putting in more than $30 million; Phnom Penh is kicking in $5.3 million of its own. For context, last year's USAID purge killed 30 Cambodian projects and roughly $260 million in health, education and civil society funding. PSI Cambodia's Chi Socheat called the deal a "positive sign" but said nobody has told the NGOs that ran those programs for decades whether they will see any of the new money.

Read more: CamboJA News

Two-Thirds of Trade Now Rides on RCEP

Cambodia's first-quarter trade was $17.58 billion, up 18 percent year-on-year, and RCEP partners made up $11.26 billion, or almost two-thirds of the total. China, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand lead the pack. The catch is that imports from RCEP countries rose 24.2 percent but exports only inched up 4.2 percent.

Twenty Billion Dreams, Two Billion Reality

Cambodia and Vietnam closed their 2026 Business Dialogue with visions of a $20 billion bilateral trade target and border checkpoints upgraded to international standards. The Q1 numbers tell a different story, however. Vietnam is already Cambodia's third-largest trading partner and fifth-largest investor, having 223 registered projects and nearly $3 billion in capital invested. The Phnom Penh dialogue, put together by the Vietnamese embassy and the Cambodia-Vietnam Business Association, brought together more than 200 delegates.

Thailand 20260424

August Whitcraft — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 01:28:32 GMT

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Headlines:

Bangkok Tears Up the Gentleman's Agreement

Vouching for the General

Moody's Blesses the Slowdown

Three Tankers Home, Bill Still Pending

Chiang Mai Disappears Into Its Own Smoke

BOI Tires of Subsidizing Strangers

Sixty Days Was Too Generous

Bangkok Takes Its Cambodia Complaints to the UN Bake Sale

Khao San's Six-License Miracle

One License to Rule the Derivatives

Bangkok Tears Up the Gentleman's Agreement

Thailand's National Security Council voted Thursday to scrap MoU 44, the 2001 maritime framework that was supposed to unlock joint development of potentially energy-rich Gulf waters shared with Cambodia. After 25 years, the scorecard shows five rounds of talks, zero agreements, and, by Bangkok's account, more suspicion than when they started. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, chairing only the NSC's second meeting of 2026, said the cancellation can go ahead without any consultation with Phnom Penh. The Foreign Affairs Ministry will now take the decision to cabinet before starting the formal termination. The replacement framework is UNCLOS, which Cambodia joined in March, a fact the Royal Thai Navy chief of staff pointed to with some satisfaction as removing Bangkok's need for any bespoke bilateral arrangement. The official line is that maritime boundaries should be settled first, joint development second.

Read more: Bangkok Post (spokeswoman), Nation Thailand (data)

Vouching for the General

Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow flew to Naypyidaw on Wednesday to meet Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader turned self-installed president, and told reporters Bangkok wants a "leading role" in bringing Myanmar back into ASEAN's good graces. The sell comes with conditions, technically. Sihasak was welcoming of the Burmese New Year amnesty but also suggested that more prisoner releases and humanitarian access might be appropriate. Of the 4,000-plus names on the amnesty list, only about 1,600 were released, and fewer than 300 were political prisoners, out of about 22,000 still held. Two major rebel groups rejected Min Aung Hlaing's offer of dialogue the day before Sihasak arrived in Naypyidaw.

Read more: Kyodo News (ASEAN reintegration), Human Rights Watch (prisoner release gap)

Moody's Blesses the Slowdown

Moody's upgraded Thailand's credit outlook to stable from negative on Tuesday, even though every number on the board appears to be begging to differ. The NESDC expects GDP to grow 1.4% in 2026, the IMF came in at 1.5%. Public debt is on track to reach 69.36% of GDP by end of fiscal 2027, a rounding error below the statutory 70% ceiling. The 3.788 trillion baht FY2027 budget leaves space for only about a fifth of the budget to go toward investment, as 73.3% is committed to recurrent spending. 151 billion baht was allocated to principal repayment against 1.45 trillion baht in maturing obligations. The Finance Ministry is expected to refinance the balance. The big banks all reported margin compression. Bangkok Bank's NIM fell 12.3%, SCB X's slipped 13.7%, and KTB's slid 15.8%. Moody's said that cooler domestic politics and easing tariff pressure were to thank for their rosier view. Borrowing headroom is about 800 billion baht.

Read more: Nation Thailand (budget breakdown), Bangkok Post (IMF forecast), Bangkok Post (bank NIM compression), TradingView (Moody's rationale)

Three Tankers Home, Bill Still Pending

Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow flew to Oman on April 15 to ask the sultanate to put in a good word with Tehran, and it appears to have worked. PTT's 2-million-barrel crude carrier Serifos, marooned in Sharjah since March 7, is now heading home, and Bangchak got its 700,000-barrel MT. POLA through to Sriracha on April 7 after the Foreign Ministry assured the Iranian Embassy the vessel was "not a party to the conflict." SCG has one naphtha carrier out and another still waiting. PTT took more than 230 billion baht in liquidity exposure as it sourced replacement crude, and the Oil Fuel Fund is nearly 60 billion baht in the red. Energy Minister Akanat Promphan is trying to chip away at that deeply uncomfortable number by squeezing refineries for an extra 5 baht on every liter tacked on to ex-refinery prices through May 9.

Read more: Nation Thailand (refinery margin gains), Asian News Network (SCG second vessel)

Chiang Mai Disappears Into Its Own Smoke

NASA's Terra satellite showed on paper what every visitor feels in their lungs, as northern Thailand was blanketed under smoke thick enough to erase the mountain ridges that Chiang Mai is famous for. Ground sensors showed PM2.5 above 200 micrograms per cubic meter, well into "very unhealthy" territory, and the ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre raised its transboundary haze alert to level three, the highest level it has available, on March 27. In Pai, the backpacker town northwest of the city, tourist arrivals are down 90 percent after more than a month of dogged haze. About 70 percent of Chiang Mai's April’s smoke comes from the burngin of biomass.

Read more: Streamline Feed (supply chain angle), NASA (satellite imagery)

BOI Tires of Subsidizing Strangers

The Board of Investment's free ride is getting shorter. Industry Minister Varawut Silpa-archa told reporters ahead of the April 23 BOI board meeting that some investors have been collecting Thai incentives while sourcing nothing locally and hiring nobody, and the ministry has had enough. Revised BOI conditions are being drafted to favor industries that use domestic supply chains, and Varawut's example was a little specific as he mentioned that data centers would be welcome only if they buy Thai-made PCBs. The ministry is also putting together a THB100 billion Industrial Transformation Fund, expected to be introduced in phases, with World Bank talks opening and private co-investors expected to follow. Some BOI rules haven't been revised since Varawut's own father, Banharn Silpa-archa, was a minister.

Sixty Days Was Too Generous

Tourism and Sports Minister Surasak Phancharoenworakul wants to do away with the 60-day visa-free scheme that was introduced with fanfare in mid-2024, putting it back to the 30 days it used to be. The reason is simple - 90% of visitors leave within 30 days anyway, so the extra month is a gift almost nobody uses for legitimate tourism. The 10% who do linger are mostly the ones working illegally, dodging taxes, and engaging in what authorities call "visa-free abuse." The Cabinet proposal also includes financial screening, investment-source checks, and mandatory pre-arrival registration through the Thailand Digital Arrival Card.

Read more: Nation Thailand (domestic tourism), Malay Mail (financial screening), Travel and Tour World (TDAC deadline)

Bangkok Takes Its Cambodia Complaints to the UN Bake Sale

At an ECOSOC financing-for-development forum on April 22, Thailand used its right of reply to accuse Cambodia of "unprovoked and indiscriminate armed attacks" that killed 19 civilians, injured 51, and forced more than 400,000 people from their homes during two incidents in July and December 2025. Ambassador Cherdchai Chaivaivid rose after the Cambodian delegation spoke to catalogue decades of Thai goodwill, starting from the hosting of refugees during the conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s to more than $17 million in development aid, technical assistance, and scholarships since the pandemic. Thailand, he added, had no choice but to act in self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

Khao San's Six-License Miracle

Bangkok MPs told parliament on April 22 that up to 90 percent of nightlife venues are running without licenses nationwide. He said that Khao San Road alone has more than 100 venues operating on just six valid permits, many staying open past 4am. Operators in Pattaya and Phuket pay up to ten agencies monthly to stay in business, payments that reform advocates want to bring into a better-regulated system. A public hearing on the proposed Entertainment Place Act amendment is expected in May before the bill gets sent back to parliament.

One License to Rule the Derivatives

The SEC has opened public consultation on rules that would let licensed crypto exchanges apply for derivatives licenses using their existing corporate structures, instead of via a separate company, as is required under the current rules. The draft adds conflict-of-interest rules to stop exchanges from exploiting customer order flow for their own advantage, and raises financial reporting standards for clearing houses to international benchmarks. The window for feedback will close May 20. The proposal builds on cabinet-approved changes from February that recognized Bitcoin and other digital assets as eligible underlying instruments for futures contracts under the Derivatives Act.

Read more: MEXC (regional positioning), Invezz (Blockchain.com, Kraken), Crypto News (Derivatives Act)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Vietnam 20260423

August Whitcraft — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 02:48:31 GMT

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Headlines:

Hormuz Headache

Seoul Brings the Checkbook to Hanoi

One Chair, Two Hats, Beijing Playbook

Vuong Bets the Farm, Twice

Mega-Projects Can't Find the Hands to Build Them

The Tortoise Laps the Hare

Saigon Offers $190 for Baby Number Two

Tsinghua or Bust

Milk Tea Hits the Ceiling

Diaspora Dollars Dry Up in Saigon

Americans Take the Whole Terminal

Forty Is the New Unemployable

Hormuz Headache

Brent crude tipped $115.6 a barrel and Vietnam is feeling every dollar of it. Diesel rose more than 57% in March, dragging asphalt up almost a third, cement up more than 7%, and cost estimates for major transport projects up by about 8%. Aviation is taking the biggest beating. Vietnam Airlines says jet fuel, normally around a third of its cost base, now consumes half, and each $1 rise in crude adds VND300 billion (~$11.4M) to annual costs. Hanoi is scrambling. The Airports Corporation is looking at fee cuts, Hai Phong zeroed out port infrastructure fees on fuel shipments through the end of the year, the government added VND8 trillion to the fuel subsidy fund, and lawmakers have waived environmental, VAT and special consumption taxes on fuel from April 16 to June 30, at a cost of VND7.3 trillion a month. HSBC's Yun Liu says the 10% full-year growth target is in doubt if energy prices stay as they are; Vietnam gets roughly four-fifths of its crude from the Middle East.

Read more: VnEconomy (fertilizer price), VnEconomy (jet fuel), VnEconomy (fee waiver), VnExpress (reserve buffer)

Seoul Brings the Checkbook to Hanoi

Lee Jae-myung landed in Hanoi as the first foreign leader received by To Lam since his “elevation,” and the two men wasted little time getting down to business. Twelve MOUs resulted from the summit, the headline items being two nuclear agreements between Korea Electric Power Corporation and Vietnam's state energy group for feasibility studies and financing for Ninh Thuan No. 2. It might be worth remembering that’s a plant Japan walked away from because the 2035 timeline was too tight. Hyundai Rotem is expected to sign a ~$110 million contract for metro cars on Ho Chi Minh City's urban rail line; Korean firms are also in talks for a $740 million project in a “southeastern city” and a consulting role on Gia Binh airport. Samsung's talks on a back-end semiconductor plant have made progress, though the size of any deal is still up in the air. Bilateral trade was $94.6 billion last year; the two sides want to see that get to $150 billion by 2030, and both think that’s a realistic target.

Read more: Yonhap (summit), Korea Herald (aid center), Internazionale (Samsung investment), Chosun (KRW contract), Yonhap (KEPCO partner)

One Chair, Two Hats, Beijing Playbook

The National Assembly voted unanimously to give To Lam the state presidency on top of the party general secretaryship he already holds, bending the "four pillars" convention that’s kept power separated between four offices for decades. The last man to wear both hats was Nguyen Phu Trong, who combined them from 2018 to 2021 before being pressured to step back from the presidency. To Lam, confirmed in January for another five-year term as party chief, is treating the double role as a mandate more than a stopgap. A former public security minister who made his name enforcing Trong's anti-corruption purges, among other things, he is now openly studying China's surveillance model and further bilateral security agreements are expected.

Vuong Bets the Farm, Twice

Pham Nhat Vuong told VinFast shareholders on April 22 that the company will never build a gasoline or hybrid car. The stake in the ground was laid even as other automakers are walking back their EV timelines. The numbers are split. 2025 revenue was more than VND 90 trillion, up 139% on 2024, with net losses of more than VND 97 trillion. VinFast has a bit more than a third of Vietnam's car market, sister company Green SM controls more than half of four-wheel ride-hailing by transaction value, and its charging network numbers 150,000 ports nationwide. For 2026, Vuong wants to deliver 300,000 cars globally, about a third of that number outside Vietnam, which would be a fivefold rise on last year's exports. He expects EBITDA profitability in 2027.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (Green SM IPO), VnEconomy (charging infrastructure), Nikkei Asia (export jump)

Mega-Projects Can't Find the Hands to Build Them

Long Thanh Airport is 6,000 workers short of the 14,000 it needs, with about 8,500 engineers and laborers on site as of mid-April. The 115-meter passenger terminal that contractors call the project's "heart" has seen daily headcount collapse from about 5,300 before Tet to 1,500, recovering to just 3,400 measured against a need of closer to 6,000. Down at Phu Quoc, where 21 projects tied to APEC 2027 are racing against the same clock, the situation is even worse. One contractor on the Sun Group-led convention center says its workforce is only 30-40% of demand, and AIT, wiring a 220kV substation that has to be live before November 2027, has pushed daily wages to around VND800,000 (US$30), 30-40% above what it had penciled in when it signed the deal. "At this stage we're not calculating profit or loss," said AIT's Dang Xuan Minh. Contractors are now recruiting on basic physical fitness alone, covering travel and meals, paying standby retainers to workers with nothing yet to do, and running three continuous shifts. Fewer young Vietnamese are taking heavy construction work, and a packed southern pipeline, including the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau and HCMC-Long Thanh expressways, means every new project needs to pull workers from the same shallow pool.

Read more: VnExpress (cost escalation), VnExpress (headcounts)

The Tortoise Laps the Hare

Vietnam has officially passed Thailand in PPP-adjusted GDP, hitting $2.03 trillion in the IMF's April 2026 World Economic Outlook. Nominal GDP came in at $527 billion - that’s 34th globally - on 7.1% growth. None of this news is a tremendous surprise to anyone on the ground. A CPA Australia survey of 4,166 firms in 11 Asia-Pacific markets found almost nine-in-ten small businesses in Vietnam are planning expansion in 2026, the highest number of any market polled. The regional average was about two-thirds of companies.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (PPP/GDP), VnEconomy (SME survey)

Saigon Offers $190 for Baby Number Two

Ho Chi Minh City has doled out VND5 million ($190) to each of 1,310 mothers who have given birth to a second child since September, after health officials declared a demographic "red alert" because of a fertility rate of 1.51, the lowest of any locality in Vietnam. An earlier cohort of 7,650 women got VND3 million apiece under an earlier scheme that ran in the pre-merger city. The payments come ahead of a new Population Law (July 1), which will formally do away with the country's two-child “limit.” For context, Singapore's Baby Bonus pays SGD11,000 ($8,300) per child for the first two, and South Korea gives parents 2 million won ($1,500) at birth and 3 million won on the birth of a second child, on top of years of monthly allowances. Neither country's fertility rate has budged, however.

Read more: VnExpress

Tsinghua or Bust

To Lam's April 14-17 Beijing visit resulted in 52 university cooperation agreements, with Tsinghua and Peking University each signing nine deals with Vietnamese institutions for things including double degrees, doctoral training, and joint research. Hanoi University of Science and Technology anchored its Peking deal on engineering and data science; Vietnam National University Hanoi went to Tsinghua for political science, international relations and linguistics.

Read more: VnExpress (institutional turnout)

Milk Tea Hits the Ceiling

Mixue closed 428 stores globally last year, with Indonesia and Vietnam, its two biggest overseas markets, absorbing much of the pain. The closures come as a 3,000-person iPOS survey in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi shows out-of-home coffee and milk tea visits plateauing. Almost two-fifths of respondents drank out at most twice a week last year, up from a third in 2024. The VND35,000 to 50,000 band is now the market's power band, as well as its most crowded. Mixue's VND10,000 to 30,000 pricing play built the mass market, but it seems that the mass market has decided it's full. The chain had 1,304 Vietnam stores in Q4, but now wants to rationalize the footprint to fewer, bigger, better-located outlets with bigger prep counters and street-facing storefronts.

Read more: VnExpress (revenue/profits), VnExpress (consumer spending)

Diaspora Dollars Dry Up in Saigon

Remittances to Ho Chi Minh City fell to just over $2 billion in Q1 2026, down almost a sixth from the previous quarter and almost a fifth from a year earlier, according to the State Bank of Vietnam's Region 2 branch. The headline reasons are familiar: a sluggish global recovery, sticky inflation in the countries where overseas Vietnamese earn their money, tight monetary policy abroad, and the Middle East conflict pushing up energy spending. The quieter admission is domestic. The dong-dollar interest rate gap has narrowed to a point that sending money to Vietnam now feels less rewarding, and local investment products haven't given the diaspora a compelling reason to put capital to work at home.

Read more: VnExpress (official attribution), VnEconomy (city recovery)

Americans Take the Whole Terminal

AG&P LNG has agreed to buy Hai Linh's 51% stake in the Cai Mep LNG import terminal in Vung Tau province, giving US-based Nebula Energy full ownership of one of only two operational LNG import facilities in Vietnam. AG&P already owned the other 49%. The terminal, connected by pipeline to the 3.9-gigawatt Phu My power station, has been supplying gas-fired plants and industrial customers in southern Vietnam since late 2025. AG&P wants to double throughput from 3 million to 6 million tonnes annually. Hai Linh says it's going to redirect capital to its core petroleum business and the Hiep Phuoc power project. The deal is pending regulatory approval.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (storage specs), Gasworld (global network)

Forty Is the New Unemployable

Ho Chi Minh City's Q1 labor market had 82,700 open positions chasing just 52,600 applicants, yet workers aged 36-49, the largest applicant pool (almost 21,000 people), were targeted by a measly 0.32% of postings. Industrial park and export-zone employers want workers under 35, because they are seen as more adaptable to shift work and new machinery. More than four-fifths of required no more than a high school education.

Read more: VnExpress

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Laos 20260422

August Whitcraft — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:46:50 GMT

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Headlines:

Laos Plugs Sunshine Into Yunna, Wind to VN

Vientiane Bets the Gold

Gold Glitters, Diesel Drags

Vietnamese Wind Beats the Clock in Savannakhet

Vientiane Envoy Gets the Full Beijing Treatment

Yunnan to Luang Namtha, Hold the Transfers

Ten Percent by 2040, On Paper

Four Boxes for Every Scalpel and Sensor

Laos Plugs Sunshine Into Yunnan, Wind to VN

China's Southern Power Grid switched on its first 500-kV cross-border AC transmission line on Monday. The line is a 177.5-km connection running from northern Laos into Yunnan that triples two-way capacity from 50,000 kW to 1.5 million kW. About 4.81 million kWh of solar power from a large mountain PV project in Oudomxay and Luang Namtha provinces crossed the border the same day, the first time an overseas new-energy project has traded into China's electricity market. The solar facility has an average yearly capacity of 1.65 billion kWh and is expected to send 1.1 billion kWh north throughout this year. The full line is rated for 3 billion kWh of clean electricity yearly, which is about 30 times what the previous connection could support. In a separate story, T&T Group’s 495 MW Savan 1 wind project in Savannakhet province was able to get commercial operations running within an unusually short 16 months. The 300 MW first phase is already running 48 turbines that feed into Vietnam’s grid. The timeline is the story because instead of building the plant and then waiting on transmission approvals, T&T ran construction and the grid link in parallel, shortening a process that usually drags on for years.

Read more: The Star (capacity multiplier figures), China Daily (trading normalization plans), Xinhua (minister quotes), News Laodong (Wind to VN)

Vientiane Bets the Gold

On April 2, the Ministry of Finance and Lao Bullion Bank signed an MOU at Vientiane's Suphattra Hotel to study a national sovereign wealth fund, to be called the Lao Investment Authority, with gold reserves, gold ore, and bullion to be used as the fund’s asset base. The pitch, made by debt management chief Vileth Kinnavong, name-checked Singapore's Temasek and Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional as models, a heady comparison for a country that has one of Southeast Asia's heaviest debt loads. The architects are planning two arms, a Strategic Development Fund to manage state assets for returns, and a Strategic Stabilization Fund to prop up the kip and support government liquidity. Using gold as a guarantee for bond issuance is explicitly on the table as a way to reduce debt servicing pressure. The preparatory phase, which will involve coming up with legal frameworks, institutional structures, and regulatory systems, is expected to take eight to twelve months. Lao Bullion Bank CEO Chanthone Sitthixay says the fund will allow for turning national assets into productive capital.

Gold Glitters, Diesel Drags

Q1 exports totaled $2.77 billion, with gold by itself bringing in more than $480 million, almost all of it absorbed by Chinese buyers. Potash added $299 million, cassava shipments to Thailand cleared $162 million, and the quarter closed out with a $310 million trade surplus. March, however, was on the uncomfortable side. Diesel imports ran $183 million for the month, double January and February’s numbers combined, and the trade balance briefly slipped into deficit. For the full Q1, diesel accounted for $375 million of the $2.46 billion import bill, more than 15 percent of everything Laos bought in from abroad. The surplus is real, just thinner than it was a year ago, when the same period resulting in $414 million in the black.

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane Envoy Gets the Full Beijing Treatment

Xi Jinping met Lao special envoy Saleumxay Kommasith in Beijing on Tuesday, accepting a personal letter from President Thongloun Sisoulith and a readout of January's LPRP congress. Wang Yi followed the same day, celebrating wins in railway connectivity, minerals and electricity cooperation, as well as a new five-year action plan for the "community with a shared future." Plenty of this and much more to come during next year's 65th anniversary of diplomatic ties and the Year of China-Laos Friendship.

Read more: Bastillepost (Wang Yi quotes), Bastillepost (Xi meeting details)

Yunnan to Luang Namtha, Hold the Transfers

Laos and China opened a second cross-border bus route on April 11, with vehicles running daily between Jinghong in Yunnan and Xiang Kok in Luang Namtha through a 280-kilometer western corridor that was formerly bereft of direct public transport. One-way tickets about $22, and the journey is a seven-to-eight-hour ride through the Mengman Chahe border crossing. Unlike the existing Mohan-Boten shuttle, a 16-kilometer hop built mainly to feed the Laos-China Railway, this route is a standalone intercity service into territory previously left to traders and locals. Trial runs started in December 2025 after talks in Kunming the previous May.

Ten Percent by 2040, On Paper

Laos wants its digital economy to grow from 3% of GDP to 10% by 2040. That’s… ambitious… for a country that’s listed as 131st of 190 economies (ranked by GDP). Vannapha Phommathansy, Deputy Director General of the Digital Government Center, has been promoting a system where "digital networks, data flows, and digital services" are accessible and affordable to everyone. The ten-year Digital Economy Strategy (2021-2030) is the roadmap. The five-year Digital Economy Development Plan wrapped last year with the government publishing a Draft Decree on Digital Transformation, a paper that was built around the three pillars of digital government, economy, and society. Current constraints are poor legal clarity, limited enforcement, and a thin digital skills base.

Four Boxes for Every Scalpel and Sensor

Decision No. 1470/MOH, quietly posted to the Lao Official Gazette earlier this year, sorts medical devices into four risk classes. Three of them need full registration with the Food and Drug Department under the Ministry of Health. Class A devices and locally made export-only products get off the hook a bit more lightly, as they need only a basic notification. Emergency and humanitarian imports have a fast-track lane, as do devices that have already been cleared in countries with well-established regulators.

Myanmar 20260421

August Whitcraft — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 01:45:03 GMT

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Headlines:

The General's Pardon, the General's Prison

One in Seven Never Arrives

Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack

Telenor's Paper Trail

A Pack Costs More Than a Day's Wage

Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders

The General's Pardon, the General's Prison

Win Myint walked out of Taungoo Prison on April 17 after five years, two months, and sixteen days, freed by the same man who arrested him. That more or less summarizes the week. Min Aung Hlaing, one week into his role as "civilian president," gave amnesty to 4,514 prisoners to celebrate the Thingyan new year, commuted all death sentences, and shaved a sixth off of Aung San Suu Kyi's 27-year sentence, leaving the 80-year-old with only 22 and a half years still to serve. Win Myint is now at his daughter's house in Naypyidaw under what sources say is “strict surveillance.” Of the 4,514 released, the Political Prisoners Network Myanmar confirmed that 292 were political prisoners, and more than 22,000 are still detained. Suu Kyi's son Kim Aris hasn't heard from his mother in more than two years and continues to ask for proof she's alive.

Read more: CNA (analyst skepticism), DVB (son's demands), DVB (surveillance details), DVB (concurrent casualties), New York Times (re-arrest conditions)

One in Seven Never Arrives

A fishing trawler carrying roughly 250 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants sank in the Andaman Sea on April 9. The boat was headed to Malaysia from the Bangladeshi port of Teknaf, and the disaster left only nine survivors. The wreck is the latest story after what UNHCR said was the deadliest year on record for the Bay of Bengal crossing. 2025 saw nearly 900 dead or missing, meaning one in seven of the 6,500 who tried to make the journey never arrived. The camps in Cox's Bazar, home to around half a million children, have seen food rations cut and education spending gutted, even as fighting in Rakhine keeps pushing new arrivals across the border. More than 2,800 have attempted the crossing through April 13 of this year.

Read more: AsiaNews (Rakhine conditions), ReliefWeb (IOM rescue appeal), ReliefWeb (Save the Children), DVB (Penang interception)

Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack

Beijing put a lid on fertilizer exports in late March to protect its domestic supply, but this is a huge problem for Myanmar because planting season is getting near and a 50-percent cut in fertilizer use could reduce rice yields by up to 15 percent, according to a WFP warning. China normally accounts for about half of Myanmar's 1.1 million-ton yearly fertilizer imports. Urea bags that traded hands for 90,000 kyat before the shortage now need 150,000 on the open market. The regime has made some controlled-price stock available for 105,000 kyat to rice farmers in Naypyidaw's Lewe Township. "Ten bags of rice do not even cover the cost of one bag of fertilizer," one farmer said.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Telenor's Paper Trail

A class-action lawsuit filed in Norway on April 8 names 1,253 customers who say that Telenor forked over personal data, including addresses and last-known locations, to the junta after the 2021 coup. The company's own transparency reports show it complied with 96 percent of the 153 data requests it was given. One request, made in September 2021, targeted activist Aung Thu while he was already in prison. He was re-arrested under counter-terrorism laws at the prison gates on his release the following month. Telenor, majority-owned by the Norwegian government, entered the market in Myanmar in 2013 with a promise to connect a country just opening up. It then walked away in 2022 with 18 million customers on its books. The plaintiffs, represented by a Swedish rights organization, want a minimum of €11 million in damages.

A Pad For More Than a Day's Wage

The junta is widening its ban on sanitary pad distribution in the Sagaing and Mandalay regions with a claim that the products are being diverted to treat wounded resistance fighters and protect their feet (!). Medical workers say that’s nonsense. A pad can’t stay in place, can’t absorb enough blood, and can’t keep a gunshot wound clean. What it will do is push hidden-market prices from 3,000 kyat a pack to 9,000, (compare against a 7,800 kyat daily minimum wage). Aid groups have turned to reusable pads, but women without clean water to wash themselves then are at risk of infection, irritation and UTIs. The Sisters2Sisters collective says the policy is deliberately brutal and gender-based violence.

Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders

Myanmar Air Force Yak-130 and MiG-29 jets dropped nine bombs on a Karen National Union hospital in Bue So township, Kayin State, on April 20. At least one landed on Thai territory near Mae Wan on the Salween River. The target was about half a kilometer from the border opposite Mae Sam Laep village in Sop Moei district, Mae Hong Son province. Thai rangers from the 36th Ranger Regiment evacuated panicked residents to Huai Kong Kaad village after the impact.

Cambodia 20260420

August Whitcraft — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 02:39:46 GMT

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Headlines:

Hun Sen Offers Critics a Rifle

Ream Gets Its First Ship With Teeth

American Carts, Chinese Capital

IMF Says 4%, Economists Say 3%, Pump Says Relief

Beijing Pours a Billion Into Koh Kong's Hills

Sihanoukville's Shells Get Squatters, Not Investors

First Project Bond Takes Home the Hardware

Erection for the Rat Who Outworked the Sappers

Hun Sen Offers Critics a Rifle

Cambodia's Foreign Ministry filed a formal sovereignty protest, claiming Thai military construction is taking place in three border provinces, including an observation post in Preah Vihear and bunkers in Oddar Meanchey. Phnom Penh said the activity is a push to consolidate what it termed "illegal occupation," a phrase that doesn't leave much room for quiet diplomacy. Senate President Hun Sen spent part of Khmer New Year on the back foot, releasing a voice clip after Australia-based analyst Seng Sary called his wounded-little-finger metaphor an insult to Khmer ancestors and fallen soldiers. Hun Sen's counter was that the only alternative to negotiation is the "hard way" of military confrontation, and he invited Sary to come home and join the front line if that's his preference.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (locations), Nation Thailand (Thai rebuttal), Cambodianess (border blame), Cambodianess (quotes)

Ream Gets Its First Ship With Teeth

Hull number 622, a Type 056C corvette, pulled in to Ream Naval Base on April 4 and was formally handed over four days later, giving the Royal Cambodian Navy its first surface combatant capable of carrying missiles. The vessel is also bigger than the one that China keeps for itself, as satellite imagery puts the hull at roughly 95 meters, about five meters longer than the standard Type 056 variants used by the PLA Navy. Beijing is transferring this ship and a second corvette due in June as grant aid, not a sale. Until April, the Cambodian navy ran on small patrol craft.

Read more: Army Recognition (specs), Janes (hull comparison)

American Export Tops, Chinese Capital Growing

Cambodia's US-bound exports were $3.36 billion in Q1, up 38.4% year-on-year, raising the bilateral trade surplus to $3.23 billion as American buyers front-loaded orders at a pace that made the tariff headlines feel almost abstract. Exports for the quarter were $8.09 billion, with the usual trio of garments, footwear and travel goods sectors leading with $3.75 billion of that. That’s 46 cents of every export dollar. Japan trade grew at a more gentlemanly pace of 14.8% to $753 million. Behind those numbers, China put $1.169 billion into the country in Q1, nearly half of all registered investment capital.

Read more: The Star (deficit), Khmer Times (RCEP), Khmer Times (categories), Khmer Times (China investment)

IMF Says 4%, Economists Say 3%, Pump Says Relief

Five economists at an IBC lunch walked out with a number the IMF won't touch, calling for 3% GDP growth though 2026, down from earlier forecasts above 5%, as rising diesel and LPG costs flow through logistics, hospitality, and manufacturing. The IMF, presenting its Regional Economic Outlook in Washington, kept its Cambodia forecast steady at 4%, even as its own Asia and Pacific director reminded everyone that the region's oil and gas consumption is nearly 4% of GDP, almost double Europe's. Some relief arrived Friday, as Iran reopened the Strait (they later reversed course) and the Commerce Ministry cut diesel prices by 10.9% to 5,700 riels per liter, and bringing gasoline down 2.9% to 4,950 riels.
The government has been running roughly $50 million a month in fuel subsidies via reduced import duties on oil, gas, and a grab bag of EVs and stoves.

Read more: The Star (prices), Cambodia Investment Review (economist views), Khmer Times (regional)

Beijing Pours a Billion Into Koh Kong's Hills

Construction started on the Upper Tatay pumped-storage hydropower station in Koh Kong province, a $1 billion, 1-gigawatt project run by state-owned China National Heavy Machinery Corporation and expected to finish by 2029. The plant is designed to use intermittent solar and wind energy to fill the station and release water (and therefore produce electricity) on demand, solving the grid-stability problem that renewables are (in)famous for.

Sihanoukville Shells Get Squatters, Not Investors

Months after the late-2025 scam crackdown pushed out another wave of Chinese workers (and capital), Sihanoukville's unfinished high-rises are still empty, their ground floors taken over by vendors and laborers who've turned the space into makeshift homes. Landowner Sar Muywang, who leased her family's plot to a Chinese developer for a nine-story residential building in 2019, says they'd finish the project themselves if they could afford it. A government recovery program now extended to 2027 keeps promoting investor incentives to an audience that isn't listening.

Read more: CamboJA News (recovery program), CamboJA News (Prince Group), Asian News Network (Mondulkiri raid)

First Project Bond Takes Home the Hardware

The SchneiTec Dynamic Green Project Bond, issued in March 2025 to finance a 60MW solar plant in Kampong Chhnang, picked up two prizes at the 2026 Environmental Finance Lasting Debt Awards, for Green Bond Structure Innovation (Asia-Pacific) and Green Project Bond. The KHR196.64 billion ($49 million) deal, listed on the Cambodia Securities Exchange and backed by a credit guarantee from the ADB-affiliated CGIF, runs on a 20-year power purchase agreement with Electricite du Cambodge and is now the country’s longest-tenor corporate bond at 15 years.

Read more: Cambodia Investment Review (investor detail), Khmer Times (emissions data)

Erection for the Rat Who Outworked the Sappers

Cambodia has erected the world's first statue of a landmine-detecting rat, honoring Magawa, an African giant pouched rat who sniffed out 100 mines and cleared 141,000 square meters of contaminated land before dying shortly after his retirement in 2022. Bred in Tanzania and trained by Belgian charity Apopo (you MUST go see their visitor center in Siem Riep if you have a chance), he was ableto sweep a tennis-court-sized patch in 20 minutes, work that would take a human with a metal detector days.

Thailand 20260417

August Whitcraft — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 04:09:06 GMT

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Headlines:

Stagflation Knocks, Treasury Scrambles

Songkran Under Smoke

Money Walks as Anutin Reaches for the Wallet

Section 112's Long Shadow

RSVP to the Generals' Ball

Hat in Hand in Washington

Tourism's Patience Runs Dry

Five Days, 191 Gone

Steel Mill Gets the Permanent Red Card

Bangkok's Control Room Gets an Upgrade

Stagflation Knocks, Treasury Scrambles

Kasikorn Research Centre expects the country to slip into stagflation by late Q2 or early Q3 as oil prices averaging $90 per barrel choke growth and stoke inflation. The think tank dropped its GDP forecast to 1.2% from 1.9% and pushed its inflation call up to 3%, in light of its view that diesel subsidies can't hold much longer given the government’s fiscal capacity. The real headache is that the Oil Fuel Fund now needs a 150 billion baht ($4.1 billion) loan guarantee that would by itself add about one percentage point to public debt, putting the ratio uncomfortably close to the 70% ceiling at 69.7%, a level that wasn't supposed to be met until fiscal 2028. The whole fiscal roadmap, written when oil traded at $60-70, is having to get re-evaluated day-by-day.

Read more: Bangkok Post (oil price), Bangkok Post (debt ceiling)

Songkran Under Smoke

Northern Thailand declared an environmental emergency on April 13 because of 2,165 active wildfire hotspots in 17 provinces. 25,000 firefighters and helicopter water drops were directed at blazes climbing toward the summit of Doi Luang Chiang Dao. PM2.5 levels in Chiang Rai went up to 188.7 micrograms per cubic meter, five times the “safe” level, and Chiang Mai reportedly peaked above 900 during the Songkran travel window. The timing couldn't be worse as hospitality operators said that nearly half of all mid-April bookings in Chiang Mai were cancelled, and the Tourism Authority cut its international arrival target (again) for the fiscal year by almost a fifth. The haze isn't new, of course, it just seems like it is becoming a bigger deal. Nationwide hotspots from December through mid-April were up 25 percent year-on-year to 72,527, most of them in protected forests where enforcement is patchy and farmers still find fire to be the least expensive way to clear land, tourism and health be damned.

Read more: Bangkok Post (hotspots), Travel and Tour World (clinic data)

Money Walks as Anutin Reaches for the Wallet

Foreign investors yanked $823 million from Thai equities and $705 million from bonds in March, a reversal of the $1.7 billion that flowed into stocks during the month of February. The outflows arrived as PM Anutin Charnvirakul's election win briefly resurrected market confidence. Anutin told reporters Wednesday the government is considering a new cost-of-living relief plan, including electricity subsidies for households that use less than 200 kWh monthly. He also thanked the public for cutting oil consumption enough to keep reserves in check.

Read more: Nation Thailand (PM quotes), Islam Times (debt vulnerability)

Section 112's Long Shadow

The Supreme Court will meet April 24 to decide whether to take up a case against 44 former Move Forward Party MPs who proposed amending the lese-majeste law in 2021. Ten of those MPs now serve under the People's Party banner, and if the court accepts the petition, they could be suspended from their parliamentary duties. People's Party deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakul said the party's leadership selection is on hold until the court hands down a ruling. The legal team is working through roughly 1,000 pages of court documents. Losing 10 sitting MPs would thin the opposition's bench and further but a chill on any future attempts to touch the Section 112 live-wire.

Read more: Bangkok Post

RSVP to the Generals' Ball

Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara showed up at Min Aung Hlaing's presidential inauguration on April 10, bringing congratulations from both Thailand’s prime minister and foreign minister, as well as offering the usual promises of better cooperation on security and economic matters. The ceremony in Naypyidaw installed the Burmese general who led the 2021 coup into a five-year presidential term after an election the UN and rights groups called neither free nor fair, and which had been boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi's party. Thailand continues to publicly reaffirm its commitment to stability and shared prosperity with its neighbor.

Read more: Bangkok Post (envoy details), Khaosod English (election criticism)

Hat in Hand in Washington

Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas met the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on April 14, pitching American companies on Thailand investment opportunities and getting a blunt read on the uncomfortable new trade reality. The Chamber's take is that reciprocal trade taxes will become the "new normal" over the next two to three years, and Bangkok should keep talking if it wants to lock in policy clarity before the rules firm up. Ekniti promised administrative stability and an upgrade for Thai technical and workforce skills, two things that have become baseline asks from American investors. The Chamber said that Thailand remains important to U.S. business interests and talked up future investment, which is the diplomatic version of "we'll see."

Tourism's Patience Runs Dry

The tourism industry went public with its frustration this week, calling out the government for its lack of clear policies to fix both debt burdens that have hamstrung SMEs as well as persistently weak tourism demand. Adith Chairattananon, honorary secretary-general of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said small operators are getting squeezed by energy costs that have reduced consumer spending power, and many have already become non-performing borrowers that are unable to grow. The Tourism Council's Chai Arunanondchai said businesses will adjust, but the government needs to deliver concrete action on debt resolution and infrastructure bottlenecks at airports and second-tier cities during the rest of its term. With the fiscal roadmap already under strain (see the first story, above), more spending on tourism relief isn't going to come easily.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Five Days, 191 Gone

The Songkran holiday killed 191 people in 951 traffic accidents between April 10 and 14. Speeding and drink-driving, as usual this time of year, were the main culprits. Bangkok tallied the highest death toll at 16. The total number is down about a quarter from last year's 253 deaths, though April 14 saw 30 people killed in 192 crashes. Most victims were between 20 and 29 years old.

Read more: VnExpress

Steel Mill Gets the Permanent Red Card

Industrial regulators shut down BNS Steel Group for good, because of “unauthorized operations,” “substandard products,” and “dodgy waste handling.” The company kept running even after its factory license was pulled in May 2025, then tried to fire up new machinery this April in defiance of a 2025 rule banning new or expanded capacity for rebar and billet production. The closure is the first time authorities have swung that regulatory axe to pull the plug on a facility, setting a precedent the ministry says other violators should now expect.

Bangkok's Control Room Gets an Upgrade

The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society is rewriting its five-year plan to try and set itself up as the hub for national cybersecurity, disaster response, and digital governance. Minister Chaichanok Chidchob said that his ministry is creating a deputy minister role for the first time (to be filled by Bhumjaithai MP Boonthida Somchai), and taking the Digital Government Agency back from oversight of the Prime Minister's Office. The ministry wants to present a "Thailand First" positioning for foreign investment in data centers and cloud systems, which apparently will require investors to explain "tangible benefits" and "clear development roadmaps", for Thailand. Both of those, for now, remain undefined.

Read more: Bangkok Post

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Vietnam 20260416

August Whitcraft — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 01:25:32 GMT

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Headlines:

Beijing First

Geneva Bets Five Billion on Saigon

Hanoi Gets the Index Stamp

Vingroup Lays Track on a $5.6 Billion Bet

Circuit Board, Tariff Dodge

Korea Inc. Goes Shopping in Hanoi

Hanoi Takes a Machete to Red Tape

All Levers, All at Once

Graves Move First, Farmers Next

Grab's Second Bite at the Apple

Beijing First

Less than a week after consolidating the presidency and party general secretary roles, To Lam flew to Beijing on Tuesday for his first overseas trip as president and party chief, meeting Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. Xi told him that safeguarding the socialist system and Communist Party rule "constitutes the largest shared strategic interest" between the two countries, blunt language even by the standards of Communist fraternal summitry. The two sides signed cooperation deals on railways, logistics, and the leasing of Comac aircraft, with Li promising to speed up infrastructure connectivity in standard-gauge railways, expressways, and smart ports and to create "secure and stable" supply chains. Xi also indicated an intention to further cooperate in AI and semiconductors. Bilateral trade was $256 billion in 2025, rising at a 25 percent clip last year; Hanoi runs a deficit approaching $100 billion. Lam wrote in People's Daily that the relationship should change from growing trade volume to improving the quality of cooperation, and told Xi that developing relations with China remains the country's "objective need, strategic choice and top priority."

Read more: Independent, Club of Mozambique (trade figure), TRT World (quality over volume), Xinhua (Li Qiang promise)

Geneva Bets Five Billion on Saigon

Ho Chi Minh City approved MSC, the world's largest container shipping line, as the lead investor in a $4.9 billion mega-port at Can Gio, and groundbreaking is scheduled for April 30. The Geneva-based carrier moves 23 million TEU yearly including more than a million TEU of Vietnamese goods to the U.S., Europe and Asia through terminals in Hai Phong, Da Nang and Cai Mep. This will be an anchor at the mouth of the Cai Mep River that will be able to handle 4.8 million TEU by 2030 and 16.9 million by 2047. It’s expected to include berths built for 24,000-TEU vessels, the largest afloat today. At full capacity, Can Gio is expected to generate up to a billion and a half USD in annual revenue and create 6,000 to 8,000 direct jobs. Cargo that currently goes through Singapore and Port Klang would have a reason to reroute.

Read more: VnExpress

Hanoi Gets the Index Stamp

FTSE Russell again confirmed the upgrade to secondary emerging market status, opening the door to the FTSE All-World Index and its 4,000-plus holdings tracked by passive funds worldwide. Gerald Toledano, leading FTSE Russell's delegation for talks with the State Securities Commission, said upgrades of this kind have been rare in recent years. Authorities are pushing through reforms to meet institutional investor standards and expectations, including the simplification of administrative procedures and the addition of a clearinghouse so trades settle in a way (and in a timeframe) that institutional investors expect them to.

Vingroup Lays Track on a $5.6 Billion Bet

Vingroup broke ground last Sunday on the country's first inter-regional high-speed rail, a $5.6 billion line that will string together Hanoi and Quang Ninh in 23 minutes when it opens late 2028. The 120-kilometer route is expected to hit 350 km/h outside the capital, where speeds will be a reduced to a leisurely 120 km/h. Siemens Mobility is supplying the trainsets and signaling tech in a phased transfer to support building domestic capacity.

Read more: VnEconomy (PM confirmed), Vietnam Insiders (precedent)

Circuit Board, Tariff Dodge

Chinese PCB manufacturer Victory Giant Technology tripled its Vietnam revenue to $473 million in 2025, making up close to a fifth of the company's global sales. The reason this is notable for reader of The Memo is that the increase has come almost entirely in lockstep with tariff math, as Vietnamese-made circuit boards get a U.S. import duty of around 10% compared to a possible 35% for the same goods shipped from China. The company was at pains to remind everyone that Washington's tariff policies "remain subject to unpredictable fluctuations."

Read more: VnEconomy

Korea Inc. Goes Shopping in Hanoi

Lee Jae-yong of Samsung, Chung Euisun of Hyundai, Koo Kwang-mo of LG, and Chey Tae-won of SK are heading a 200-company delegation to Hanoi later this month, looking at opportunities in electronics, automotive, and energy. Samsung makes nearly half its global smartphones in Vietnam, LG runs more than a dozen subsidiaries, and SK is in the process of building a $2.3 billion LNG project. All four of Korea's largest chaebols showing up at once seems a bit like an endorsement.

Hanoi Takes a Machete to Red Tape

Prime Minister Le Minh Hung gave ministries until next Monday to send him plans for cutting at least 30% of the country's 198 conditional business lines, which are about 60 sectors where companies currently need government approval to operate. The sweep also puts the country's 4,603 business conditions in the spotlight, all of those are getting a review by month's end. Ministries must are being told to cut compliance costs and processing times by half while handling no more than 30% of administrative processes themselves - they’re being told to push the rest of the work down to lower levels. Hung told ministers on Monday to personally oversee the cull, saying the cuts are something the government can do now, without waiting for legislative approval.

Read more: VnEconomy

All Levers, All at Once

The State Bank corralled 26 commercial banks into cutting deposit rates after newly installed Governor Pham Duc An's meeting last Thursday. Most reductions will apply to tenors of longer than six months. The wrangling comes as system-wide credit growth was 7.83% in the first quarter, as the central bank's push toward a 15% expansion while trying to keep inflation tame at a 4.5% limit. A fuel tax cut will apply through June 30. Party General Secretary To Lam also once again went on record this week saying that the country's bottleneck "does not lie in the lack of sound policies, but in the capacity to translate those policies into tangible development outcomes."

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (Q1 GDP), VnEconomy (disbursement), VnEconomy (Lam quotes), VnEconomy (fuel tax)

Graves Move First, Farmers Next

A Trump Organization golf course in the Red River Delta was fast-tracked by then-Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh just before the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. The course site, about 40 kilometers south of Hanoi, featured toppled cemetery crosses lying in the rain as families worked to relocate their dead in advance of construction. Groundbreaking was May 21, 2025; Pham spoke at a ceremony that drew crowds of local residents, some posing for photos with Americans. According to the Le Monde story, not only did the project displace farmers and graves, but there have also been allegations of corruption in the process.

Grab's Second Bite at the Apple

Grab said it will launch Tap to Pay in 2027 in a bid to turn merchant smartphones into contactless payment terminals using NFC. The feature is intended to appeal to business partners more than consumers, a different strategy from the company's Moca e-wallet, which shut down on the Grab platform in mid-2024. Instead of requiring new point of sale hardware, Tap to Pay would let merchants accept card and QR payments straight from the GrabMerchant app. There are currently 47 licensed e-wallet providers elbowing to grab a piece of a market that already has almost 30 million active wallets.

Read more: VnEconomy

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Laos 20260415

August Whitcraft — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 04:11:25 GMT

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Headlines:

A Gigawatt of Lao Sunshine

Three Years, $11.7 Billion Rolling

Growth Down, Prices Up

Cheap Watts, Pricey Trucks

New Flight, New Bus Route

Vientiane Backs the General

A Very Regulated New Year

A Gigawatt of Lao Sunshine

China General Nuclear Power Group connected a 1-gigawatt solar installation in Oudomxay Province to the national grid, making it the country's first large-scale mountainous solar project. The facility is expected to generate 1.65 billion kilowatt hours of electricity every year, which is enough to replace about 500,000 tonnes of coal and (again, relative to coal) will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 1.3 million tonnes. The installation feeds directly into the China-Laos 500-kilovolt power interconnection project, a connection that came online in February. The solar farm is coming just in time as fossil fuel markets are getting battered by the situation in Iran, though CGN's local operations head Wang Yang (probably wisely) stuck to the script about providing "stable and clean electricity while supporting regional energy complementarity" rather than crowing about the timing.

Sources: South China Morning Post (details, market context), CGTN (connection)

Three Years, $11.7 Billion Rolling

Three years into cross-border passenger service, the China-Laos Railway is infrastructure that continues to be making a difference. Since the 1,035-kilometer Kunming-to-Vientiane line opened at the end of 2021, cumulative trade on the corridor has totaled almost $12 billion, and first-quarter 2026 trade value is up 62.7 percent y-o-y to almost a full billion greenbacks. Chinese PV exports were responsible for $174 million of that total. On the passenger side, more than 800,000 cross-border trips have been logged since international service started t this time of year in 2023, and first-quarter ridership is up 32 percent (also y-o-y) to 112,000. Four daily trains now run with 420 passengers each, covering the route in nine hours and 36 minutes.

Sources: Xinhua (holiday traffic), China Daily (freight tonnage), Travel and Tour World (tourism growth), Laotian Times (product categories), Bastillepost (bus routes)

Growth Down, Prices Up

The ADB cut its 2026 growth forecast to 4.0%, down from an already-uninspired 4.4% in 2025, and also raised a warning that inflation is expected to be almost 10% from 7.7% on oil, transportation, and electricity cost increases feed through to imported goods prices. The slowdown comes despite about a dozen energy projects under development and a tourism industry that’s nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. Public debt is still at around 82% of GDP, and state-owned power companies stuck with below-cost tariffs and foreign currency exposure are eating into fiscal space. Foreign exchange reserves remain thin and the banking sector continues to be under pressure, so there’s not much room to work with if any new external shocks show up.

Sources: The Star (ADB forecast), Asian Development Bank (sector breakdown)

Cheap Watts, Pricey Trucks

Twenty-seven public and private groups signed an agreement in Vientiane to support electric truck adoption, banking on the country’s plentiful hydropower to offset fuel price pain. The plan calls for charging stations, battery-swap facilities, and loan programs to make the transition easier. Electricite du Laos brought together truck suppliers, transport companies, and three banks to work out the details, but the math is tough to pencil. Electric models currently cost more than double what their diesel brethren do, and they run just 100 to 150 kilometers on every charge, a third of what fuel-powered trucks manage on mountainous routes.

Source: The Star

New Flight, New Bus Route

China Eastern's new Friday night flight from Wuhan to Vientiane, launched April 10, cuts what used to be a full-day journey through Kunming to three hours. The first flight carried about 140 passengers, including a 77-member tour group of mostly middle-aged and elderly Chinese visitors. The next day, authorities in Yunnan opened a daily bus route from Jinghong to Luang Namtha's Xiang Kok village, a 280-kilometer ride that takes seven or eight hours and costs about $22. The bus runs through the Mengman Chahe border crossing, offering the first direct public transport on a western corridor that previously required several transfers. Both route launches have been timed to come alongside the 65th anniversary of diplomatic ties/ the China-Laos Friendship Year.

Sources: The Star (flight schedule)

Vientiane Backs the General

President Thongloun Sisoulith sent formal congratulations to Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing after the general took office on Friday, promising to keep on track with the five-year cooperation framework that the two countries signed in February.

Source: Laotian Times

A Very Regulated New Year

Vientiane put 561 traffic police to work at 145 posts for the Lao new year holiday week. The fuzz was told to enforce 80-decibel limits on music, a fireworks ban (fines up to 5 million kip/ ~$230!), and speed limits. Temperatures are forecast to get up to 43 degrees through April 16. About 5,000 Lao workers each day have been crossing back from Thailand at the Mukdahan border, where officials set up cooling tents and thew open all the immigration counters to handle the crush.

Sources: Laotian Times (deployment), Laotian Times (noise and fines), Laotian Times (temperature forecast), Laotian Times (border logistics)

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Myanmar 20260414

August Whitcraft — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 06:37:33 GMT

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Headlines:

A Cabinet Pre-Screened by the Treasury

Beijing Brings Gifts, Delhi Brings Handshakes

12 Percent Came Home

Rakhine Takeover Gets a Deadline

Outposts Fall, Bombs Rise

ASEAN's Courts Do What ASEAN's Diplomats Won't

Anwar Plays Both Sides of the Table

Kyiv Comes to Kabaw

Britain Slams the Door on Students

A Cabinet Pre-Screened by the Treasury

As previously reported, Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as president on April 10, five years after his coup. What has received less attention is that at least 15 of the 44 cabinet members and regional chief ministers in the new government currently appear on Western sanctions lists, including defense minister General Tun Aung, accused of overseeing aerial bombardments that killed civilians, and home affairs minister Lt-Gen Nyunt Win Swe, who led the violent crackdown on Yangon protests in 2021. The 69-year-old gave the commander-in-chief post to General Ye Win Oo, his handpicked successor from military intelligence. Twenty-eight of the 30 Union ministers are current or former generals or members of the post-coup junta.

Sources: The Irrawaddy (ASEAN recognition), Cambodianess (regional attendance), Myanmar Now (sanctions breakdown), DVB (UCC details), Asialink (Ye Win Oo background)

Beijing Brings Gifts, Delhi Brings Handshakes

Jiang Xinzhi, a special envoy of Xi Jinping, met the newly inaugurated president on April 10 to let Naypyidaw know that commitments on the Belt and Road and border security cooperation remain in place. India sent Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh. New Delhi has gone from cautious engagement to active participation in the junta's legitimacy pageant over the past few months, and now joins Beijing in treating the general's sham election as a done deal; Western diplomats appear to have stayed home. China made the terms concrete the next da with the signing of an enhanced recovery deal for the Shapin-Kanni field for a Chinese oil firm (neither production capacity nor deal value was shared). The Union Minister called it a project with "immediate benefits," though he didn't specify for whom. Min Aung Hlaing thanked Beijing for "long-term and valuable assistance" and promised to protect Chinese personnel and projects.

Sources: People's Daily (Beijing framing), DVB (India's legitimization), Asian News Network (oil specifics)

12 Percent Came Home

Only 631 conscripts from the junta's first batch of 5,155 recruits have been discharged after finishing their mandatory two years of service, which ended April 8. That's 12 percent. Military defectors tracking the program say the rest were either killed in combat or have forcibly been kept in uniform, and they suspect even the small number released is being used as recruitment bait for families still deciding whether to turn over their sons. The regime won't say how many are dead. Most families hear nothing, leaving them to assume the worst. Conscription has now reached its 23rd round since the law took effect in February 2024; roughly 100,000 men and women have been pressed into service so far. The junta claims that those who finished training are now fulfilling their "responsibilities for national defense and security" in units nationwide but refuses to disclose casualty figures.

Source: DVB

Rakhine Takeover Gets a Deadline

The Arakan Army says it will control all of Rakhine State by the end of 2027. Commander-in-chief Maj-Gen Twan Mrat Naing said as much at the group's 17th anniversary ceremony. The AA has taken 14 of 17 townships since its began its push in November 2023, leaving only Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung remaining in junta hands. Kyaukphyu is a big deal because it's home to the Chinese-backed deep-water port that was supposed to anchor Beijing's access to the Indian Ocean. The AA was formed in 2009 with 26 members and one gun.

Sources: Myanmar Now (deadline), Mizzima (displacement)

Outposts Fall, Bombs Rise

Resistance forces seized two outposts in Bago Region and Mon State between April 7 and 12, killing 13 junta troops with help from the Karen National Liberation Army and All Burma Students' Democratic Front. The PDF and allied fighters took Bilin's Laykay outpost after five days of fighting that left five soldiers dead, 10 wounded, and two captured. At least 30 troops abandoned the Letyet outpost in Shwegyin Township after eight of their own were killed. In Longlone Township, a drone hit junta soldiers drinking and singing karaoke at a police station, reportedly killing two. The victories came at a cost. Junta airstrikes from April 1 to 5 damaged or destroyed at least 30 homes and two monasteries in Bilin, displacing more than 13,000 civilians from 13 villages. A separate rescue operation in Nyaunglebin freed more than 300 civilians the junta had been using as human shields, killing at least 10 junta troops and wounding 20, though 11 resistance fighters died in the effort. A Spectator correspondent embedded with resistance forces in Karenni State sees the same thing, that the revolution has lost momentum since the high-water mark of 2023, when liberation felt close and morale was high.

Sources: DVB (displacement), ReliefWeb (airstrike lethality), Spectator (momentum)

ASEAN's Courts Do What ASEAN's Diplomats Won't

Civil society groups in Indonesia and Timor-Leste have filed domestic genocide cases against Min Aung Hlaing, taking advantage of universal jurisdiction to try and prosecute what they say are crimes against humanity in courts outside the country where they took place. The strategy treats regional neighbors' courtrooms as tools that, despite optimistic hope from some quarters, ASEAN's summits never became: a challenge to the bloc's non-interference doctrine. For victims who've watched diplomatic forums produce almost nothing more than hot air, courts in Jakarta and Dili may provide what summits have not, and a path that doesn't require the cooperation of those accused.

Sources: Jakarta Post (possible paywall), Weekly Blitz (secondary source)

Anwar Plays Both Sides of the Table

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met both Min Aung Hlaing and the National Unity Government's prime minister within a day of each other, and made both meetings public. Malaysia want a stop to the killing, free-flow of aid and a political transition. The junta's response was to hold elections and seat a military-controlled parliament. Now ASEAN may have a discipline problem, and needs to decide whether to hold the line on inclusive engagement or let a non-compliant regime reset the terms.

Source: The Edge Malaysia

Kyiv Comes to Kabaw

Indian authorities arrested six Ukrainians and one American accused of sneaking across the border to train resistance fighters, indicating that the civil war continues to pull in foreigners from unexpected corners. The India-Myanmar frontier's rugged terrain offers plenty of crossing points beyond official checkpoints, so it’s a common entry point for those looking to avoid detection.

Source: Frontier Myanmar

Britain Slams the Door on Students

We close this week with a report on the human cost of Britain's new visa brake, which came into effect March 26, and that bars students from Myanmar, Sudan, Cameroon, and Afghanistan from getting student visas. Naw Sai, 29, who escaped the junta to Thailand after studying in the US, had his PhD offer from LSE withdrawn before it was formalized. The anthropology program accepted his proposal on conflict and peacemaking out of about 120 other applications, only to pull it days later. The new policy is affecting an unknown number of accepted students, and there is no appeals process available to those who are impacted.

Source: Novara Media

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Cambodia 20260413

August Whitcraft — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:13:56 GMT

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Headlines:

King's Cancer, Hun Sen's Throne

Phnom Penh Asks to Talk, Bangkok Rolls Wire

Trade Booms as Poverty Looms

Shovels Before Settlements

Scam City: 10,000 Desks and No Surprise

Sokha's Appeal: Don't Call Us

Huione's Frozen Customers Return, Empty-Handed

Beijing Banks the First Gigawatt Battery

Moscow's Sub Surfaces at Sihanoukville

Diesel Drops, But the Road Home Still Costs Too Much

Malaysian Money Dials Into 5G

King's Cancer, Hun Sen's Throne

King Norodom Sihamoni, 72, said Friday that Chinese doctors have diagnosed him with prostate cancer and he'll stay in Beijing for treatment that’s going to take between one and three months. The monarch left for China on February 27 for what was supposed to be a routine checkup, one of the twice-yearly medical trips that have become a fixture of his reign. Senate President Hun Sen is staying on as acting head of state while Sihamoni undergoes treatment.

Sources: AP News (father's precedent), Nation Thailand (UN ambassador role), UCA News (Khmer New Year), Arab News (background)

Phnom Penh Asks to Talk, Bangkok Rolls Wire

Hun Manet posted on social media asking Thailand to start border demarcation talks again "quickly and with sincerity." Hours earlier, Thailand's foreign minister said Bangkok wasn't ready, saying it needed to follow "its own procedures." Thailand's defense minister warned of a possible "third conflict," causing analyst Chhang Youk to say the remarks were “provocative.” The two countries shook hands on a ceasefire in late December, but the situation has remained tense.

Sources: Straits Times (Thai FM response), Nation Thailand (ceasefire reference), Ratopati(casualty figures), Cambodia Daily (analyst criticism), Cambodia Daily (ICJ question)

Trade Booms as Poverty Looms

The economy grew at a 5.2 percent clip through 2025, but the Asian Development Bank is saying that three shocks coming together could push as many as 250,000 people (about 1.5 percent of the population) into poverty, and cut 2026 growth. The risks are the Middle East conflict driving up energy costs, the uncertainty of a shifting U.S. trade policy, and continued issues about cross-border trade with Thailand. The warnings land against Q1 2026 data showing total trade rose 17.1 percent to $16.93 billion, on exports that are up 17.7 percent. Agriculture, long the backbone of rural livelihoods, contributed just 0.1 percent to GDP growth last year despite rising export volumes. Women returning from Thailand are facing the greatest challenges - they’re reportedly 18 times more likely than men to drop out of the workforce entirely.

Sources: The Star (Q1 dollar figures), Khmer Times (sector breakdown), Cambodianess (poverty projections)

Shovels Before Settlements

Construction has started on the second section of the Funan Techo Canal, even as families along the first section are still waiting for their compensation checks. The PM asked affected communities for their understanding at the ceremony in Takeo Province, promising his team would resolve compensation "appropriately." Nearly $71 million has been budgeted for payouts. The first section, a 26-kilometer stretch inaugurated in August 2024, remains quiet. Dim Mech, a businessman living along the route in Prek Takeo since the late 1990s, said there's been neither clear compensation information nor any visible construction work in his area so far. The $1.17 billion project has been sold as a way to connect Phnom Penh to the sea by 2028 through a roughly 180-kilometer waterway. Chinese investors own 49% of the venture, Cambodian shareholders hold the balance.

Source: CamboJA News

Scam City: 10,000 Desks and No Surprise

Officials kicked out more than 1,000 foreigners in the first five days of April, nearly half of them Chinese nationals who have been connected to online fraud, as the government races toward a self-imposed deadline to “get rid of” scam operations by month's end. The deportations overlapped with a Thai military media tour of an 80-hectare compound near O'Smach, emptied after cross-border fighting in December 2025, where journalists found handwritten chat guides still open on desks coaching scammers to pose as Singaporeans and extract salary details from victims. The Thai military says that 10,000 people operated from the site, which featured its own hospital, pharmacy, and hair salon.

Sources: Asian News Network ($10B U.S. losses), Cambodia Daily (deportations), Cambodia Daily (device seizures)

Sokha's Appeal: Don't Call Us

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court finished two days of hearings on Kem Sokha's treason conviction Thursday and said it would hand down a verdict at an unspecified “later date,” more than 18 months after its previous session. The 72-year-old opposition founder is serving 27 years under house arrest for allegedly colluding with the United States to (try to) topple the government. His lawyers asked the court to overturn the conviction, saying that prosecutors built their case around a 2013 speech Sokha gave to diaspora Cambodians in Melbourne and couldn't name a single foreign country that had actually colluded with him. Diplomats from the US, Australia, Germany, Britain, and the EU were present for the hearings.

Sources: CamboJA News (defense arguments), CamboJA News (diplomat attendance)

Huione's Frozen Customers Return, Empty-Handed

About 200 Huione Pay and H-Pay customers protested at the National Bank on Tuesday, their second gathering in four days, over their frozen money woes getting no resolution three months after US sanctions reached the payment platforms. The central bank offered H-Pay users a possible meeting with company reps, but gave Huione Pay customers nothing, despite both groups having registered their details back in December. One Sihanoukville construction boss with $600,000 frozen and 700 to 800 workers on her payroll has had to mortgage her house to keep food on the table for her staff. Neither platform has offered a timeline for any release of funds.

Source: CamboJA News

Beijing Banks the First Gigawatt Battery

Work began Friday on a $1 billion pumped storage hydropower station in Koh Kong, the Cambodia’s first gigawatt-scale energy storage project, bankrolled by Chinese investors. The 1,000 MW facility will use four reversible turbines to store power and smooth renewable energy peaks. The mines and energy minister says the project will help push clean energy's share above 70 percent by 2030.

Source: Xinhua

Moscow's Sub Surfaces at Sihanoukville

Three Russian naval vessels, the corvette Gromkiy, the submarine Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky, and the support vessel Andrey Stepanov, pulled into Sihanoukville port from April 5 through 8. It's the second Russian naval call in a year after three ships docked last April following the upgraded Ream Naval Base's inauguration. Russia's ambassador Anatoly Borovik and Rear Admiral In Sokhemara, deputy commander of Ream, welcomed the arrivals. The program included a friendly football match and some vaguely described technical exchanges. Phnom Penh has backed a UN resolution condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Source: Cambodia Daily

Diesel Drops, But the Road Home Still Costs Too Much

The price of diesel fell almost 16 percent to 6,900 riels/ liter after the ceasefire was announced in the Middle East, but workers heading to their provinces for Khmer New Year say they're still scaling back travel or staying put. The government is running about 600 free buses over the six days that started yesterday.

Sources: Cambodianess (price drops), CamboJA News (union president)

Malaysian Money Dials Into 5G

Maybank gave Smart Axiata a $50 million financing facility for the build out of 5G and digital infrastructure. Smart is a subsidiary of Malaysia's Axiata Group, and this is Maybank's first new economy deal in Cambodia. The bank is setting aside $25 billion for more deals of a similar stripe throughout ASEAN between now and 2030.

Source: Cambodia Investment Review

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Thailand 20260410

August Whitcraft — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 02:35:34 GMT

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Headlines:

Hormuz Hits Home

Dusty Decree, Fresh Teeth

Confidence, Bonds, Growth: All Sinking

Bangkok Breaks Ranks for the Generals

Twenty Billion Baht and a Torture Basement

Fifty-One Million Reasons to Shut Up

Army Beats the Job Market

Fewer Tourists, Fatter Wallets

Green Cars, Grey Batteries

Princess and the Plan

Chiang Mai Chokes Its Way to Number One

Hormuz Hits Home

Three crew members aboard the ship Mayuree Naree have now finally been confirmed dead after the vessel was hit in the Strait of Hormuz on March 11, Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said Wednesday. Nine more ships are still sitting stranded near the waterway waiting to test a two-week US-Iran ceasefire that is just hours old, as the fallout in Thailand continues to worsen. Jet fuel costs have risen 90 to 100 percent in four weeks. Diesel rose past 50 baht per liter over the weekend, up from 30 baht in late February, pushing the cost of getting rice harvested in Chiang Rai up to 700 baht a rai and leaving a motorcycle taxi stand in Chainat with solitary driver who is still willing to work. Prime Minister Anutin is asking the people to work-from-home and to carpool, conceding that Thailand "cannot remain complacent" despite having more of an oil reserve buffer than some of its neighbors. Songkran bookings in Hat Yai are running behind, with hotel rooms still available on normally sold-out dates, and nationwide holiday spending is expected to drop 3.7 percent to 130 billion baht.

Read more: Bangkok Post (airline executive quotes), Bangkok Post (prices), CNA (Iranian Guards statement), Asian News Network (Oman rescue), The Guardian (palm oil controls)

Dusty Decree, Fresh Teeth

The government is dusting off a 1973 emergency fuel law that would give the Prime Minister power over the oil market, including the ability to control refineries, ration fuel, and set factory hours. The reason for bringing out the stick is that refining margins that sat at 2 to 3 baht per liter for four to five years, climbed to 7 baht in March, then rose again to 16 to 17 baht in early April. Energy Minister Akanat Promphan has been told to negotiate with refiners first, but the decree sits ready as a fallback. The law has teeth, and allows for penalties of up to 10 years in prison. A separate investigation tracked 11,067 tanker trucks and turned up a handful of “irregularities” in the fuel supply chain, but none of those was at any of the refineries. The government is also putting restrictions on palm oil exports to protect biodiesel supplies.

Read more: Asian News Network (decree penalties), Thai Enquirer (truck tracking evidence), Biofuels News (palm export limits)

Confidence, Bonds, Growth: All Sinking

Sovereign debt has lost 4.1% since the end of February, one of the world's worst performers, and 10-year yields rose 52 basis points in March, the biggest move since September 2022. The Bank of Thailand held its policy rate at an even 1.00% Thursday but also expects GDP growth to come in at just 1.3% to 1.7% for the year. Governor Vitai Ratanakorn says the current rate appropriate for now, though says that inflation could land in the 2.5% to 3.5% range this year if energy prices stay high. Consumer confidence fell to a six-month low of 51.8 in March, with nearly all consumers expecting their income over the next six months to either fall or stay flat. The World Bank says Thailand is one of the economies most exposed to energy price shocks.

Read more: Bloomberg (bond performance ranking), Bangkok Post (rate decision rationale), TradingView (income expectations), Thai Enquirer (oil impact quantified)

Bangkok Breaks Ranks for the Generals

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was the first ASEAN leader to congratulate Myanmar's coup leader Min Aung Hlaing on his appointment as president-elect, breaking with a regional consensus that has kept junta leaders out of ASEAN meetings since 2021. Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow followed with his own message Monday, expressing hope for "forging a new chapter" with Naypyitaw, and former Foreign Minister Panpree Bahiddha-Nukara is expected to be there today for Min Aung Hlaing's inauguration. Bangkok has kept always maintained some level of engagement with the junta (for example, it hosted a junta foreign minister just three weeks after the 2021 coup), and the billions in cross-border trade and direct investments into Myanmar always shade Bangkok's calculations.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Twenty Billion Baht and a Torture Basement

Authorities froze another 8.27 billion baht in assets linked to Ben Smith and associates, pushing the total past 20 billion baht in seizures they say are linked to the Cambodian scam networks. The latest haul includes six vehicles, bank deposits, securities, and a luxury yacht now parked with the Royal Thai Navy that’s going to be put on the auction block. The military walked reporters through an abandoned scam compound near the Cambodian border that was captured during December's fighting. Of 151 buildings on the site, 29 housed scam operations, one of them was decorated like a government hall featuring a portrait of Ho Chi Minh, presumably as a video backdrop. The basement reportedly was fitted out with cells, handcuffs, restraint belts, and a 3-meter wall topped with barbed wire and cameras pointed inward. More than 10,000 people from more than a dozen countries are said to have been working there before escaping when the shooting started. Smith himself left Bangkok for Dubai last September, then left again on an 85-meter yacht in February. He is now believed to be near the Seychelles.

Read more: AP News (US loss figures), Bangkok Post (compensation process), Asahi (compound layout)

Fifty-One Million Reasons to Shut Up

Environment minister Suchart Chomklin wants 51 million baht in damages from two journalists whose reporting connected him to a berry-picker trafficking bribery scheme. Suchart filed criminal defamation suits on February 27 against Isaan Record editor-in-chief Hathairat Phaholtap (50 million baht) and against editor Kowit Phothisan (1 million baht) over Facebook posts that pointed to the outlet's reporting that politicians took bribes from brokers sending workers to Finland between 2020 and 2023. The National Anti-Corruption Commission is reviewing an investigation that implicates Suchart and several senior Labor Ministry officials in the deal. Human Rights Watch says Suchart’s suits are retaliatory, and the National Human Rights Commission is using them to support their call for anti-SLAPP legislation.

Army Beats the Job Market

At a Bangkok temple this week, only 21 of 68 eligible men had to draw cards from the conscription jar because the rest had already signed up for six-month stints in exchange for about 11,000 baht ($340) monthly (that’s roughly minimum wage), with food and housing thrown in. Voluntary enlistment has climbed steadily over the past five years, enough that some districts now fill their April quotas without resorting to the lottery at all. Nearly 30,000 men volunteered this year, an increase of almost 50 percent from 2024. It seem as though even though the risks on enlistment today are higher than in the past, rising nationalism has been working as a counterweight to keep the numbers up.

Read more: Bloomberg (paywall, five-year trend), KDH News (lottery mechanics)

Fewer Tourists, Fatter Wallets

The Tourism Authority officially has abandoned its 40-million visitor target, recalibrating its 2026 expectations to 30-34 million arrivals and 3.4 trillion baht in revenue. Mandatory travel insurance is moving toward an entry requirement after state hospitals last year were forced to absorb more than 3 billion baht in unpaid bills from uninsured foreigners, with Phuket's main public hospital alone eating 100 million baht yearly in motorcycle crashes and diving accidents. There is also a long-discussed 300-baht tourist tax that is still being mulled over and is currently under cabinet review.

Read more: Bangkok Post (diesel cost impact), Bangkok Post (four-year plan), Travel and Tour World (Pattaya transition), TAT News (Q1 arrival figures), Travel and Tour World (ETA integration)

Green Cars, Grey Batteries

BYD's 948,000 square meter Rayong plant has the capacity to crank out 150,000 vehicles yearly, and the government's 30@30 target calls for 725,000 zero-emission cars and pickups to roll off assembly lines annually by 2030. The batteries powering all that green ambition are going to start piling up, with around 200,000 tonnes of spent cells by 2033, then 2.5 million tonnes a decade later. There is concern in some quarters that Thailand has no formal recycling infrastructure to handle them. Lithium, cobalt, nickel and lead leaching into soil and water is the obvious problem. The less obvious one is thermal runaway, when damaged batteries overheat faster than they can cool, turning warehouses and ports into potential firebombs. The government reportedly has no licensing framework in place and no deadline to create one.

Princess and the Plan

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in Beijing on April 8, where the usual promises about cooperation in technology, education, and agriculture were shared as China kicks off its 15th Five-Year Plan. Wang said the princess has made 57 visits to China over 45 years, calling her an "old and good friend." The princess toured high-tech programs during her eight-day visit and thanked Beijing for support in talent development.

Read more: Nation Thailand (princess quotes), FMPRC (Xi medal detail)

Chiang Mai Chokes Its Way to Number One

Wildfires burning for more than a week in northern Thailand pushed Chiang Mai to the top of IQAir's global pollution rankings. Visibility at the city's airport dropped as low as 1,200 meters on some days (an instrument landing requires an 800-meter minimum). The Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation has been flying weather modification operations over Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Tak and Mae Hong Son since April 3 in an attempt to clear the air, apparently with little effect.

Read more: Nation Thailand (airport visibility), CNN (IQAir ranking)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Vietnam 20260409

August Whitcraft — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 01:28:15 GMT

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Headlines:

One Man, Two Thrones

Central Banker Gets the Keys (and a 10% Growth Target)

Saigon Bulls Make the Cut

Seven Point Eight Three

Half a Day's Pay at the Pump

Priced Out, Bused Free

Gold Up 800%, Borrower Still Broke

Southeast Asia's Richest Man Won by Staying Put

Build the Island, Then Build More Island

Scan Here, Pay There

One Man, Two Thrones

The National Assembly voted unanimously (495 to zero!) on Tuesday to elect To Lam as state president for the next five years, making the Communist Party general secretary the first leader to hold both jobs at a party congress since Ho Chi Minh. It’s a break from the collective leadership model that has kept the country's top roles split since the 1980s and makes the power structure more similar to that of China. Lam briefly held both posts in 2024 after his predecessor died, but this time he has a full mandate to push the reform agenda he's been running since August. He told lawmakers his priority is double-digit growth driven by science and tech.

Read more: AP News (Q1 growth gap), The Diplomat (2024 precedent), VnExpress (reform numbers), Taipei Times (99% vote share), Yahoo (investor sentiment)

Central Banker Gets the Keys (and a 10% Growth Target)

Le Minh Hung took office as prime minister on April 7, the country's youngest since 1955 and the first central banker to hold the job in decades. The National Assembly's unanimous vote installed a technocrat with a clear brief that calls for an average annual GDP growth rate in excess of 10% through 2031. Hung previously spent four years running the State Bank, building foreign reserves and moving the entire banking sector toward digital services, but his tenure wasn't without blemish. The Van Thinh Phat fraud, one of the largest financial scandals in the country's history, grew on his watch. The credit-to-GDP ratio also went as high as 145% in 2025, triple that of comparable developing economies (Thailand’s is similar, however). The last time leadership pushed this hard for growth (2006-2011), it ended in an asset bubble, a banking crisis, and 23% inflation.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (decentralization timeline), Fulcrum (energy shortage)

Saigon Bulls Make the Cut

FTSE Russell finally confirmed a long-expected reclassification of Vietnam’s bourse from frontier to Secondary Growing Market status, effective September 21. The VN-Index rose closed last night at 1,756, its highest level since early March, with trading volume of VND33.37 trillion, more than double the prior session and the strongest turnover in almost a month. Foreign investors still sold a net VND602 billion across all exchanges, but if you remove block put-throughs from your math, they were net buyers by roughly VND580 billion.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (MSCI criteria progress), Vietnam Investment Review, The Investor (inflation risks warning), VnExpress (Indonesia comparison context), MSN ($6B inflow estimate)

Seven Point Eight Three

The economy grew 7.83% in Q1, the fastest clip in 16 years, but the headline number obfuscates a growing divergence. Foreign-invested firms saw exports rise 33.3% to $98.46 billion at the same time that domestic companies dropped 16.6% to $24.47 billion. Foreign trade rose 23% to $249.5 billion, yet the country flipped from a $3.57 billion surplus a year ago to a $3.64 billion deficit as imports rose 27% while exports rose only 19.1%. FDI inflows totaled $15.2 billion, up almost 43%. On the ground, retail sales rose 10.9%, international arrivals came in at a record 6.76 million. Another notable divergence was the 57,400 new firms registered, measured against 91,800 that shuttered operations.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (FDI breakdown), VnExpress (macro context), VnExpress (domestic vs FDI), VnEconomy (retail details), VnEconomy (business churn)

Half a Day's Pay at the Pump

As is the story in much of Southeast Asia these days, Vietnamese diesel prices more than doubled and the price of gasoline rose roughly 30% through March, driving consumer inflation to a five-year March high of 4.65% year-on-year. The pain everywhere - gig workers spending half their earnings on fuel, rice millers in the Delta shutting down during peak electricity hours, and farmers skipping the May planting season rather than paying for fertilizer. To fight the challenges, Hanoi dropped environmental taxes on fuel to zero through mid-April, waived transport fees through June, and pushed the Dung Quat refinery to 110% of its normal output. Deputy Minister Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan said the crisis is worse than the 1970s oil shocks in scale. A two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire brought prices down slightly, but they’re still well above pre-conflict levels.

Read more: VnExpress (April supply secured), VnEconomy (VLCC mobilization plan), VnEconomy (March CPI breakdown), VnEconomy (June tax extension), New York Times (Rice mills shuttered)

Priced Out, Bused Free

HCMC apartment prices rose 11.8% in Q1 to an average VND97 million/ square meter. Supply below VND40 million has virtually evaporated even in formerly separate Binh Duong and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, which were folded into the city last July. Almost 90% of new units in central areas are high-end or luxury, and Knight Frank expects the squeeze to continue through 2027 as land scarcity and construction costs mean that upmarket developments are the best way for developers to make the numbers work. Rather than tackling housing costs directly, the city's response, announced Wednesday by Party chief Tran Luu Quang, is to make all 135 intra-city bus routes free. Planners are hopeful the subsidy will result in 30% ridership growth, though they're still figuring out whether the existing 2,100-vehicle fleet can handle the increase. The proposal still needs People's Council approval later this month.

Read more: VnExpress (Knight Frank projections), VnExpress (subsidy cost quintupling)

Gold Up 800%, Borrower Still Broke

A 218.74 kg gold loan worth VND100 billion when it was issued has ballooned to VND891 billion by the end of 2025, and borrower Saigon Aquatic Products Trading can't repay it. The seafood exporter owes VND2.79 trillion in total overdue debts to Sacombank (which absorbed the original lender, Southern Bank), with interest and penalties alone accounting for VND1.56 trillion. Accumulated losses stand at 30 times the company's charter capital. Sacombank sued for VND1.43 trillion in April 2022 and has been trying to auction the debt since, dropping the asking price to VND317 billion in late 2025 with no takers. Auditors are now questioning whether the company, which exports frozen fish, shrimp, and fish sauce to the U.S., EU, and Japan, will be able to continue operating.

Read more: VnExpress

Southeast Asia's Richest Man Won by Staying Put

Pham Nhat Vuong topped Forbes' Southeast Asia rich list at $15.9 billion, overtaking Indonesia's Prajogo Pangestu. Pangestu's fortune cratered after Indonesian authorities questioned stock market transparency, dropping from more than $44 billion to $18.6 billion. Vuong's wealth also slipped nearly $4 billion this year as Vingroup shares cooled, but his family still controls about 65% of the juggernaut. He became the country's first billionaire in 2013 at $1.5 billion, growing his fortune more than sixteen-fold over twelve years.

Read more: VnExpress

Build the Island, Then Build More Island

Kien Giang province wants to reclaim 4,500 hectares of sea off Phu Quoc and the Gulf of Thailand coast, creating four artificial island clusters starting in 2027 and running through 2050. The largest chunk, 2,300 hectares around Phu Quoc and Tho Chau, is planned to be an international entertainment zone with free trade facilities, luxury resorts, and amusement parks. The island already has more than 10,000 hotel rooms under construction; builders are racing to get them done by late 2027 for APEC hosting duties. Provincial officials told planners to start looking for investors now instead of wait for ground to break. Sun PhuQuoc Airways put an order in for “up to” 40 Boeing 787 Dreamliners in February that will be used to fly guests in.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (construction timeline), VnExpress (cluster breakdown), Yahoo Finance (aircraft order)

Scan Here, Pay There

Chinese tourists are now able to scan VIETQRGlobal codes with Alipay at merchants nationwide, settling directly in yuan or dong through a system connecting NAPAS, Ant International, and Vietcombank. The rollout allows for more than a billion Alipay users to use the retail payment network, and means that Vietnamese travelers will be able to pay via QR in China as well. China sent roughly 5.3 million visitors last year, the largest single source of inbound tourism, and the system is designed to keep that spending digital.

Read more: VnEconomy

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Laos 20260408

August Whitcraft — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 03:42:18 GMT

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Headlines:

Seven Fuel Hikes in One Month

Sixteen Thousand Reasons to Stay Inside

Plastic-to-Petrol Pipeline Busted

New Water Plant, Same Dry Taps

Auditors Claw Back a Quarter-Billion

27 Years Later, the Corridor Gets Rails

Friends in Every Direction

Happy New Year, But Keep It Cheap

Larb Gets Its Unesco Moment

Twelve Thousand Tablets to Count a Nation

Hire Local, File Fast

Seven Fuel Hikes in One Month

Inflation came in at 9.7 percent in March, the highest in 11 months and getting close to double February's 6.2 percent, as the global oil crisis tore through an economy without much of a buffer. Fuel prices were adjusted seven times in March as diesel more than doubled and regular petrol increased just over 80 percent. Transportation and communications costs rose ~18%, housing, water, and electricity ~17% (electricity along was up 115% over Q1). One bright spot is that the kip held steady at around 21,400 to the dollar and 680 to the baht, cushioning what could have been an even uglier import price spiral if the levels hadn’t held.

Sixteen Thousand Reasons to Stay Inside

16,395 fire hotspots reported throughout the Q1 period resulted in every single province recording a number above 100 on the Air Quality Index. The northern trio of Bokeo, Oudomxay, and Luang Prabang all blew past 200, which put them at a level that makes breathing risky for everyone, not just the elderly or the asthmatic. April 1 saw 895 new hotspots flare up, Luang Prabang was home to 220 of them. More than a third of the fires burned on agricultural and fallow land, from slash-and-burn farming and livestock grazing without firebreaks. The haze didn’t respect the border and Lao fires helped Chiang Mai, Thailand to get a 235 AQI reading on the same day, making it the world's most polluted city as wind carried smoke across northern Thailand.

Read more: Laotian Times

Plastic-to-Petrol Pipeline Busted

Authorities broke up an unlicensed fuel operation on National Road 13 South on April 4 after inspectors found it grinding plastic waste and distilling used engine oil into gasoline with sulfur levels at more than 130 times the Euro 6 standard. The factory had been selling the fuel to fuel stations in Vientiane, meaning drivers paid full market prices to fill up with a fouled product that would increase engine wear and result in heavy black smoke out of the tailpipe.

Read more: Laotian Times

New Water Plant, Same Dry Taps

Vientiane's new Thatkhao Water Treatment Plant started pumping a new 20,000 cubic meters of water this week, but residents in Khamngoy village haven't seen anything running through the taps for more than a month. The capital now produces about 370,000 cubic meters daily against demand of 400,000, leaving about a tenth of the city still unserved during the March-to-May dry season when the Mekong runs at its lowest. A second plant in Thapha village is nearly finished and will add another 20,000 cubic meters, and the existing Chinaimo facility is being upgraded so that it can pump 120,000 (from 80,000) cubic meters by 2028.

Read more: Laotian Times

Auditors Claw Back a Quarter-Billion

The State Audit Office closed out 2025 with LAK 5,303 billion (roughly $244 million) in recoveries from budget violations, the highest single-year haul seen so far. It seems like the team is sharpening its teeth. State Audit Office President Viengthavisone Thepphachan said the inclusion of audit work in the 2025 Constitution has given auditors more independence, and the PM wants an overhaul of the entire audit system, knowing there’s still plenty of leakage.

Read more: Laotian Times

27 Years Later, the Corridor Gets Rails

Officials from Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand came together in Pakse to breathe new life into the East-West Economic Corridor, a 1,450-kilometer route that has been limping along since 1998. They signed more than 20 agreements on tourism and cross-border trade that will run though to 2030, but the big news came in March when the National Assembly approved a railway to connect Thakhek to Vietnam's Mu Gia border. That line will eventually connect Vientiane to Vung Ang Port to give landlocked Laos its first direct shot at the ocean.

Read more: Laotian Times

Friends in Every Direction

Pentagon and Pyongyang both sent warm words to Vientiane last week, a reminder that small states sometimes have the luxury of diplomatic flexibility that larger countries may lose. The Ministry of National Defense met with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii on March 31 and April 1 for another round of bilateral defense talks (the 17th, so far). Six days earlier, North Korea's Kim Jong-un sent congratulations to President Thongloun Sisoulith on his March 23 re-election, saying he was convinced that ties between the two countries will "continue to deepen and develop." The warm words follow on their October 2025 meeting in Pyongyang.

Read more: The Lao Times (joint vision statement), Korea JoongAng Daily (Kim's congratulatory message)

Happy New Year, But Keep It Cheap

Savannakhet provincial authorities told residents to keep Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) celebrations simple this year, and told state departments that they shouldn’t be caught blowing public funds on flashy events this year as pressure on the common man is on the rise. Private parties are being told to shut down by 23:00 and roadside water stations have been completely banned. The government is suggesting that temple visits might be more appropriate than big spending during the holiday, which runs from April 14 to 16. Water splashing is expected to stop at 18:00 except in designated areas, and market monitoring teams say they’re going to be on the lookout for price gouging in transport and tourism.

Read more: Laotian Times

Larb Gets Its Unesco Moment

The Culture and Tourism Ministry wants to put larb and the traditional Baci ceremony on Unesco's cultural heritage lists at the same time that they pitch Nakai Nam Theun National Park for World Heritage Site status. The triple nomination might help Lao get the targeted 4.4 million foreign visitor arrivals and billion dollars in tourism revenue this year. Officials are banking on the success of a Visit Laos-China Year campaign as well as a five-year marketing plan that will running through 2030. Domestic travel is expected to be good for a further $707 million in tourism revenue.

Twelve Thousand Tablets to Count a Nation

The first fully digital census is in the books, after more than 12,000 enumerators spread out through the countryside with tablets at the end of last year. They covered 99 percent of 3.6 million buildings, and ran follow-up visits to more than 3,500 spots in early 2026 to mop up stragglers. Data was recorded in real time to a central server at the Lao Statistics Bureau, replacing a paper system that required physically hauling questionnaires from remote villages to processing centers for weeks of manual coding. The results are expected to feed into the country's 2026-2030 national development plan.

Read more: Laotian Times

Hire Local, File Fast

International organizations now have 15 days after signing an employment contract to register local staff with the Foreign Affairs Authority under a new rule that took effect March 23. The new statute replaces 2010 laws and adds criminal prosecution to the list of possible penalties those in non-compliance. Organizations are allowed to either recruit directly or ask the authority to handle hiring for them. Employee ID cards will be valid for a year and will need to be renewed within 30 days before expiration. The criminal liability change is quite an escalation from the way things used to be handled.

Myanmar 20260407

August Whitcraft — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 04:28:53 GMT

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Headlines:

Same Sam, But Different

Junta Opens Parliament, Kills 100

Genocide Case Lands in Jakarta

New Delhi RSVPs to the General's Party

Beijing Claps, ASEAN Shrugs

Highway Opens, Hill Roads Choke

Federal Council Oversees a Fractured Alliance

Empty Pumps, Full Prices

Same Same, But Different

Min Aung Hlaing locked in his presidency Friday with 429 of 584 votes in a parliament that his junta stuffed with loyalists. This turn give him an “official” grip on power that he took at gunpoint five years ago. The 69-year-old stepped down as military chief on Monday and passed command to Ye Win Oo, his former spymaster, in a move that the constitution demanded, but fooling nobody about who runs the show. The parliamentary vote comes after elections in December and January that the UN and Western governments roundly dismissed as a sham. The general is now likely to be a bit of a diplomatic headache for ASEAN. The group has kept him out of their summits for the past five years, but may struggle to justify shutting out a man with a civilian title, no matter how he got it.

Read more: Chosun (vice presidents named), CNBC (USDP party dominance), The Guardian (UN atrocity accusations), Independent (90% parliament control), Yahoo Finance (female VP first)

Junta Opens Parliament, Kills 100

About 100 civilians have been killed by airstrikes in the three weeks since parliament opened. Jets are increasingly flying in fleets of up to eight aircraft against single targets. The deadliest attack was March 20, when planes pounded a monastery sheltering displaced families, killing about 80, including monks and children. On Monday, shortly after the new military chief took command, jets bombed a clinic in Budalin for about an hour, killing seven patients. Further strikes struck Arakan Army-held areas in Rakhine, killing four civilians.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Genocide Case Lands in Jakarta

Civil society groups filed a genocide complaint against Min Aung Hlaing at Indonesia's Attorney General's Office on Sunday. Its the first case officially received under the country's new penal code that allows universal jurisdiction over serious international crimes. The complaint, filed by Rohingya activist Yasmin Ullah along with Indonesia's former attorney general Marzuki Darusman and representatives one of Indonesia's largest Muslim groups, accuses the new president of overseeing the 2017 military campaign that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. An ASEAN member state accepting a genocide case against an ASEAN leader is new ground, especially since Indonesia is home to the bloc's HQ.

Read more: Straits Times (displacement figures), The Star (prosecutor confirmation), Anadolu Agency (ICC warrant context), DVB (fifth jurisdiction attempt)

New Delhi RSVPs to the General's Party

Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh will represent India at the new president's inauguration in Nay Pyi Taw on Friday, after arriving today to start four days of meetings on trade and development assistance. The Indian Army recently installed a weapons training simulator at a junta combat school, celebrating the moment with the hashtag #IndiaMyanmarFriendship. New Delhi has so far remained mostly quiet on the election itself but has kept the engagement running. Bilateral trade is strong, reported at $2.15 billion last fiscal year.

Read more: The Print (inauguration), Hindustan Times (diaspora engagement), DVB (weapons simulator), Economic Times (trade growth)

Beijing Claps, ASEAN Shrugs

Xi Jinping personally messaged Min Aung Hlaing, joining Russia, Belarus and Nicaragua in backing the junta's civilian rebrand. Beijing said that it's willing to work with the new government to promote the Belt and Road, keep the peace, and "deliver greater benefits to the people of both countries." The Philippines said it will keep engaging through ASEAN. The United Wa State Army was the first ethnic force to send felicitations, praising the new president's "remarkable successes" in national stability, and the Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army quickly followed their lead. Both groups run autonomous enclaves on the Chinese border and have every reason to keep on his good side.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Wa congratulations), DVB (genocide case filed), China Daily Asia (Belt and Road), China Daily (Xi personal message), Manila Times (Philippines response)

Highway Opens, Hill Roads Choke

After a two-year shutdown, the military reopened the 132-kilometer Asian Highway from Hpa-an to Myawaddy on Thursday, but at the same time blocked alternate routes through the Dawna Hills that Karen armed groups control. The highway helped to support more than a billion dollars of annual trade with Thailand until fiscal 2023-24, but the junta is still not allowing formal imports even with the road open, forcing Thai goods onto mountain back roads where a dozen checkpoints run by four regime-aligned militias collect daily fees. Regime troops closed the Nadi Linn Myaing junction at the base of the Dawna Hills on Thursday morning, also cutting access to those routes. Traders say nothing has changed significantly and they remain dependent on the smuggling networks the junta is trying (but apparently struggling) to strangle.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Federal Council Oversees a Fractured Alliance

A new opposition steering council was formed March 30, promising unity even as two of the resistance's most important allies are battling each other in Shan State. The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union brings together the National Unity Government and several of the most important ethnic armed groups including the Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, and Chin National Front. The council's six objectives are mostly centered on ending military involvement in politics and getting a federal constitution drafted.

Read more: Shan Herald (SCEF objectives detailed), Frontier Myanmar (Brotherhood alliance fractures)

Empty Pumps, Full Prices

Lineups have been forming overnight in Yangon and Mandalay as the country's 90-96% import dependency comes into contact with supply shocks from Iran conflict. Diesel prices are now up to nearly MMK 4,000 a liter, up from MMK 2,260 at the time of the coup, and gasoline prices are up by more than half. Authorities limited purchases to 50,000 kyats each visit under a chaotic QR-based rationing system that apparently isn’t working very well. The rice paddies are getting hit hard too, as farmers are unable to afford to run diesel-dependent machinery as planting season arrives.

Cambodia 20260406

August Whitcraft — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 01:49:11 GMT

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Headlines:

Licensed to Traffic

Four Hundred Families, $300 a Hectare, 15 Days to Leave

Barbed Wire at the Temple

Beijing Parks a Corvette at Ream

Kingpin's Fall Strands Depositors

Court Erases Opposition Advisor From the Ballot

Thai Boycott Fills Local Shelves

Fill Up Fast

Rat Gets a Monument (He Earned It)

Licensed to Traffic

Amnesty International found that the local gambling regulator renewed licenses for at least 12 casinos that have confirmed links to human trafficking, torture, and forced labor, despite the government's promise of a crackdown. The Commercial Gambling Management Commission approved layout plans for the Crown and Majestic casino complexes in Poipet and Bavet, whose former chairman Ly Kuong stepped down in December and was arrested a month later on charges including illegal recruitment for exploitation. Two survivors said they were confined for months at Crown Poipet, threatened with electric shock batons, and forced to open bank accounts. Authorities say they've shut down more than 250 scam sites and 92 casinos since July, but the regulator's recent approvals suggest the cleanup hasn't gone as far as the licensing office.

Read more: Jurist (report), Asgam (CGMC renewal), CamboJA News (scam centers), Sight Magazine (penalties), Al Jazeera (legal)

Four Hundred Families, $300 a Hectare, 15 Days to Leave

Provincial authorities in Preah Vihear gave nearly 400 farming families a deadline of April 13 to vacate land they've been cultivating for more than a decade, clearing the way for a Chinese-held economic land concession. The company, China Great Cause (Cambodia) Investment, got the concession through a 2012 sub-decree and has registered seven land titles that cover 5,871 hectares, but left portions undeveloped until last year when it started surveying who was farming there. Authorities are offering 1.2 million riel per hectare (about $300), as compensation.

Read more: CamboJA News

Barbed Wire at the Temple

Thai troops cleared land and hung up barbed wire near Preah Vihear Temple this week, rolling in armored vehicles to what Phnom Penh calls "illegally occupied areas" of Sra Em. The foreign ministry says the moves are in violation of the ceasefire agreement and has made its second formal protest in three days, after Bangkok sent soldiers and two armored vehicles to the O'Smach border crossing. Phnom Penh also rejected accusations from Thai ultranationalist Veera Somkwamkid that Hun Sen's Bodyguard Headquarters had “infiltrated Bangkok” in order to carry out espionage and assassinations, calling the claims "false and baseless."

Read more: Nation Thailand (oil smuggling), Cambodianess (barbed wire), Khmer Times (espionage), Khmer Times (probe officials)

Beijing Parks a Corvette at Ream

The first Chinese-built Type 056 guided-missile corvette docked at Ream Naval Base on April 4; a handover ceremony is planned for Wednesday. A second ship is about 70% done and due to arrive in June. The 1,300-tonne corvettes carry YJ-83 anti-ship missiles as well as HHQ-10 air defense systems, and are built for coastal patrol work. Thailand's Navy felt it was appropriate to make public reassurances that the arrivals "would not affect Thailand's maritime security in any way," claiming its own superiority in both number of warships and capability. The Thai statement also said that its Navy is "closely monitoring efforts by countries in the region to strengthen their naval forces."

Kingpin's Fall Strands Depositors

Li Xiong, former chairman of Huione Group, was extradited to China last Wednesday. He is up on charges including fraud, running illegal casinos, and the concealment of criminal proceeds, in what U.S. authorities have called a multi-billion-dollar laundering operation. The U.S. Treasury fingered Huione as a laundering node that processed at least $4 billion in illegal proceeds, from both North Korean thefts as well as the regional scam syndicates. Days after the extradition, customers of the National Bank of Cambodia received a letter saying the bank had no measures to resolve their frozen Huione Pay deposits and advising them to pursue legal action. The central bank said it has no legal basis to recognize customers as creditors.

Read more: AP News (network figures), CamboJA News (customer claims), CamboJA News (citizenship revocation)

Court Erases Opposition Advisor From the Ballot

The appeal court on Tuesday permanently stripped Rong Chhun of his political rights, upholding a 2025 incitement conviction over comments he made about online scams and the Cambodian border with Vietnam. Chhun, a former union leader and advisor to the opposition Nation Power Party, already served more than 15 months on a separate conviction in 2021. He is still on release pending a Supreme Court appeal but can't vote or run in next year's commune elections. Neither he nor his lawyer attended the hearing after their request to delay was denied.

Read more: CamboJA News

Thai Boycott Fills Local Shelves

Local products now have 30 percent of the domestic market, up from just 2 percent twenty years ago, as consumer anger over border clashes with Thailand continues to keep shoppers away from Thai imports. The spat with Thailand has given local SME producers their biggest opening in a generation, according to Te Tangpor, who leads the Federation of Associations for Small and Medium Enterprises. He told producers not to squander the moment by flooding the market with counterfeit or substandard goods, which could kill the fledgling trust that's taken years to build. Deputy Prime Minister Aun Pornmoniroth made the same pitch last September, telling businesses to deliver quality and hygiene if they want to change a boycott into a permanent brand advantage.

Fill Up Fast

The Ministry of Commerce raised retail fuel prices twice in 72 hours, with diesel up to 8,100 riel (roughly $2) a liter on April 4 from 7,500 riel on April 1. That's up 8% in three days. Regular gasoline rose slightly as well in a smaller move. The ministry says current prices already include government subsidies and tax cuts which are intended to soften the blow, indicating that Phnom Penh doesn't have much more room to maneuver. The new rates are in place until further notice, which in practice means “until the next adjustment.”

Rat Gets a Monument (He Earned It)

Siem Reap now has a statue of Magawa, an African giant pouched rat who sniffed out more than 100 landmines during a five-year career that started in 2016. The rodent cleared more than 141,000 square meters of land and in 2020 became the first rat to receive the PDSA Gold Medal for bravery. He died in 2022 at the age of eight. More than a million people still live and work on land that’s contaminated by mines and UXO, a 2030 mine-free target is still much-hoped-for.

Read more: BBC (Apopo training), Khmer Times (praise, successor)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Thailand 20260403

August Whitcraft — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 03:05:37 GMT

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Headlines:

Diesel Jumps, Fleets Sit Idle

Growth Down, Graft Up

Beijing Pulls the Plug on Cheap Solar

Trucks Go Electric as Diesel Burns

Armour at the Gate

Stark's Auditor Gets Six-Year Ban

Gold Mine Pays, Villagers Wait

Four Eyes on Thailand: EssilorLuxottica Snaps Up Top Charoen

More Chinese, Fewer Visitors Overall

Redmond Plants a Billion in Bangkok

Bangkok Passes the Hat

Smoke Gets in Your Wallet

Diesel Jumps, Fleets Sit Idle

Diesel prices spiked again this morning after the Oil Fuel Fund Committee slashed subsidies. DSI inspectors also swept through six fuel depots in Surat Thani on Wednesday and found inventory patterns that don't add up. Some operators held around two million liters in stock in March but sold only a few hundred thousand, a reversal from February when sales and stock movements were in lockstep (several million liters each). The increase in the cost of fuel, nearly 120% over the past month, has forced more than 40% of the fishing fleet to dock and sit idle. Owners say trips no longer pencil out, and cheap squid from Myanmar plus fish from India have capped what they are able to charge at the wharf. the Energy Ministry is shopping for emergency LNG from Malaysia to replace the two to three monthly cargoes that used to arrive from the Middle East, though how much spare capacity the Malaysians have is still unclear.

Read more: Nation Thailand (subsidy math), Bangkok Post (depot inspection details), Seafood Source (fleet impact percentages), Marinelink (Malaysia LNG talks)

Growth Down, Graft Up

The Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking cut its GDP growth forecast for 2026 again to 1.2-1.6% (from 1.6-2.0%). They blamed the energy crisis. Exports are now expected to be reduced 0.5-1.5%, and inflation projections have tripled to 2-3%. The downgrade came the same week a Federation of Thai Industries survey of 645 executives brought an even uglier story as nearly nine in 10 of those surveyed say corruption has gotten worse, and more than half say that graft-related costs now eat up more than 20% of their operating expenses. The business council wants fuel tax relief for SMEs (which make up) 80-90% of the economy, and industry leaders want legal reform, more digital government systems, as well as improved whistleblower protections.

Read more: Bangkok Post (growth forecast figures), Asian News Network (corruption cost percentages)

Beijing Pulls the Plug on Cheap Solar

Solar panel import prices are going up 9-15% after China scrapped VAT export rebates on April 1 and began phasing out battery rebates through 2027. Bangkok is trying to speed up its renewable investment to cut energy import dependence, but China still controls over 80% of global solar manufacturing, and buyers here get roughly half their panels from the mainland. Projects still in development are going to have higher capital costs and longer paybacks, a problem that could freeze approvals just as the government needs to hurry a green transition.

Trucks Go Electric as Diesel Burns

The Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand expects the fuel crunch to push battery electric vehicle sales past 120,000 units this year. The bigger shift, though, is going to be for commercial fleets. China's Dongfeng just introduced its heavy-duty Tractor Head in Thailand; it wants to sell 100 units this year and 300 next, and Siam City Cement is getting its drivers to test 200 trucks over three months before making a call. U Power inked a 1,000-truck battery-swapping order and finished its first production batch. For cement haulers and logistics operators, diesel now costs more than the upfront premium on electric, and Chinese manufacturers are working hard to meet them halfway with factory plans and charging infrastructure.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Armor at the Gate

Thailand rolled M113 armoured personnel carriers to the Chong Chom border crossing this week after accusing Cambodian soldiers of approaching barbed wire "inappropriately" and engaging in provocative behaviour near O'Smach. Air Chief Marshal Prapas Sornchaidee, director of the Thailand-Cambodia Joint Information Centre, said the rollout was simply a defensive posture adjustment to keep area control, claiming the move is still in compliance with the December joint statement that was supposed to prevent escalation. The UK's FCDO isn't buying the stability story, it’s still advising against all but essential travel within 20km of the Cambodian border. Bangkok says the situation is stable and under control, though “stable” apparently requires tracked armour at a commercial crossing.

Read more: Nation Thailand (military spokesman quotes), Mirror (UK travel advisory)

Stark's Auditor Gets Six-Year Ban

The SEC has yanked the license of Deloitte auditor Nantawat Sumraunhant and banned him for six years over his role in the Stark Corp scandal, one of Thailand’s largest corporate frauds. The regulator also filed criminal charges, saying that he failed to obtain proper evidence for key accounts like trade receivables, inventory, and revenue during his 2019-2021 audits. Nantawat’s apparent oversight allowed executives to fake financial statements and wildly mislead bond investors. Stark and 10 former directors and executives are facing separate charges over manipulated records between 2021 and 2022. Nantawat’s ban, effective from April 1, is the first indication of personal accountability in a case that's been grinding through enforcement since mid-2023, when the SEC first sent the matter to the DSI.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Gold Mine Pays, Villagers Wait

In Thailand’s first environmental class action, Bangkok's Civil Court ruled that the Chatree gold mine is, in fact, liable for environmental damages and ordered roughly $12 million in compensation for nearly 400 villagers who have elevated levels of heavy metals in their blood. That’s going to be about a million baht each (~$30,000) after a quarter-century of living with contamination and a decade-long legal fight. Operator Akara Resources has already filed an appeal, further freezing any imminent payout. Parent company Kingsgate Consolidated said it didn't agree with the findings, and claimed the evidence was inconclusive. The court also ordered one tailings storage facility shut down and told the company to foot the full bill for environmental rehabilitation, an effort that could run to hundreds of millions of baht.

Four Eyes on Thailand: EssilorLuxottica Snaps Up Top Charoen

EssilorLuxottica picked up Top Charoen, gaining control of more than 2,000 points of sale in the Franco-Italian eyewear giant's newest retail territory. The 77-year-old Thai chain operates under multiple banners including Luxoptic, Eye Class, and Big C Optical, and will give the European group a direct line to consumers in a country where it already manufactures lenses. CEO Francesco Milleri and Deputy CEO Paul du Saillant say the deal will be a launchpad for smart glasses distribution throughout the region.

More Chinese, but Fewer Visitors Overall

Visitor arrivals were 8.54 million for the first quarter, down slightly from a year earlier, even though Chinese arrivals were up 82% in February and corporate travel has abandoned the Middle East in favor of Bangkok's amenities. The Ministry of Tourism thinks that another six months of conflict could evaporate another 3 million visitors and Bt150 billion in revenue. If that comes to pass, the government's 35 million annual target will undoubtedly be missed. Energy costs are hitting long-haul routes hardest, so marketing budgets are being redeployed from further afield toward Middle Eastern travelers.

Read more: Thailand Business News (150B baht impact), Travel and Tour World (Q1 percentage drop), Travel and Tour World (82% China surge), Travel and Tour World (top source markets)

Redmond Plants a Billion in Bangkok

Microsoft will drop $1 billion over the next two years on cloud and AI infrastructure, including workforce training. The investment is expected to build out data center capacity in the Eastern Economic Corridor. The commitment comes as part of an ongoing Southeast Asian play by Microsoft that includes $5.5 billion that’s already been committed to Singapore.

Read more: Yahoo Finance (government statement), Yahoo Finance (stock performance)

Smoke Gets in Your Wallet

Songkran spending is expected to be down this year in its biggest drop since 2022. Chiang Mai, currently the world's most polluted city, currently has hotel occupancy at 30-40% as tourists and expats bail for beach towns. Northern operators blame wildfires, weak consumer spending, and the fuel crunch.

Read more: Bangkok Post (Chiang Mai ground-level), Bloomberg (spending figures)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Vietnam 20260402

August Whitcraft — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:06:12 GMT

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Headlines:

Hormuz Chokehold Hits the Tarmac

Nineteen Ships Want Hormuz Escort

Assembled Here, Designed in Shenzhen

Five Percent for 37 Years

Saigon's Big Dig

200-to-1 Crypto Welcome Mat

Black Market Dollar Gap Widens as Gold Soars

King of Fruits Takes a Beating

Inspector on the Take, Sick Pork on the Plate

Pork Bellies Hit the Trading Floor

Long Bien Holds, Metro Line Folds

Director to Doorman: CGV Pays Up

Tokyo Needs Drivers, Hanoi Has Them

Hormuz Chokehold Hits the Tarmac

Jet fuel went as high as $234 per barrel on March 24, about double pre-conflict levels, and airlines are managing by adding surcharges of up to 17% on the longest domestic routes. Under a plan now in front of the Ministry of Construction, the cost of a Hanoi-Phu Quoc ticket would rise from $152 to $178, and Vietnam Airlines/ Vietjet will cut domestic capacity by up to 26% and 22% respectively starting yesterday, first by dropping late-night and low-demand services entirely. Gasoline prices rose by half and diesel is up 70% since February before the government zeroed out environmental protection taxes, slashed excise and VAT levies, and tapped $304 million from last year's budget surplus to try and bring some relief to the market. The PM is ordering the build-out of a strategic petroleum depot in Thanh Hoa's Nghi Son commune. Currently domestic reserves cover less than 30 days of use, less than what regional peers are sitting on.

Read more: Fulcrum (import dollar figures), VnExpress (ticket surcharge breakdown), VnEconomy (depot construction order), VnExpress (price drops).

Nineteen Ships Want Hormuz Escort

The maritime authority is putting a request in to Iran for the safe passage of 19 ships through the Strait of Hormuz, including four flying Vietnam’s flag and 15 registered under foreign flags. The request includes a formal transit notice from Iran so shippers can get war-risk insurance, which insurers are unwilling to give without Iranian confirmation.

Assembled Here, Designed in Shenzhen

Trump's tariff war has poured fuel on a manufacturing shift, maybe just not the one he had in mind. A Bloomberg analysis of customs data shows that Chinese manufacturers pushed much of their final assembly across the border, but so far have kept core production at home. Some factories are adding less than 8% to export values before shipping onward, leaving total US electronics imports essentially flat. Foxconn subsidiary Fukang Technology, for example exported $8.6 billion in MacBooks, iPads and related motherboards last year, but they imported $7.9 billion in components from China, South Korea and Taiwan.

Five Percent for 37 Years

The new Law on Digital Technology Industry is giving semiconductor manufacturers a 5% corporate tax rate for 37 years, one of the best deals on the planet right now. Projects starting at roughly $231 million qualify, a figure about a fifth less than comparable deals in other priority sectors. The package includes six years of full tax exemption followed by 13 years at half rate, plus five-year income tax holidays for specialized staff. The pitch seems to be working, FDI hit about $38 billion in 2025, up from 2024’s ~$27 billion.

Read more: VnEconomy (tax specifics), Weissratings (FDI figures), VnEconomy (regional context)

Saigon's Big Dig

Ho Chi Minh City has sucked up nearly $2.9 billion in FDI so far this year. The money is coming as the city races to wire together a $20 billion, 187-kilometer metro network by 2030 and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is setting a hard fourth-quarter deadline for Long Thanh International Airport to start commercial flights. Chinh inspected the site on March 29 and told contractors to hustle so they can get construction done by September. Nearly 9,000 workers are on site at Long Thanh. About three quarters of the total contracted value is already done.

Read more: VnEconomy (retail sales data), VnExpress

200-to-1 Crypto Welcome Mat

The Ministry of Finance published a crypto tax framework that gives foreign institutional a 200x tax advantage over domestic ones. By the rules of Circular 32, foreign institutions trading crypto via local service providers need to pay 0.1% on transaction revenue, but domestic companies will be on the hook for a 20% corporate tax on their gains. Individual traders, foreign or local, will also get the 0.1% flat rate. VAT doesn't apply to crypto transfers or trading. The rules will be in force through a pilot that requires exchanges to post roughly VND9.5 trillion (about $390 million) in paid-in capital and limits foreign ownership to 49%. Chainalysis figures that Vietnam processed $220 to $230 billion in on-chain volume between mid-2024 to mid-2025, making it one of the top three markets in Asia-Pacific.

Read more: VnEconomy (VAT exemption), Westafricatradehub (capital requirements)

Black Market Dollar Gap Widens as Gold Soars

The dong is getting squeezed. Unofficial exchange points were unloading dollars for VND27,970, a 6.1% premium over Vietcombank's official rate, as safe-haven flows pushed the greenback toward its biggest monthly gain since July last year. The cost of Saigon Jewelry Company's gold bars this week were trading at VND177.2 million/ tael, a hefty local premium that’s about VND29 million higher than what global prices would indicate the stuff should trade hands for. Savers are apparently on the hunt for hard assets and currency, whatever the markup.

Read more: VnExpress (yen intervention speculation), VnExpress (VND29M premium), VnExpress (13% YTD gains)

King of Fruits Takes a Beating

Durian prices across the Mekong Delta have collapsed 35-40% since late February as the domestic harvest met a Thai production boom. Farmers who bet on export demand are being forced to dump the fruit at home instead. One Dong Thap grower sold her entire orchard for 21% less than she was expecting the month before after waiting for a rebound that never came. Thai growers are reportedly making headway in the Chinese market share by way of meeting higher safety and traceability standards.

Read more: VnExpress

Inspector on the Take, Sick Pork on the Plate

Hanoi police arrested eight scofflaws in mid-March, including meat inspectors, for allowing 300 tons of African Swine Fever-contaminated pork to get to city markets and school cafeterias over a three-month period. The bad pig came from a slaughterhouse in the Van Phuc livestock slaughtering facility. ASF doesn't threaten human health directly, but outbreaks have been on the rise, from 714 in 2023 to 1,609 in 2024 to 2,782 in 2025, and more than 1.27 million pigs were culled last year. The Hanoi case follows another bust in Hai Phong, where police took down a network that sent roughly 125 tons of ASF-infected pork into a canned food company's warehouse. About two tons of it had already been processed and labeled by the time authorities stepped in.

Pork Bellies Hit the Trading Floor

Staying in the swine-o-sphere, Ho Chi Minh City is putting pork carcasses on the Mercantile Exchange of Vietnam, the first time a domestic commodity exchange has listed meat. The city chews through 13,000 to 14,000 pigs daily in a market that is work almost a billion dollars annually ($960+ million). Trading will be voluntary and will run alongside traditional distribution channels. Only post-slaughter carcasses that meet traceability and food safety standards are eligible for listing.

Read more: VnEconomy

Long Bien Holds, the Metro Line Folds

Hanoi closed its French colonial Long Bien Bridge on April 1 for emergency repairs after a steel truss joint fractured completely, snapping the connecting plate and separating the upper chord members from the truss nodes. The bridge, built in 1902, runs 1,691 meters over the Red River with a patchwork of original spans and wartime replacements, was supposed to retire in 2020 when Metro Line 1 opened with a new river crossing. That metro line, first approved in 2004, has never broken ground and is now penciled in for the 2030-2035 construction period. A previous repair in 2015, which came at a cost of nearly $11.4 million, was designed to keep the bridge alive only until 2020. The span now carrying dozens of daily passenger and freight trains as well as thousands of motorbikes.

Read more: VnExpress

Director to Doorman: CGV Pays Up

CJ CGV Vietnam is being ordered to pay $285,000 to a British marketing director it demoted to (get this:) cinema lobby supervisor before firing him in 2015. Benedict Daniel Sullivan signed on as Sales and Marketing Director on Jan. 1, 2014, at a $4,000 monthly salary plus allowances and commissions. He then went on to ink 127 advertising contracts before CEO Dongwon Kwak decided that his talents were best used supervising a District 7 lobby that October. Sullivan resigned his director title in December 2014, effective Jan. 19, 2015, but the company dismissed him the next day, with no formal termination notice. After nearly a decade of litigation, the March 26 verdict found the Korean cinema chain had been "careless" in treating Sullivan's resignation letter as grounds for termination.

Read more: VnExpress

Tokyo Needs Drivers, Hanoi Has Them

In a bid to fill it’s own labor shortage, Japan is to start testing taxi, bus, and truck drivers in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang today as part of its Specified Skilled Worker visa program. Candidates will be required to pass both a Japanese language test and a skills exam. Once they pass, they’ll be allowed into Japan for a period (six months to a year, depending on license type) where they can work toward converting their Vietnamese licenses to Japanese ones. If they can’t do it in time, they’ll be expected to return to Vietnam.

Read more: VnEconomy

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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