The Mekong Memo

Laos 20260729

August Whitcraft — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:35:26 GMT

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No Autopsy, No Charges in Vang Vieng Methanol Deaths

Twenty months after six tourists died from suspected methanol poisoning at the Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng, police have closed the case without any charges against the hostel's owner or staff. At a press conference kept closed to foreign media, Police Colonel Khamphong Vongdalasene said investigators lacked evidence that any individual had caused the deaths. The gap was basic and brutal. No autopsies were performed on the victims, who included Australian teenagers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles and British lawyer Simone White. A local vodka maker was charged only with running an illegal business and selling products “harmful to health.” Only Australian, UK and Danish diplomats were admitted to the briefing, in addition to local media. Shaun Bowles, Morton-Bowles' father, said the findings were "an excuse." Karsten Sorensen, whose daughter Freja also died, was harsher, saying authorities were trying to cover something up and calling the process corrupt and incompetent.

Luang Prabang Dam Almost 3/4 Complete

The Luang Prabang dam is almost three-quarters complete, keeping it on track for a 2030 startup and 1,460 megawatts of run-of-river capacity by way of its seven turbines. Thailand's CK Power owns half the project, Gulf Hydropower holds a fifth, and CH. Karnchang, TTW, and PT Sole split the rest. Most of the electricity will be bound for Thailand. The $5 billion project is about 25 kilometers from Luang Prabang's UNESCO old town, which has been cause for years of heritage warnings. At a recent site visit, officials said the fears had been addressed, without saying how. If the dam is finished as planned, it will become the Mekong mainstream's third dam after Xayabouly and Don Sahong. Six more are planned.

Read more: Laotian Times

Electricity Exports to Vietnam Up 120 Percent

Electricity exports to Vietnam more than doubled in a 120 percent year-on-year increase to a record 2.92 billion kilowatt-hours in Q1 2026. By the end of 2025, Hanoi had approved imports from 47 power projects with a combined capacity of more than 8,260 megawatts. Of that, 2,379 MW is already feeding into the grid. Vientiane also signed a concession for an 80 MW Xekaman 4 hydropower project in Sekong, with all of its output planned to be sent to Vietnam. Bilateral trade was $1.305 billion in the first half, led by gold, potassium chloride, and electrical machinery. Hanoi has also broken ground on the 60-kilometer Vinh-Thanh Thuy Expressway to the border, the first stretch of a planned Vientiane-Hanoi corridor.

Read more: Laotian Times

Hotel Raid Nets 51 in Furniture Scam

Police nabbed 51 foreigners, including Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese citizens, at a Xieng Khouang hotel, and have accused them of running an online furniture and home-appliance scam. Officers took more than 100 phones, computers, and other call-center fraud kit from the rooms. The raid came after a tip from a local resident.

Squishy Toys Pulled From Shelves Over Benzene

Laos ordered a stop on imports and sales of non-certified Squishy toys after inspections found excessive benzene levels in the TikTok-popular stress toys. Authorities say at least three children got rashes, blister-like burns, eye irritation, fever and vomiting after playing with them.

Read more: Laotian Times

Photo by CJ on Unsplash

Storms Swamp Khammouane's Rice Paddies

Storms Maysak and Bavi dumped ten days of rain on Khammouane's Khounkham district, flooding 3,234 hectares of paddy in 19 villages and leaving 1,365 families evaluating the damage. The district's Disaster Management Committee put losses at LAK 39.7 billion (~$1.75M). Cassava and rubber plantations, irrigation canals, and livestock were also hit. The 2026 flood response plan is tightening oversight of almost a hundred hydropower operators and putting local coordinators on-site at dams.

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane Tells Online Sellers to Register

Vientiane's Department of Industry and Commerce says the rule isn’t new, but it’s time to comply. Online sellers have needed a business registration and e-commerce license since 2023, with fines up to LAK 10 million (~$440). Nationwide E-Trust registration became mandatory on February 1, 2026, letting even home-based sellers in remote provinces file online. Rules also require Lao-language labels, pricing in the kip, and a ban on unapproved pyramid or fundraising schemes. The notice draws no distinction between domestic and foreign operators.

Read more: Laotian Times

Gas Pumps Get an Electric Makeover

The State Fuel Company and Electricite du Laos are looking into whether state-owned petrol stations can become EV fast-charging hubs, with chargers built for both the international CCS Type 2 standard and China's GB/T plug. The study also investigates the viability of turning old fuel stops into energy hubs with cafés, restaurants and convenience stores. Petrol and diesel vehicle imports are mostly banned through the end of 2026, and even though Laos runs largely on hydropower, it still pays for every drop of fuel in foreign currency. No cost estimate or rollout date was provided.

Read more: The Star (agreements), Fuel Cells Works (import ban)

Government-Majority Venture to Certify Its Own Products

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has given inspection and certification duties to a new outfit called State-owned Enterprises for Checking Standards and Certifying Product Quality Limited. Fifty one percent of the company is held by the government and 49 percent by Lao Standard Control Co. The company will test goods against national standards and issue certificates of legality before they hit shelves or cross borders. Officials say that consumer complaints filed through the National Assembly hotline as the trigger. No fee schedule or testing timeline was published.

Read more: Laotian Times

Party Turns Heritage Into a Tourism Line Item

The Party Central Committee wants more money out of culture. It approved the Lao Cultural Values Promotion Association, tasking it with turning heritage into a creative economy for artists, performers, and cultural entrepreneurs. Association president Savanhkhone Razmountry says cultural attractions already pull in four to five million visitors a year. The launch came in the wake of Vientiane's first khaen festival, tying the UNESCO-listed instrument to the government's 2026-2030 cultural and tourism strategy. That strategy also covers a pending UNESCO bid for Larb (the food) and a planned nomination for the Su Khuan blessing ceremony. The association's first job will be a national inventory of intangible cultural assets. In a separate development, ASEAN assessors are arriving in mid-August to inspect Nakai-Nam Theun’s 4,000 sq km for Heritage Park status, which officials hope to secure in 2028. UNESCO World Heritage inscription is queued for 2029, with an IUCN Green List bid running alongside. The park is more than four-fifths forest and home to the critically endangered saola. It was added to UNESCO’s tentative list in 2025 and completed its Green List gap analysis last October.

Read more: TravelMole (tourism target), VietnamPlus (khaen), The Star (heritage park)

Southern Laos Development Wish List

Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told officials in Champasak to stop shipping raw minerals and start processing, branding and selling them to export standards. He’s pushing a regional plan for the regions of Champasak, Salavan, Xekong and Attapeu that also calls for dry ports, cold storage, solar-powered irrigation and simplified customs procedures.

Myanmar 20260728

August Whitcraft — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 04:46:44 GMT

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New Commander's Air War

ACLED has reported more than a dozen mass killings and more than 450 civilian deaths in the first half of 2026, and says that the brutal toll is partly the result of a March command reshuffle that put loyalist Ye Win Oo, a former spymaster, in charge of the armed forces. Apparently, his signature is sending two to five fighter jets to work over a single target for hours instead of scattered raids. The result is fewer strikes, but each is deadlier and more damaging to infrastructure. ACLED expects the bombing to ease up somewhat during the monsoon season, then thinks it will pick up again in October as the army tries to (once again) regain lost territory. In other reports,

Read more: Straits Times (visit), Anadolu (death toll), Devdiscourse (ASEAN), Mezha (looting), Impact Policies (AAPP), Mizzima (airstrikes), Mizzima (health system), The Guardian (doctors)

Fuel Quotas Halved, Yangon Fish Markets Slump

The cost of the national food basket was MMK 51,187 in June, up a fifth since late February, as diesel has stayed stubbornly up 45 percent above pre-crisis levels. The squeeze was made worse when Min Aung Hlaing told his cabinet to cut foreign currency spending, causing the Ministry of Energy to reduce weekly fuel purchase quotas for retailers by more than half. Yangon taxi drivers now make six days of fuel last a week. At Shwe Padauk fish market, home to almost 500 vendors, a supervisor says business has been down for five months as young workers have been leaving for Malaysia and Rakhine's seafood supply lines are broken.

Read more: ReliefWeb (food basket), DVB (fuel), Mizzima (market)

ASEAN Makes Suu Kyi the Price of Readmission

ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Manila agreed to make "positive developments" concerning Aung San Suu Kyi part of the price for letting Myanmar back into bloc-level meetings. Senior officials are supposed to give recommendations to leaders before the summit in November. Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro, the bloc's chair, told reporters the return remains "still far off" and admitted she does not know whether she will be allowed to see Suu Kyi during a humanitarian visit planned later this year. At an informal sit-down in Bangkok, junta foreign minister Tin Maung Swe told Lazaro that Suu Kyi was being cared for "like a sister," then slapped down a request for an in-person wellness check. Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, has been running a "Proof of Life" campaign since April; analysts believe the photo released by the regime is not recent, and in fact was taken some time around 2022. Showing that the issue is still a sore one, a Yangon court sentenced former NLD lawmaker Saw Naing to three years for donating alms to monks and calling for Suu Kyi's release on her 81st birthday, one of at least 32 arrests tied to this year's "Flower Strike."

Read more: Philippine Inquirer (ASEAN), Nikkei Asia (Lazaro), Nikkei Asia (Proof of Life), DVB (sentencing)

India Chases Rare Earths Into Kachin

State-owned Indian Rare Earths and private firm Midwest Advanced Materials sent reps to Myanmar in late 2024 and early this year in a push New Delhi hopes will put a wedge in China's grip on heavy rare earths. Ambassador Abhay Thakur told a Mandalay mining forum that cooperation had won "momentum," as junta chief Min Aung Hlaing had brought up the issue during his trip to India. The prize is in Kachin State, where dysprosium and terbium deposits provided $3.6 billion of rare earths to China between 2021 and 2024. That supply made up almost three-quarters of Beijing's rare earth imports between 2017 and 2024.

Little Bagan Torched, Naypyidaw Highway Checkpoint Overrun

More than 200 troops burned more than 100 homes and an unconfirmed number of the 81 Bagan-era religious buildings in Pakhannge, Chauk Township, forcing at least 20 civilians abducted from neighboring Aikyi and Thatyatkone to march with the column as shields. Two days later, PDF fighters hit the Shwepan checkpoint on the Naypyidaw-Magway highway in Myothit Township, killing nine of the roughly 30 regime troops and police stationed there as 21 escaped. No resistance casualties were reported. The junta answered with more road blockades and an increased troop presence in Myothit. More than 10,000 residents have so far fled 20 villages in Chauk since early June.

Read more: DVB (Pakhannge), DVB (checkpoint)

Troops Turn Monastery Into a Holding Cell

Nearly 300 junta soldiers occupied Kyaukhnget and Hsinhsarpyar villages in Ywangan Township after fighting with the Danu People's Liberation Army, rounding up residents and locking them inside a monastery in Kyaukhnget. Villagers said that soldiers beat everyone they caught, women included, and searched house to house in Hsinhsarpyar. Young men from Kyaukhnget and Oktwin have reportedly been abducted to porter for frontline troops and serve as human shields. Every young man in Kyaukhnget has now reportedly fled.

Laos and Myanmar Plan 2,790 MW Mekong Dam

Min Aung Hlaing's visit to Vientiane resulted in the signing of a feasibility-study agreement for a 2,790 MW dam on their shared stretch of the Mekong above the Golden Triangle. Laos' Phongsupthavy Group and Myanmar's Primus Sapphire Power have 34 months to come up with a design for a project that would be larger than any dam either country has ever built. Myanmar is only an observer to the Mekong River Commission; its four members, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, are supposed to review mainstream projects before construction. Laos is restricted by the Commission's 1995 flow rules, which push the design toward a run-of-river scheme like the one in Xayaburi. Cambodia's comparably sized Sambor Dam has been under moratorium for years over damage to the Tonle Sap fishery.

Read more: Bangkok Post (MRC participation call), Stimson Center (Chinese contractor likely)

SCEF Gets the Arakan Army on the Line

The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union spent more than an hour on a video call with Arakan Army chief Twan Mrat Naing, the first formal meeting between the main resistance coalition and the group that now runs 14 of Rakhine State's 17 townships in addition to Paletwa in Chin State. NUG Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than joined SCEF rotating chairman Khu Oo Reh on the call. No joint political statement was shared after the call. Before the talks, the NUG sent 150,000 yuan, about $21,000, to the AA for flood relief, and the AA replied with a formal letter of thanks.

Read more: DVB (AA territory), Narinjara (SCEF)

Eggs to 700 Kyat

A single egg that cost 100 kyat before the coup will now cost a buyer nearly 700, (that’s about $0.33), and it’s a price that most households can’t stop checking and talking about. The Junta has put limits on the import of breeding hens, feed, and veterinary vaccines, in an attempt to save foreign currency, but that’s caused production costs to rise. In Yangon, an authority-pressured scheme sells eggs at a discounted 550 kyat, but Facebook posts show long lines and many shoppers going home empty-handed. The World Bank clocked annual inflation at almost a quarter in April, with food prices among the fastest-rising goods.

Min Aung Hlaing Visits India, Then Beijing

Min Aung Hlaing's debut trip abroad as president was supposed to be a wildlife summit. When India's International Big Cat Alliance conference was canceled, New Delhi changed the invitation into a full Official Visit ahead of Beijing's calendar, which stayed booked with Trump and Putin. China got him next, but with the higher-status format of a State Visit, the protocol that confers full sovereign recognition, against India's working-level Official Visit. Naypyidaw did not ask Beijing to move up the queue.

Two Phones a Year

Travelers coming into Myanmar by way of Yangon, Naypyidaw or Mandalay may bring in only two mobile phones a year. Unregistered devices need to be declared at customs with their IMEI numbers, and any phone that’s used in-country for more than 30 days will trigger a CEIR registration, result in a tax bill and a fine.

Cambodia 20260727

August Whitcraft — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 02:34:26 GMT

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Phnom Penh Gets 10% US Tariff, Beating Rivals

Cambodia got a 10% Section 301 tariff in the USTR's final ruling, a notable two and a half points lower than the rate that was given to Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines. The June proposal had put Cambodia in the higher tier, but three ministries worked to improve enforcement against forced-labor imports before the comment deadline, and the final list moved Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia down to 10%. Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol seemed delighted. He said he expects the pending Excess Capacity component to come in at 9% or less, which would keep the combined rate around 19% and within the trade agreement Phnom Penh signed with Washington last year.

Read more: The Star (tariff ruling), Kiripost (enforcement push), Cambodianess (Chanthol comments), Khmer Times (trade deal), Khmer Times (regional comparison)

Hun Manet and Hun Sen Go Shopping for Dollars

Prime Minister Hun Manet and Senate President Hun Sen spent the week hosting peeps with checkbooks - first a South Korean Chamber of Commerce delegation, then a US-ASEAN Business Council group of more than a dozen American companies led by Ambassador Brian McFeeters. The pitch is being made as exports to Thailand dropped to $357 million in the first half from $448 million a year earlier, and imports were reduced from $1.7 billion to about $1 billion as the border closure keeps grinding. Trade with South Korea, by contrast, was about $600 million last year, up almost 37 percent. Those numbers give Phnom Penh a talking point as it looks past its shrunken neighbor for capital for healthcare, energy, and the digital economy.

Read more: Cambodia Daily (investment targets), US Embassy (delegation companies), Khmer Times (mine contamination), CamboJA (displacement toll)

Tourist Arrivals Fall Almost 48% in First Half

International arrivals fell almost 48 percent to 1.75 million in the first half, according to the Ministry of Tourism. PATA Cambodia chapter chairman Thourn Sinan claimed the weak numbers were thanks to a wobbly global economy and neighbors outspending Phnom Penh on flights, visa exemptions, and packages. Researcher Chedy Tech thinks it’s down to the conflict in the Middle East and global inflation, which he says is pinching the wallets of those who might otherwise visit. The months-long Thai border closure, once a major overland funnel into Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, was unmentioned by both experts.

Read more: Khmer Times

FBI's Patel Comes to Collect on the Scam Tally

Kash Patel met with Hun Manet at the Peace Palace after a stop in Bangkok to hold court at a summit with nearly 20 countries on scam centers, and Phnom Penh released its first full-year scorecard. Authorities say 2,773 suspects were sent to court in 268 cases, more than 600 locations were raided, and 21,102 foreigners were deported. Nineteen casino licenses were withdrawn and 30 more were suspended after a review of 195. Hun Manet told Bloomberg that he has removed a three-star general, a two-star general, and a one-star general because of scam links, as well as provincial governors and police commissioners. Phnom Penh will play host to an international conference in September, an FBI delegation is confirmed. The UN says that regional losses last year were up to $114 billion, about triple its estimate from two years earlier.

Read more: The Star (detention demographics), The Star (UNODC loss range), Khmer Times (center closures), CamboJA (bitcoin seizure)

LNG Exporters Circle First Gas Plant

Suppliers from the US, Canada, Australia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia are getting in line ahead of the tender to fuel the 900MW Botum Sakor plant, according to Mines and Energy Minister Keo Rottanak. Price and supply stability will decide the winner. The first 450MW phase is expected online by the end of this year, and the second phase should roll out next year. The Japan-Korea LNG marker has topped $21 per million BTU as renewed Persian Gulf fighting and Qatar's force majeure extension at Ras Laffan tighten supply. Rottanak says renewables power almost two-thirds of the grid, and LNG picks up slack as part of the rest while the government works toward 70 percent “clean power” by 2030. Fuel tax and duty cuts that have been introduced to protect domestic users from price shocks are costing the treasury up to $60 million a month.

Read more: Cambodianess (construction timing), Energy Connects (fuel tax cuts), Oilprice (energy mix)

Photo by Siborey Sean on Unsplash

Chinese Megaprojects Clear Local Law, Flunks Global Standards

A study presented at an NGO Forum on Cambodia workshop found that the Lower Sesan 2 dam, Dara Sakor SEZ, and Funan Techo Canal all cleared the minimum local legal bar but fell short of IFC, UN, and OECD standards. Chinese money made up as much as 54 percent of investment capital last year. Researcher Sam Chanthy reported on persistent woes including limited public consultation, weak grievance (resolution) systems, and inadequate livelihood restoration for displaced residents. Deforestation and altered river hydrology were also raised as chronic problems, not one-off mistakes.

Soap Complaint Triggers Registration Pilot

A soap maker's registration ordeal has pushed Hun Manet to order a six-day licensing pilot for the industry. The pilot is part of an SME overhaul and comes as consumers continue to boycott Thai products. The Cambodia Chamber of Commerce says paperwork was never the real problem. Vice president Lim Heng wants better enforcement of import duties on finished goods and tax relief to steady raw-material supply for local manufacturers. Deputy PM and Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth have been tasked with chairing an emergency task force.

Kem Sokha's Travel Ban Lifted

A royal decree lifted Kem Sokha's five-year overseas travel ban three months after the Phnom Penh Appeal Court handed it down. The former opposition leader's first trip out of the capital will not be to a rally, instead he is heading to Banteay Meanchey to pass out 300 food packages for displaced families, then on to Oddar Meanchey to meet frontline troops on the Thai border. His lifetime ban on political activity, related to the Supreme Court's dissolution of his Cambodia National Rescue Party, will remain in place. A US trip to visit his daughters and get medical treatment is planned next.

Read more: The Star (royal decree), Khmer Times (pardon)

EU Building Codes Adopted

Cambodia has adopted 10 Eurocodes (the EU's structural design standards) after sustained lobbying by EuroCham's Real Estate and Construction Committee. Vice-chair Ross Wheble, who is the head of Knight Frank Cambodia, said the recognized code should lift construction quality, planning transparency, and foreign investor confidence. Wheble said the adoption is "the single biggest upgrade to the regulatory framework in a decade."

Thailand 20260724

August Whitcraft — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:22:07 GMT

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Checkpoint Ambush Leave Five Rangers Dead

Gunmen attacked the Bukeh Sami checkpoint in Rangae district, Narathiwat, on Wednesday evening, killing five members of Ranger Task Force Regiment 45 and wounding six civilians, including some children. Before escaping, the attackers stripped the checkpoint of weapons, bulletproof vests and mobile phones. Their pickup turned up torched 21 kilometers away in Sri Sakhon district, with a burned Songkhla license plate the only trace left behind. No group has yet claimed responsibility, but it is one of the deadliest strikes on security forces in years. PM Anutin Charnvirakul said it was a "brazen act of terrorism," while Army Chief of Staff Gen. Chaipruk Duangprapat flew to Narathiwat and promised to hunt the attackers down "whichever country supports them." Formal talks with the BRN, last held in December, were expected to restart in June, but they never did.

Read more: AP News (pipe bombs), CNA (governor visit), Bangkok Post (victims), Khaosod English (security order), Al Jazeera (death toll)

Chinese Embassy Pressures Cinemas On Taiwan Film Fest

A caller claiming to speak for the Chinese embassy called two Bangkok cinemas on July 22 and demanded that they remove Taiwan's Ministry of Culture logo from promotional materials for the Taiwan Documentary and Film Festival. When organizer Thida Plitpholkarnpim refused, the caller, speaking Thai with a Chinese accent, apparently started getting loud and threatening. A person identifying himself as an embassy official then showed up at one venue the next day to repeat the request. He said he would report the matter to his superiors and try to escalate it "to a national level." Thida said it was apparently the first such interference in the festival's eight-year run. Taiwan's representative Peter Lan said he had received no calls from Thai government officials about the incident. The festival, with 17 Taiwanese films in Bangkok and Khon Kaen, opened as scheduled. This story might be well-paired with the next one.

Read more: The Tribune (opening remarks), Taipei Times (Ang Lee film)

Anutin Signs Beijing's Taiwan Line, Taipei Objects

Anutin Charnvirakul's five-day China trip, which came to a close on July 20, resulted in at least 15 cooperation deals in AI, aviation, anti-money laundering and more, in addition to a joint statement backing Beijing's "one country, two systems" formula on Taiwan. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry rejected the wording, as Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said it was “false.”. Lin stopped short of threatening the visa-free arrangement between Taiwan and Thailand, saying travel policy is based on reciprocity and equal treatment, not politics. Back in Bangkok, Anutin took the stage at the Thailand-China Cooperation Expo to promise Chinese investors fast-track approvals by way of the BOI and EEC office and to personally guarantee their security.

Read more: Bangkok Tribune (railway pledge), Taiwan News (Lin Chia-lung), Asian News Network (expo jobs)

Bangkok Closes Door on Cambodia Border Talks

Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow says "the door has closed" on land border negotiations after Cambodia took the maritime dispute to UNCLOS compulsory conciliation. The Joint Boundary Commission has not met since October 2025, as Thailand postponed an earlier meeting during its general election. Phnom Penh says Bangkok walked away from the bilateral maritime framework first.

Bitkub Charged for Hidden 1.7 Billion Baht Hack

The biggest crypto exchange has been hit with criminal charges over a 1.7 billion baht hack that it kept off its books. The SEC claims that after hackers stole 16 types of digital assets in May 2021, Bitkub's daily net liquid capital reports filed between May 10 and October 30 showed no meaningful dip in assets. Bitkub made customers whole by October 31, 2021, then kept filing clean reports. Former directors Sakolkorn Sakavee and Thaweesap Rawan, who signed the filings, are named along with the company and have additional charges for false statements in corporate documents. The case will go to the Economic Crime Suppression Division, then prosecutors, then the courts.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Photo by Hongbin on Unsplash

Bitcoin Miners Skip the Meter in Samut Sakhon

Raids on seven sites in Samut Sakhon and Nakhon Pathom netted about 1,900 mining rigs after operators tapped directly into 22-kilovolt lines, bypassing meters on the high-voltage side of transformers. A legitimate 2,000-machine setup would use about 22 million baht (~$650k) a month in power. These facilities apparently only paid 10,000 to 25,000 baht. The total value of the stolen electricity is being figured to be more than 280 million baht, and the seized equipment is valued at 200 million.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Yuan Passes Yen in Thai Wallets

The yuan is now involved in about 5% of trade transactions, edging past the yen as importers look for cheaper settlement on the $42.2 billion in non-dollar, non-euro, non-yen imports last year. That is up sharply compared to the $18.2 billion reported in 2015. The dollar still owns 80%. The rupee, discussed for years, remains stuck below 1%.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Chinese Corruption Reporter Faces Deportation

Fifty-nine rights groups signed a statement last week urging Thailand not to deport Bai Zhaodong, an investigative journalist who spent more than 25 years reporting on corruption before Yulin's Public Security Bureau issued an "extortion" warrant in September 2024. Bai has been held at the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center since January. Rights groups say Bai has faced six separate rounds of Chinese criminal charges connected to his reporting on money laundering that implicated senior CCP figures in Shaanxi. UN Special Rapporteur Andrea Bolanos Vargas has also called on Thai authorities to bring an end to deportation proceedings and help move the man to a third country.

Court Convicts First Conscientious Objector

The Samut Prakan Provincial Court has found Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal guilty of draft evasion, giving him a six-month sentence suspended for a year. It’s the first such conviction of a conscientious objector in Thailand. The court used a prior Constitutional Court ruling to claim that the Military Service Act makes no exception for religious belief or conscience. Five Harvard Divinity School scholars, including Buddhist Studies professor Janet Gyatso, wrote to the court asking it to let Netiwit, now enrolled in the school's Master of Theological Studies program, return to finish his degree. No word yet on an appeal.

Read more: Prachatai English (indictment), Thai Enquirer (supporters), Prachatai English (academic record)

Finance Ministry Weighs $714M EV Fleet Swap

The Finance Ministry is weighing a 24 billion baht ($714 million) program to replace up to 80,000 taxis, tuk-tuks, motorcycle taxis, buses and trucks with EVs. Deputy Transport Minister Siripong Angkasakulkiat says the government is now reconsidering whether to extend help to every vehicle category, not only commercial fleets. The push got a bump after this month's Constitutional Court ruling clearing a 400 billion baht borrowing plan. The Energy Regulatory Commission is expanding its direct power purchase pilot, first opened to data centers, to EV makers, steel, auto parts, electronics and health care firms as "special electricity users.” ERC secretary-general Poonpat Leesombatpiboon said exporters without clean-power credentials have the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism to worry about, but transmission capacity is limited and the rollout will be phased. Data centers will still be the priority through this year.

Read more: CNA (EV sales), Bangkok Post (power users)

AC Exports Ride Europe's Heat Dome

Air conditioner exports were $149 million in May, up almost 41 percent year-on-year and the strongest month since October 2025, pushing year-to-date shipments to $784 million. Germany bought $30.8 million worth (up almost 90 percent), Finland's orders more than quadrupled, and Sweden's almost tripled. The Trade Policy and Strategy Office said an early heat dome pushed May temperatures in parts of Western Europe up more than 10 degrees Celsius above normal, forcing retailers to restock ahead of a summer the World Meteorological Organization expects to run hot through September. Reversible units with heat pump features, favored under EU energy rules, led category growth. Air conditioning still extends to only about one in five European households, compared to a global average of more than one-third.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Cognizant and Gulf Edge Chase AI-Native Pitch

Cognizant and Gulf Edge, the digital infrastructure arm of Gulf Development, are teaming up to sell AI services in Thailand, starting with banking, energy and health care. The offering puts together Gulf Edge's data centers, cloud and satellite capabilities and Cognizant's engineering muscle. The tie-up could eventually result in the creation of 1,000-or-so high-skilled jobs. Gulf CEO Sarath Ratanavadi said it was a step toward making the country "an AI-native economy." The partners also hope to work with universities and public-sector bodies on talent development.

Read more: Khaosod English (Ratanavadi), Investing.com (announcement), Stocktitan (infrastructure), TradingView (Reuters)

Chiang Mai Wants a Direct Line to India

The government is making a case for direct flights between Chiang Mai and India, in addition to more efficient use of cargo connections between Ranong Port and Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Kolkata, betting the Andaman coast can pull tourists past Bangkok and shorten cargo routes to South Asia. Indian arrivals were 1,056,729 from January to May 2026, up almost 8 percent year-on-year. Talks with Indian carriers are under way, but no airline has, as of yet, committed to the Chiang Mai route.

Vietnam 20260723

August Whitcraft — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 05:45:02 GMT

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Upper-Middle-Income Bar Met Four Years Early

The World Bank's July 1 update gets Vietnam into the upper-middle-income bracket for fiscal 2027, clearing the $4,636 GNI per capita floor four years ahead of the Communist Party's timetable. The reclassification rests on 2025 income data. The same cycle update also moved the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Jordan and Micronesia up a tier. The bigger number is set for the year 2045. Party targets call for high-income status by then, and the Academy of Finance calculates that Vietnam needs at least 5 percent average yearly GDP growth from 2026 through 2044. Interestingly, even 8 percent growth would only move the finish line up a single year. Upper-middle-income status will also start phasing out the cheap financing that came with the lower tier, just at the moment that Hanoi is trying to raise $1.2 trillion in private capital by 2030.

Read more: VnEconomy

SCB Sees 9.5% Growth, Below Hanoi Target

Standard Chartered Bank is expecting to see 9.5% GDP growth in 2026, a bigger print that UOB's 8.5% call, and SCB is crediting a manufacturing recovery, services and a wave of infrastructure spending for the lift. The bank also cut its inflation forecast to 4.4% and says that it expects the State Bank of Vietnam to hold rates steady. Nine and a half percent is still short of the double-digit figure Hanoi’s treated as a political imperative since To Lam became Party chief in mid-2024, however, but StanChart has penciled in 11% for 2027.

Read more: VnExpress (economist comments), Fulcrum (credit targets)

Chips Move Up On the Priority List

The Ministry of Industry and Trade wants semiconductors, rare earths, high-tech electronics and offshore wind added to a draft Law on Key Industries, moving chips into the same legal category as steel and railways for the first time. The Ministry of Justice published the dossier on Tuesday, the same day QTSC and the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association signed a cooperation deal for business networking, R&D, technology transfer and workforce development.

Ho Chi Minh City isn’t waiting on Hanoi's lawyers. It wants 9,000 semiconductor workers trained by 2030, backed by a proposed $5 million chip design fund and a five-year personal income tax exemption for experts at Saigon Hi-Tech Park and for semiconductor startups. The city is already host to 54 semiconductor projects worth more than $5.1 billion.

Read more: VnEconomy (priority industries), VnEconomy (Singapore trade), Tuoi Tre (tax break), TechNode Global (FPT training deal)

US Halves Plywood Duty, Keeps China Locked Out

The US Department of Commerce cut its final antidumping duty on Vietnamese hardwood plywood to 90.12%, down from a preliminary 196.14%, after auditors spent June combing through the books of Nhat Duy and Trieu Thai Son. Their cooperation now is to the benefit of everyone else in the country. The duty will require a cash deposit of $90,120 on every $100,000 shipment, which is steep when compared against export margins of 5 to 6%, but survivable for an industry that shipped $9.46 billion of wood products into the US last year.

China got no such break. Its two biggest mills refused to answer Commerce's questionnaire, leaving the whole industry locked at a 187.27% dumping rate plus an 88.96% subsidy duty if the ITC finds injury by September 4. Indonesian suppliers settled on between 15.40% and 84.94%, with most at 18.10%.

Read more: Woodcentral (Indonesian rates), Fordaq (cash deposits)

Hanoi Prices a Crypto Trade

Decree 284, issued July 16, sets unlicensed crypto trading fines at VND 30 million to 50 million (about $1,140 to $1,900). Companies offering or advertising crypto services without a license will be liable for fines of up to VND 200 million ($7,600). The rules will come into effect September 1 and target the millions of Vietnamese using Binance, OKX and Bybit in a market that is ranked fourth globally for crypto adoption. The obvious problem is that the Ministry of Finance has not yet licensed a single domestic exchange, even though five applicants including VPBank-connected CAEX and Techcombank-connected TCEX cleared initial review in May. Deputy Finance Minister Nguyen Duc Chi says he’s aiming for a third-quarter launch.

Read more: The Block (company fines), TradingView (Bybit expansion), VnEconomy (RWA sandbox)

Photo by Jack Young on Unsplash

VinFast Bets on Hatchback to Break Even by 2027

VinFast delivered 17,955 vehicles in June, meaning that first-half volume was a heady 115,916 units, an almost three-quarter increase from a year earlier and the first time any automaker has cleared 100,000 domestic deliveries in a Vietnamese half-year. The company expects to break even at home by 2027 and turn a global profit shortly after.

The bet rests heavily on the VF 2, a VND188 million ($7,139!) hatchback that took about 29,000 orders in its first three days on sale. The optimism needs to perhaps be tempered by a Q1 net loss of VND28.1 trillion, almost three-fifths wider than a year earlier, and an unresolved North Carolina lawsuit that wants to reclaim the site of VinFast's planned US factory.

Read more: Bloomberg (Pham), Yahoo Finance (revenue outlook), Just Auto (factory plan)

Vietnam Airlines Adds 19 More 737 MAX Leases

Vietnam Airlines is leasing 19 more Boeing 737 MAX 8s on top of the 50 it already has on order, bringing its planned fleet of the type to 69. The aircraft will come from three lessors (10 from SMBC Aviation Capital, five from Phoenix Aviation Capital and four from Avolon). Deliveries start in 2028.

The narrowbodies are expected to fly domestic and short- to medium-haul international routes. They will crack open a narrowbody fleet currently made up entirely of Airbus jets. The carrier reported a VND3.95 trillion ($150.1 million) pre-tax profit in Q1 2026 but says performance has been hurt since April by jet fuel prices. Domestic passenger growth has stalled to almost nothing in the first half of 2026, but international traffic rose more than 15% to 26.2 million.

Read more: Aerospace Global News (fuel efficiency), Breaking Travel News (chairman), Tuoi Tre (route growth), VnExpress (cargo), Aviation Week (seat share)

Wage Council Backs Minimum Wage Bump for ‘27

The National Wage Council has backed a 7.8% minimum wage rise for January 1, 2027, up slightly over the 7.2% increase that took effect this January. Monthly floors would go up between VND340,000 and VND390,000 ($12.94 to $14.85) depending on region. Zone 1 includes Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Government approval is still pending, but if signed off, it would be the largest increase in two years.

Read more: VnEconomy

USDA Puts Cash Into Tilapia to Displace China

The USDA is funding a $15.6 million project in nine provinces in the Mekong and Red River deltas to lift tilapia output to 1.21 million tons and $1.25 billion in revenue by 2030. Exports to the US reached $53 million in 2025, up 173 percent year on year, making America the largest buyer. Hanoi's fisheries department is clear that the move is to try and partly replace what US importers currently buy from China.

Grab Plugs Into EV Charging With EBOOST Stake

Grab has taken a stake in charging firm EBOOST, terms undisclosed, with plans to grow the network from about 2,500 ports today to more than 6,000 by early 2028. Almost half are expected to show up in Hanoi under a June 2026 agreement with the city's Department of Construction to build shared public charging that drivers can find, use and pay for through the Grab Driver app.

EBOOST went live inside the app in April 2026, and of the more than 400 ports connected to date, more than 70 percent of drivers who plug in once return within a week. Thousands more ports have been sized for electric motorbikes, the workhorse of Grab's driver fleet, to be rolled out in the next wave.

Security Min's Tech Arm Takes On HCMC Metro

GTEL, the tech arm of the Ministry of Public Security, signed on July 17 to handle system integration and technology transfer for Ho Chi Minh City's metro network, starting with Line 2 and extending itself out to projects scheduled through 2030. The scope included signaling, power supply, fare collection and an eventual integrated control center for the planned 1,000km network. No foreign vendors were named and no procurement timeline was shared. City vice chairman Hoang Nguyen Dinh said raising the localization rate would cut costs and protect “nationally important infrastructure.”

Read more: VnExpress

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Laos 20260722

August Whitcraft — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:21:39 GMT

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Tiger Vodka Owner Could Get a Year in Jail

Lao prosecutors charged the owner of the Tiger Vodka distillery with selling food harmful to health and running an illegal business, charges that together carry up to one year in jail and an A$1,600 fine, after the November 2024 methanol poisoning that killed two Australians, two Danes, a Briton, and an American in Vang Vieng. The Ministry of Public Security says it’s unable to pin the deaths on any one person because no autopsies were done, even though the Food and Drug Research Center found excessive methanol in Tiger Vodka and a Thai hospital confirmed methanol in the two Australian victims' blood. Canberra raised its travel advisory to "exercise a high degree of caution," sent special envoy Pablo Kang, and summoned the Lao ambassador. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the outcome was "bitterly disappointing" and is going to press Vientiane again at ASEAN talks in Manila. There is still room for a negligent homicide charge.

Read more: NewsNation (travel warning), BBC (MethaKnow campaign), Laotian Times (charges), CP24 (autopsy dispute), The Guardian (Australia response)

Heroin Trail Runs to Melbourne

Authorities arrested two people over a network that was moving product across the Mekong into Thailand, then on to Australia and Taiwan, hidden in silk clothing, coffee sachets, handicrafts, and winter jackets. The case is connected to the 26-year-old Thai Airways flight attendant caught at Melbourne Airport with 1.8 kilograms of heroin stitched into two elephant-embroidered tote bags. Five of six suspects are now in custody in Thailand and Laos; a third suspect is still at large.

Read more: Laotian Times

Decree No. 112 Puts Teeth Behind Late Payments

Miss a land lease or concession payment now and the meter starts ticking up 10% a month, then 20% on a second offense and 30% on the third, under Decree No. 112. Miners will get the same escalating scale on unpaid royalties. Forestry operators and industrial water users also get hit (even harder), with penalties of 200% of the unpaid royalty on a first violation, 300% on a second, and 400% on the third. The same rates will apply to anyone who misreports the amount, quality, category, or type of resource extracted. The decree fills a gap where lease contract law previously didn’t have much to say about penalties, treating nonpayment as a contractual breach rather than a regulatory one.

Hong Kong Signs Up to Refine and Trade Gold

Hong Kong's Christopher Hui Ching-yu signed an MOU in Vientiane with Deputy PM and Finance Minister Santiphab Phomvihane, giving "qualified" gold owners access to Hong Kong's accredited refining network and capital markets for pricing and liquidity. The deal is part of Hong Kong's gold buildout, including a central clearing and settlement system that began trial runs earlier this month, plans to push vault capacity past 2,000 tonnes in the next three years, and a new HAU price ticker. Hui suggested it as a way to turn "natural gold endowment" into "investable, transparent assets." The announcement gave no figures for current gold output or export volumes. The agreement also covers work with the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

Read more: The Standard (market), Asian News Network (AML work)

Poverty Falls Nationally, Rises in Cities

The World Bank's new poverty profile puts the national rate at 15% in 2024, down from almost a quarter in 2012, meaning there are about 500,000 fewer poor people despite a growing population. More than four-fifths of poor workers still farm for a living, and urban poverty has been on the rise since 2018, with the urban share of the country's poor rising to almost one-fifth. Hydropower and mining have driven GDP growth without creating many jobs, and young people are more likely than older workers to be economically inactive or stuck in unpaid family labor. The share of households getting remittances has more than doubled since 2018, from about one in eleven to more than one in five.

Permits Before Plug-ins

Homeowners installing EV chargers now need technical approval from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, under rules from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. Public stations are going under the microscope too, with developers required to submit site, safety, and grid-capacity plans before starting work. Existing stations built without prior approval need to register with provincial authorities for inspection, but the announcement did not specify a timeframe. New stations are going to be limited to approved sites, shopping centers, hotels, office buildings, transport hubs, airports, petrol stations, and large residential developments.

Read more: Laotian Times

Attapeu Court Orders Nine to Repay $1.26M

Nine defendants convicted by the Attapeu Provincial People's Court must return nearly LAK 28 billion (~$1.26M), to the state for illegal currency trading, unlawful lending, and usury. Each also got a suspended one-year prison sentence and a LAK 10 million fine, (~$455). The nine will also have to cover investigation and court costs.

Read more: Laotian Times

Lavrov Meets Vientiane First in Manila

Sergey Lavrov opened his ASEAN sideline meetings with counterpart Thongsavanh Phomvihane before anyone else (including the hosts), ahead of the 15th anniversary of Russia's strategic partnership declaration with Vientiane. He made a point of mentioning President Thongloun Sisoulith's turn at Moscow's Victory Day parade and Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone's appearance at the Russia-ASEAN summit in Kazan. Both sides claimed "similar positions" on regional and global matters but offered no detail on substance.

Myanmar 20260721

August Whitcraft — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:33:07 GMT

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ASEAN Breaks Junta Ban and Wins Backlash

Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, as ASEAN Chair's Special Envoy on Myanmar, held an informal meeting with junta Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe in Bangkok on July 12, the first high-level engagement since the bloc suspended “senior” contact in 2021. Lazaro didn’t ask for any break from hostilities as a condition for the talks. Former foreign ministers Saifuddin Abdullah of Malaysia and Kasit Piromya of Thailand, as well as three former UN experts from the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, said on July 18 that the Philippines' chairmanship was in a "tailspin." The DFA fired back the next day by saying the criticism was "malicious and misleading" and reaffirming the 2021 Five-Point Consensus as ASEAN's framework. On July 13, the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union, which groups the KNU, KIO, KNPP and CNF, met Thai officials and ASEAN's envoy in a closed-door session, refusing any table with junta representatives and telling diplomats that Naypyidaw no longer controls the territory it claims. ASEAN foreign ministers will hold their informal Myanmar consultation in Manila tomorrow.

Read more: Bangkok Post (Suu Kyi), Mizzima (UN rights council), Gmanetwork (DFA rebuttal), BNI Online (SCEF sincerity doubts), DVB (Starlink appeal)

Starlink Axes 13 Million

More than one in five Starlink terminals in Myanmar have gone dark since the beginning of the month, cutting service to more than 13 million people and nearly 800,000 students who use it to log into virtual schools run by the National Unity Government in Kachin, Karenni, Sagaing and Mandalay. SpaceX has told users the terminals aren't licensed to operate in the country and some now need government-issued ID to reconnect, a tightening that follows the company's disabling of more than 2,500 terminals last year after US lawmakers connected smuggled dishes to border scam compounds. On July 17, a coalition of 255 civil society groups wrote to Elon Musk asking him to keep the service running. SpaceX has not yet made a public reply.

Two Boats Vanish Off Rakhine, 500 Feared Dead

More than 500 people, most of them Rohingya, are thought to be dead after two boats vanished off the Rakhine coast. One boat, carrying about 250 passengers, lost contact shortly after leaving Rakhine State in late June, and the other, with about 280 aboard, is believed to have sunk off the Ayeyarwady coast on July 8. IOM and UNHCR announced the losses on July 16. The figures, if confirmed, would add to nearly 300 deaths or disappearances already recorded this year in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. That would put this year on pace to exceed the nearly 900 lives lost in 2025, the deadliest year on record.

Read more: Khaosod English, Iom, DVB, CNN, France 24

Three Bombs Fall on Ma-Ei

A military jet dropped three 500-pound bombs on Ma-Ei town in Rakhine's Taungup Township on July 19, killing five residents of Ward No. 2 and wounding 14. The Ma-Ei strike was one of a wave in Rakhine, Mandalay, and Sagaing over the weekend that killed at least six civilians and destroyed more than 25 homes, the latest in what resistance media says are near-daily strikes as Min Aung Hlaing's July 31 deadline for peace talks with ethnic armies and resistance groups gets nearer. The Arakan Army, which controls 14 of Rakhine's 17 townships, says it will continue to respond to every assault on territory under its administration.

Read more: DVB (cumulative death toll), BNI Online (victim identities), Narinjara (prior Gwa airstrikes)

Photo by Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash

TNLA Asks for Ta'ang State

TNLA delegates met the regime's peace committee in Naypyidaw on Sunday to ask for a recognized "Ta'ang State," promising it would stay part of the Union. No boundaries were specified in the request. The ask comes after a punishing run of losses. The group gave up Mogok and Momeik to the regime last November under a China-brokered ceasefire, lost Kutkai to former ally MNDAA in March, and was ordered to give up Namhkam, Namtu, Mongngawt and Monglon during talks on May 12 in Kunming.

PDF Blast Blacks Out Four Townships

Junta media says that insurgents from the People's Defense Force planted and detonated a mine at Tower No. 338 of the 132 kV main line near Paung Laung Kan village in Pakokku Township around 7:30 PM on July 19. The blast cut power to Pakokku, Yesagyo, Myaing, and Kamma townships and destabilized the Magway grid, causing voltage drops and outages in villages that are well outside the immediate blackout zone.

Suu Kyi Barred From Martyrs' Day, Again

Under a cellular blackout, Min Aung Hlaing laid down several wreaths at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Yangon on July 19. Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, was barred from the ceremony for the fifth straight year. Her estranged older brother Aung San Oo sent a wreath; both of the junta's vice presidents skipped the event. Myanmar's ousted NLD demanded (again) this week that Suu Kyi be included in any political process. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights has written to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and José Ramos-Horta in the Philippines (ASEAN chair) demanding proof she is alive, as foreign ministers gather in Manila this week for the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

Read more: BNI Online (sentence reduction), Aseanmp (proof-of-life demand), Mizzima (family representative)

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Cambodia 20260720

August Whitcraft — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 05:12:30 GMT

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Hun Manet Shops China for an AI Economy

Hun Manet spent three days in Beijing and Shanghai chasing an AI future to replace the garment factories and tour buses that have been carrying the economy for years. He had the opportunity to meet with Xi Jinping in Shanghai, Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, and managed to get Cambodia signed on as one of 29 founding members of the new World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, which will be based in Shanghai. During the trip, Haier Group said it would build a tablet assembly plant, and Beijing Star AI said it was looking for local partners, two moves that will add to $4.7 billion in Chinese-backed project approvals recorded in the first half 2026. China holds more than a third of Cambodia’s external debt. Minister Delegate Jean-Francois Tain was keen to reassure everyone that the "ironclad friendship" is not a military alliance and that protecting sovereignty "remains Cambodia's own duty."

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (WAICO), The Star (growth forecast), CamboJA News (investment), Xinhua (crime pledge), China Daily (mechanism)

Taiwan Pulls Visa Access After One-China Backing

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Cambodia will lose access to the Guanhong Project and Travel Authorization Certificate scheme from August 1, shuttering two paths that Phnom Penh has used since 2018 for tour-group and conditional visa-free entry. The announcement came during Hun Manet's China trip, where he told Xi Jinping that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Xizang are "purely China's internal affairs" and thanked Beijing for its "selfless" support. Taiwan said Cambodia had failed to reciprocate Taiwan's goodwill, parroted Beijing on sovereignty, and appeared to back China's possible use of force toward unification. It also raised concern about Cambodia's connection to cross-border fraud. Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines, in contrast, were given a one-year extension through July 31, 2027, while India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos get to keep their access through December 31. Any reversion to the status quo, MOFA said, will depend on a change in Phnom Penh's Taiwan policy.

Read more: Taipei Times (visa review), Khmer Times (MOFA statement), Cambodianess (China trip)

Air Cambodia Orders 20 COMAC Jets

Twenty COMAC C909 regional jets are headed to Air Cambodia under a deal agreed to in Shanghai, the first bulk order for the Chinese-built aircraft from any foreign flag carrier. Deliveries should begin this year. PM Hun Manet met COMAC's Shen Bo and Air Cambodia CEO David Zhan in advance of the ceremony. The airline currently flies three ATR 72s and three A320s, and it has orders for 10 Boeing 737 MAX 8s with an options on 10 more. China supplies almost a third of Air Cambodia's seat capacity, and the carrier's ownership tilts the same way. The government owns 30%, Vietnam Airlines has 14%, and the rest is with China's Henan Airport Investment Group and Hong Kong's 7Trip International. A separate MOU will give COMAC a role in training local maintenance crews and pilots for the new fleet.

Read more: The Star (C909 specs), Khmer Times (MOU), Aviacionline (fleet), Aviation Week (ownership)

Anderson Tells Senate Scams Are Job One in Phnom Penh

Christopher Anderson, nominated in June to fill a US ambassadorship that was vacant for more than two years, told his Senate that taking down scam networks that have "stolen tens of billions of dollars from American citizens and exploited hundreds of thousands in forced criminality" will be his top priority. Anderson, who told the panel he has spent his career "back against the wall, trying not to be noticed," inherits a crackdown that has already claimed its biggest scalp, the January extradition of Chen Zhi (erstwhile adviser to Hun Sen) to China. But much of the industry seems to be surviving. Of the more than 16,000 people deported in the first half of 2026, and the 240,000 who left "voluntarily," no official count exists of how many were trafficking victims rather than criminals. The National Police did not respond to requests for comment.

Read more: The Economist (Chen Zhi), Khmer Times (Senate hearing), CamboJA News (Amnesty findings)

Courts Jail Three Over Border Coverage

The Supreme Court in June upheld 14-year treason sentences for TSP 68 TV's Pheap Pheara and Battambang Post TV's Phon Sopheap, who were convicted because of selfies with Cambodian troops after last July's border fight. One image allegedly showed landmines that Thai media later connected to claims of newly laid mines. The Oddar Meanchey Provincial Court added a third case, sentencing Lout Sophal to two years for “demoralizing the army” because of his February 7 report on frontline troops running short of water. More than 30 journalists, activists and opposition figures were arrested over border-related social media posts between July 2025 and February 2026.

Read more: CamboJA News (pardon letter), CamboJA News (Sophal sentencing)

Photo by Siborey Sean on Unsplash

Tourism Police Chief Probed Over $505,000 “Release Fee”

Interior Minister Sar Sokha has told a task force to investigate Lieutenant General Run Rathveasna, director of the Tourism Police Department, after a complaint said his officers arrested a 25-year-old Phnom Penh man without a warrant, held him at department HQ, and let him go only after he paid a half million dollars. Huot Sitthireach says he was picked up on July 13, 2024 on a breach-of-trust allegation, and he filed his complaint the next day naming Rathveasna. He wants the $505,000 returned in addition to $200,000 in damages. The Tourism Police have no authority to arrest or detain suspects outside their statutory duties, as that power is reserved to the penal police, and, in any event, requires a warrant. Rathveasna could not be reached for comment.

Read more: Khmer Times

Tokyo Give PP Its First Free Patrol Boats

Patrol boats and communications gear worth about $3.2 million, are on their way to the Cambodian military under Japan's Official Security Assistance program. It’s the country's first shipment under OSA, a program that Tokyo reserves for "like-minded" militaries.

Factory Count up a Quarter to 3,319

Cambodia counted 3,319 large-scale operating factories as of June, up a quarter compared to last year, with $27.8 billion in cumulative investment and providing about 1.3 million jobs, Industry Minister Hem Vanndy says. That works out to roughly 664 new plants at an average of about $8.4 million apiece. Vanndy said the growth shows that Cambodia is moving beyond cheap-labor manufacturing toward AI, automation and robotics. That might be true, but no breakdown was given of how many of the new factories will be running automated lines compared to garment plants doing the same piece work as before.

Read more: Khmer Times

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Thailand 20260717

August Whitcraft — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 03:03:27 GMT

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Bar Fire Kills 32; 2008 Loophole Still Open

The Rong Beer Na Ladprao fire killed 32 people and hospitalized more than 70, making it Bangkok's deadliest blaze since the Santika Club fire killed 67 on New Year's Eve 2008 which resulted in the 2012 fire-safety overhaul. Police found beer crates blocking one fire exit, a table blocking another, and a third door near the restrooms bolted shut because the owner feared customers would slip out without paying. Officials told PM Anutin Charnvirakul that the door was marked "staff only" and unknown to patrons. Investigators say combustible foam soundproofing and plastic flowers around the stage fed the flames within seconds of a short circuit in a ceiling air conditioner. None of the 2012 post-Santika rules on fire-resistant materials, sprinklers, or properly sized exits applied, because the venue was registered as a "restaurant with live music" rather than an “entertainment venue.” Opposition MP Paramait Vithayaruksun told parliament that venues outside Bangkok's three designated entertainment zones are unable to get proper licenses even when operators are willing to meet the standards.

Read more: AP News (licensing gap), CNA (occupancy limits), BBC (Mountain B), BBC (owner history), ABC (flashover)

Four Chinese Dissidents Held as Anutin Visits Xi

Bai Zhaodong, the Caixin investigative journalist who spent 25 years reporting on Communist Party corruption, has been in Bangkok's Suan Phlu detention center since January, barred from leaving the country under a Yulin arrest warrant for "extortion." Zhang Xinyan, a UN-recognized refugee and Falun Gong practitioner wanted by Hong Kong police on a HK$200,000 bounty, was pulled off her July 8 flight to Vancouver. Her lawyers have not been able to talk to her since July 9 and have filed a torture and enforced-disappearance petition with the South Bangkok Criminal Court. Rights groups say Zhou Junyi and Tan Yixiang have the same deportation risk. Thai immigration have not been willing to say where Zhang is being held.

Read more: Prachatai English (UN review), Philenews (journalists), Prachatai English (Zhang hearing), Prachatai English (Bai warrant)

Appeals Court Upholds Lese-Majeste Conviction

Bangkok's Appeals Court upheld a two-year sentence against lawyer-activist Anon Nampa, the first lese-majeste conviction to reach appellate review in the current wave of protest-era cases. Another individual, a programmer named Atirut, has withdrawn his Supreme Court appeal and will serve 1 year 8 months at Bangkok Remand Prison for shouting "you are a burden wherever you go" at King Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida's motorcade in October 2022. His March appellate loss was based on the idea that calling the royals a burden "leads to hate, loss of faith, and conflict." The ruling said Atirut has a bachelor's degree and "therefore should know right from wrong."

Read more: Thai Enquirer (case tally), Prachatai English (sentence)

800,000-Baht Exam Bribery Scheme Unravels

The Central Committee for Local Government Personnel Examinations will come together today so they can decide the fate of 3,621 local officials, the first group expected to be let go after investigators found their late-2025 exam scores had been electronically improved, often in exchange for bribes as high as 800,000 baht ($23,847). Almost 6,000 of 14,988 appointees had eyebrow-raising scores, and the Interior Ministry is now going to re-examine about 800,000 answer sheets and recount results for more than 400,000 candidates. Three suspects are in custody after a 17-day police and anti-corruption raid; one had fled to Laos before getting picked up. If convicted, they will probably get fines and may need to spend up to five years in prison. The PM said the scheme was "disgusting" and warned of a "vicious circle" of officials buying power to sell more of it.

Read more: CNA (dismissals), Bangkok Post (bribes), WION (reform)

Cabinet Restores India Visa-Free After 20% Slide

The cabinet has restored visa-free entry for Indian travelers for 30 days, half the 60 they lost when a May proposal to scrap the privilege was dropped before taking effect. Confusion seems to have been enough, as arrivals from India, the third-largest source market after China and Malaysia, fell almost a fifth as the threat remained unresolved. Tourism Minister Surasak Phancharoenworakul said the 30-day window is matched with how Indians normally travel anyway; their trips normally run about a week. The overhaul reduces visa-free access down from 93 countries to 59. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta and the Maldives all are getting the same 30-day terms. The new rules will take effect 15 days after publication in the Royal Gazette.

Read more: Bloomberg (policy reversal), Travelweekly Asia (tourism revenue), NDTV (Royal Gazette timeline)

Photo by Andreas Brücker on Unsplash

Consumer Board Sends Spies Into EV Showrooms

The Office of the Consumer Protection Board has ordered inspections of EV dealers, starting with Bangkok showrooms, and says sellers need to post clear vehicle specs, battery performance data and warranty terms since complaints have started to pile up over slow claims, parts delays and unclear fine print. EV sales rose 70 percent in 2025 (about 140,000 units), to make up almost a quarter of new car sales. Chinese brands made up more than two-thirds of that number.

Gunkul Wires Up for the AI Data-Center Boom

Gunkul Engineering wants to sell renewable power to foreign AI investors under the new direct-PPA pilot, a 2-gigawatt scheme from the Energy Regulatory Commission that lets clean-energy firms avoid restrictions on peer-to-peer power trading. CEO Naruechon Dhumrongpiyawut says the company is taking lessons from its Philippine operations, where a liberalized market already allows direct sales, partly as a hedge against delays at home. BOI applications totaled more than a trillion baht in Q1 2026, up almost two and a half times the prior year, ~90% of the total coming from data center and cloud services investments.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Marsh Buys Out Its 48-Year Thai Partner

Marsh McLennan took full control of its local broking business, closing out a 48-year partnership with Bangkok's PB Group and founder Piya Jittalan. The renamed Marsh Risk (Thailand) Company Limited is now entirely inside the Marsh McLennan corporate structure as it no longer needs a local partner to satisfy the Foreign Business Act's old restrictions on insurance broking. Fully foreign-owned brokerages are allowed subject to licensing.

Royal Orchid Blames Trustee for Missed Buyback

Royal Orchid Hotel missed the deadline to repurchase its Bangkok riverside property (the Royal Orchid Sheraton) for 4.87 billion baht and blames trustee MFC Asset Management for giving payment instructions that didn’t match the original sale-and-leaseback deal terms. Managing director Vitavas Vibhagool says the buyback is still on, that the dispute is simply procedural, and the company has no funding problem. ROH sent a representative to the land office on deadline day and has asked MFC to fix what it calls a breach. GROREIT's manager ONEAM is lining up Starwood as interim operator.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Chamber Tells Exporters to Route Around Hormuz

The Thai Chamber of Commerce is telling exporters to keep watching the Strait of Hormuz as the US-Iran ceasefire remains shaky (at best) and only a trickle of vessels is able to transit the strait. Chairman Poj Aramwattananont said shipping lines are already rerouting cargo to Khor Fakkan in the UAE and to Salalah and Sohar in Oman, adding time and expense to freight bound for the Middle East. No specific figures were shared about how much of an effect the changes are having on shipping costs. His advice is not to panic, but to keep watching energy and freight prices, keep inventories of raw materials and finished goods topped up, and arrange backup suppliers now. The chamber says it is ready to work together with the government if the conflict gets worse.

Read more: Bangkok Post

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Vietnam 20260716

August Whitcraft — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 03:34:34 GMT

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UOB Lifts Growth to 8.5%, Hanoi Wants 10%

Singapore's UOB raised its 2026 Vietnam growth forecast to 8.5% on the back of a 8.18% first-half expansion (the fastest in SEA), and a 61% increase in FDI to $34.7 billion. The Asian Development Bank is less impressed and is sticking with 7.2%. Both numbers are well below what Hanoi wants. The government's scenario for reaching 10% full-year growth needs 11.5% to 12% in the second half, an optimistic bar. The trade balance flipped from surplus to a $16.65 billion deficit as machinery, component, and electronics imports have begun to outrun exports. About 25,200 businesses left the market each month in the first half, as SMEs got squeezed by financing costs and weak demand. Inflation was 4.38%, the highest first-half reading in five years, and just a hair below the National Assembly's 4.5% ceiling. US tariffs that will be due in late July have not yet been factored in.

Read more: VnExpress (dong forecast), VnEconomy (policy moves), VnEconomy (inflation), VnEconomy (regional growth)

PNJ Lab Chief Charged for Diamond Smuggling

Thanh Hoa police have charged 31 people in a smuggling ring that moved more than 30,000 diamonds worth $57 million from India through Hong Kong since 2024, making VND300 billion ($11.4 million) in profit. Among the accused are PNJ Laboratory appraiser Tran Tien Nhu Nghi and former PNJ Laboratory director Dang Ngoc Thao, who police say stripped laser inscriptions off Indian stones and replaced them with the company's mark. Three Ho Chi Minh City jewelry store owners were also charged. Buyers and Indian couriers worked together by way of auto-deleting WhatsApp and Viber chats, and they used serial numbers on US dollar bills as transaction codes. Stones were hidden in luggage, shoes, and clothing on flights into Tan Son Nhat, Da Nang, Noi Bai, and Phu Quoc, then sold for about a third below market to small retailers and new gem businesses. PNJ shares have dropped more by about a third since the news broke, even though customs data shows that legitimate diamond imports were $121 million in the first half. India shipped $63.2 million, more than half of what it sent in all of 2025. PNJ is trying to distance the company, saying the matter involves "individual legal liability."

Read more: Bloomberg (PNJ shares), CNA (raids), VnEconomy (seizures), Tuoi Tre (shipments), VnExpress (imports)

Long Thanh to Undercut Tan Son Nhat on Fees

Long Thanh International Airport will accept its first commercial flight on December 1, the crescendo event of a $12.8 billion build. State operator Airports Corporation of Vietnam has told contractors to finish work by September to allow three months for equipment testing, and is offering 20% to 50% discounts on aviation service fees through 2027 to try and lure carriers away from overcrowded Tan Son Nhat. Vietnam Airlines has signed up for Long Thanh routes to Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Manila, in addition to a domestic leg to Hanoi. Vietjet wants domestic connections to Hanoi, Hai Phong, Vinh, and Thanh Hoa. The handover will be run in three phases through March 2028, eventually moving more than 90% of the area's international traffic 40 km east of Ho Chi Minh City. About 70% of passengers are expected to travel on to Ho Chi Minh City, and until rail and metro links open, the widening HCMC-Long Thanh Expressway is the only way in. The main part of it is only about three-fifths complete.

Read more: VnExpress (capacity), VnExpress (roads), Tuoi Tre (expressway), Tuoi Tre (passengers)

$1.2 Trillion in Private Capital Needed by 2030

The cost of Vietnam’s ambition is going to be about $1.5 trillion in infrastructure and investment between now and the end of 2030, and the treasury is good for only about $327 billion of it. The remaining four-fifths, close to $1.2 trillion, is supposed to come by way of private and international capital, much of it through the new Vietnam International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City. The center is anchored by the 55-story Saigon Marina tower and is expected to begin wooing foreign investors from 2027. A pitch to Seoul has already been made. South Korea was the largest source of new FDI in the first two months of 2026 at $1.34 billion, (nearly two-fifths of the total), and a July 13 forum with the Korean consulate lined up cooperation on cross-border QR payments, green finance, and asset management. Deposit growth has been trailing credit growth through the first half, pushing lending rates up. FTSE Russell's upgrade to secondary growing market status will come into effect during September.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (market cap), Vietnam Investment Review (growth target), Nikkei Asia (income goal), VnEconomy (QR payments), Tuoi Tre (Korean projects)

Photo by Trang Trinh on Unsplash

Three Editors Arrested For Ho Chi Minh Biography

Hanoi police detained the director, editor-in-chief, and editorial board head of the Vietnam Writers' Association Publishing House over their roles in the production of "Chuyen voi Thanh," a biographical account of Ho Chi Minh's years abroad. All three got Article 117 charges, which is the anti-state propaganda statute that was also used against author Nguyen Thanh Nam and an influencer who was arrested July 7. Under a January 2026 contract, Nam paid the publishing house VND1 billion ($38,087). Doan told state broadcaster VTV he cut multiple passages during review but admitted that the published version still contained content he considered inappropriate, including inaccurate history and material affecting the image of Party leaders. Yen made a similar admission. The book, published in May, was recalled after authorities objected.

Read more: SCMP (influencer), Tuoi Tre (detainees)

Honda Starts Building UC3 in Vietnam

Honda Vietnam will start making its UC3 electric motorcycle as early as September, General Director Sayaka Arai told Nikkei, as the company expects more urban riders to start buying EVs. If it happens, that will get Japan's largest motorcycle maker on about the same timeline as VinFast, which recently launched its VF 2 city hatchback at 188 million dong and expects customer deliveries in September. Honda has dominated the gas-scooter market for decades but has been cautious about electric two-wheelers while VinFast has built charging and battery-swap networks nationwide. No local price or output target has been announced for the UC3.

Read more: Nikkei Asia (Honda), Electrive (VF 2)

Sanofi and VNVC Plan 100M Vaccine Doses a Year

VNVC and Sanofi are building a 26,000 square meter plant to make vaccines in Vietnam. Construction is expected to finish by the end of 2027, and the first domestic batches (100 million doses a year for the National Immunization Program) should roll off the line in starting in 2028. Vietnam imported $486 million in French pharmaceuticals in 2025 and Hanoi wants to turn that import bill into export revenue.

Read more: VnExpress

China Overtakes US as Top Seafood Buyer

China bought about $1.4 billion worth of seafood in 1H2026, which was almost a quarter of Vietnam's $5.7 billion in exports, pushing the US down the list. Nam Viet JSC credits proximity, saying shipping costs to China beat the trip across the Pacific. The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers says new US admissibility certificates have tangled tuna shipments, shrimp still has high anti-dumping duties, and importers stateside are working through inventory frontloaded before tariffs arrive as American shoppers continue to trade down. Shrimp is still the biggest category at $2.3 billion, up 13.6%.

Read more: VnExpress

Vietnam and EFTA Close Deal After 21 Rounds

Vietnam and the European Free Trade Association finished bilateral FTA talks after a (half?) marathon 21 formal rounds. EFTA's four members, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, traded EUR4.8 billion ($5.5 billion) with Vietnam in 2025. Vietnam had a EUR2.5 billion surplus, up from EUR500 million a decade before if you strip out Switzerland's gold trade. Norwegian salmon will benefit from immediate duty-free access once the agreement takes effect; mackerel tariffs phase out over three years. EFTA mostly sells Vietnam electrical machinery, seafood, pharmaceuticals, and mechanical equipment, while Vietnam sends back electrical machinery, footwear, garments, and mechanical products. Each of those categories has been growing more than 10% annually for the past decade.

Read more: VnEconomy

New Rule Sets the Related-Party Line at 25%

Decree 255/2026, which came into effect July 1, brings Vietnam's transfer pricing rules into a single text tied to the 2025 Law on Tax Administration and OECD norms. The headline change is that transferring or acquiring at least 25% of a company's contributed capital during a tax period will now create a related-party relationship. Loans from individuals controlling the enterprise worth at least 10% of contributed capital will also be counted. Wholly state-owned entities acting purely as debt purchasers, handlers, creditors, or guarantors, without control, have a carve-out. The lower threshold could catch minority stakes that multinationals have not previously needed to worry about, the first impact will be seen with 2026 CIT filings.

Jakarta and Hanoi Set $18 Billion Trade Target

Indonesia and Vietnam agreed to a five-year action plan to increase bilateral trade from 2025’s $16.76 billion to $18 billion by 2028. Jakarta has a $4.47 billion surplus which is Vietnam fifth-largest. In a recent deal, VinFast recently broke ground on an EV plant in Subang, West Java.

Read more: Jakarta Post (ministers), Diplomatic Insight (maritime security)

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Laos 20260715

August Whitcraft — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 05:59:08 GMT

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ADB and WB Cut Growth Forecasts

The Asian Development Bank expects Lao growth to slow to four percent in 2026 (vs 4.4% last year). The World Bank has a gloomier outlook with a 3.8% expectation. Vientiane is taking the figures in stride while talking a bigger game. Officials said growth was five percent in the first half and are sticking with their 5.5% target for the year. ADB thinks will be 9.8% though 2026 and will slow to a more palatable (but still high) 6.7% next year. Bank of the Lao PDR Governor Bounkham Vorachit told the National Assembly that he wants the full-year average under seven percent, which is a lovely target but will still be a stretch after price increases averaged almost eight percent through the first half of the year.

Chinese Buy Pangolin Scales on Railway

Guardian reporters working undercover found shops along the Laos-China railway selling pangolin scales by the bowl, as well as bear bile, tiger bone and ivory chopsticks. Some of the shops were disguised as tea shops or cultural centers that for “some reason” needed CCTV and electric gates. A Chinese-owned restaurant in Vientiane's Xaysettha district has been serving wildlife dishes to foreign tour groups as "special" menu items "that cannot legally be served in neighboring countries." Officers were able to take some of the illicit product, including pangolin carcasses and bear paws, as they arrested a Chinese citizen.

Read more: The Guardian (wildlife trade), The Guardian (undercover video), Laotian Times (restaurant raid)

Sweep Nets Scammers in Vientiane Homes

Police raided seven rented houses in Vientiane's Sisattanak district and arrested 122 foreigners from China, Malaysia, Brazil, Myanmar, Uruguay and Pakistan. All seven properties, in Buengkhayong village, belonged to CAMCE Investment (Lao) Co., Ltd. One house was stuffed with 34 Chinese; another held 31 people, including 26 Brazilians; a third yielded 19 Malaysians and a small stash of drugs. A Chinese citizen who came on the scene to try and arrange bail was also arrested. The sweep is perhaps the crescendo event in a month that has now produced more than 170 arrests in four other raids. More than 4,400 people have been arrested for cybercrime, online scams and illegal gambling in the first half of 2026, including almost 1,000 in June.

Read more: Laotian Times

Corporate Tax Rulebook Gets Rewrite

Laos has replaced its 2019 Income Tax Law with a new one that took effect on the first of July. The new rules introduce formal transfer pricing rules and set a 15 percent minimum corporate tax for multinationals for the first time. Permanent establishments of multinationals will now have to compute taxable profits as if they were standalone businesses, and the tax authority is allowed to adjust or disregard related-party transactions that they think don’t have an arm's-length rationale. The law also limits deductible net interest to 20 percent of EBITDA, disallows depreciation on administrative vehicles of more than LAK 1 billion each, and excludes already-taxed dividends from taxable revenue. Law No. 88/NA will apply to tax years beginning on or after July 1.

4k+ Drug Arrests in Six Months

Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told the National Assembly that police opened 1,786 drug cases and arrested 4,025 suspects nationwide in the first half of 2026. The hauls are still piling up. Police found 1.2 million meth tablets abandoned in a pickup truck during a Bolikhamxay chase and intercepted 1.5 metric tons of meth tablets plus 500 kilograms of crystal meth on a Vientiane Province highway earlier this year. Bokeo police destroyed more than 17.3 metric tons of old evidence. Interestingly, Lao rehab centers reportedly took in 7,046 people; 2,769 have finished treatment and gone home. Seems like big business.

Read more: Laotian Times

Photo by Mon Jester on Unsplash

Savannakhet Sinkholes From Erosion, Not Mining

Eight sinkholes, each 2 to 4 meters wide, have formed in Nongkadang village near irrigation canals and rice paddies in Vilabouly district. The area is Laos' main gold belt and not far from Lane Xang Minerals' Sepone operation. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce has now pinned the blame on limestone erosion and heavy rain, not mining, saying a nearly identical cluster opened in the same spot four or five years ago and another appeared in Khammouane's Thongkhanoy village in May. A January sinkhole that was connected to potash extraction in Xaythany district resulted in four people missing and required 38 homes to evacuate. A provincial technical team is reportedly now on site with Lane Xang Minerals to continue investigations.

Read more: Laotian Times

Typhoon Displaces 21,000

Typhoon Maysak's rains have displaced 3,822 households, or about 21,000 people, in Luang Namtha, Bokeo, Phongsali, Vientiane, Bolikhamxai, Khammouane and Savannakhet. Khammouane took the worst of it. In Koun Kham, 14 households were moved to temporary shelters, and authorities put up stranded travelers after roads were cut. The Lao Red Cross has installed an AP700 water treatment unit in Na Hang village to keep drinking water available as damage assessments continue. So far there have been no requests for any international assistance.

Wolbachia Mosquitoes Arrive in Five Provinces

The Wolbachia release program is now in effect for Vientiane, Oudomxay, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet and Champasak, after 336 village health volunteers in 197 villages spent April to June explaining bacteria-carrying mosquitoes door to door. Acceptance is reportedly at almost nine in ten households. The pitch is that the mosquitos are good for locals since a previous trial in India reduced dengue cases by more than three-quarters, and North Queensland has reportedly more-or-less eliminated local transmission. Laos reported 1,494 cases of dengue between 2025 and mid-2026.

Sign On as SCO Dialogue Partner

Ten months after a Tianjin summit resulted in the go-ahead, Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane put his pen to the paperwork in Beijing to bring Laos in to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a Dialogue Partner. The status is short of full membership but opens the door to SCO meetings on trade, transport, digital transformation and tourism. Transport is the obvious bit, given the China-Laos Railway which has become a pillar of the Belt and Road and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnerships. With this move, Laos joins 14 other Dialogue Partners who are working together on access to Central Asian, South Asian and Eurasian markets through a bloc of 10 members built around Beijing and Moscow. No new financing was announced.

Read more: Laotian Times (SCO status), CGTN (bloc lineup)

Assembly Debates Infrastructure, Civil Service

The 10th National Assembly's first session moved from poverty hearings to specifics. Champasak lawmaker Alounxay Sounnalath pushed for extending the railway to southern Laos, arguing it would support trade and regional growth. Public Works Minister Leklai Sivilay said road and water projects will put signed contracts and already-funded deals first, with the rest drawing on road maintenance funds, state investment, ODA and public-private partnerships. The PM confirmed that a “6+3+3” education overhaul will start with Grade 6 in the 2028-2029 academic year. The plan will lengthen primary schooling from five years to six and reduce lower secondary school (middle school) from four to three year. Also being considered are a new national teacher training university, Lao-Vietnam and Lao-Russia schools, and 2,500 new civil service posts, mostly for workers in healthcare and education.

Read more: Laotian Times

Lao Telecom Gets Flood Warnings on Speed Dial

Lao Telecommunications and People in Need Laos have agreee to send flood warnings by SMS and interactive voice response systems to the Lao public. The deal is aligned with the UN's Early Warning for All Roadmap 2024-2027 and was overseen by Director General Alounnadeth Barnchit and PIN Head of Programs Tomas Durana, along with officials from the Ministry of Technology and Communications, the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, and other UN agencies.

Myanmar 20260714

August Whitcraft — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 02:32:14 GMT

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ASEAN Ends Five-Year Freeze on Myanmar Brass

Southeast Asia's foreign ministers met with Myanmar's Tin Maung Swe in Bangkok for their first in-person ministerial meeting since the 2021 coup and in a demonstration that Min Aung Hlaing's pivot from junta chief to elected president is allowing him return access to the regional halls of power. Nine of ASEAN's ten members sent their foreign ministers; Malaysia sent its secretary-general, Cambodia skipped it. Myanmar’s pro-military parliament voted last week to reject the Five-Point Consensus as interference, the framework Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said still underpins "calibrated engagement." Suu Kyi's status was raised, but Myanmar pushed back on ASEAN's request for access. Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro is expected to make a humanitarian visit later this year, and Myanmar will come back on the agenda at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Manila between July 21 and 23.

Min Aung Hlaing Books August Stop in Bangkok

Min Aung Hlaing will visit Thailand in early August, ASEAN sources say, his second trip to a bloc capital since his elevation to the presidency in April. He was in Laos earlier this month on his first such visit. The Bangkok trip follows Sunday's ministerial meeting (first story), where Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow put the heat on Naypyitaw over “progress” on the peace framework that got Min Aung Hlaing barred from ASEAN summits in October 2021. No detailed schedule has been announced as of yet. His previous stop in Thailand, in April 2025, was for a BIMSTEC summit, not a bilateral call.

Read more: Bangkok Post

No Verified ASSK Sightings Since 2022

Taichito, the mongrel that Aung San Suu Kyi's son gifted her on her release from a previous stint in prison in 2010, died last month at her Yangon home aged about 15, still waiting for an owner who’s not been seen in public since 2022. Her captors say the 81-year-old is under house arrest at an undisclosed location in Naypyidaw. "Not everyone can know her location," said Thein Tun Oo, spokesman for the junta-aligned USDP. "I don't know. Because I am one of the people." Min Aung Hlaing announced her move from prison to house arrest in April, trying to cast it as a display of mercy during his shift from general to civilian president; her 27-year sentence was commuted by a third. No photo, video, or verified sighting has surfaced since.

Read more: The Economist (rumors), Jakarta Post (family)

Junta Admits Removing Aung San Statues, Blames Art

Government spokesperson Khaing Khaing Soe confirmed that at least 15 statues of independence hero General Aung San have been removed or destroyed since the coup, and monuments in more than 100 townships are under review. Her explanation was about “proportions,” not politics. She said statues with "incorrect" shapes were handled "in accordance with" a 1962 monuments law. Crews have been working mostly at night, cutting electricity and fencing off sites in Yangon and Bago so no one can photograph the work in progress. The statues were mostly put up between 2015 and 2020 during Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD government, and were funded mostly with public donations. The Burma Lawyers' Council says the demolitions should be considered criminal mischief under Section 425 of the Penal Code, and ought to be punishable by up to seven years in prison. We’ll see about that.

Read more: DVB (NLD reaction), Radio Free Asia (removal locations)

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

Rakhine Floods

In Rakhine State, rains have swamped more than 100 villages across at least eight townships, affecting around 100,000 people, and the Global Flood Awareness System has kept its highest alert in place through July 23. Flooding from the Bilin River in Mon State displaced almost 1,000 people from 226 homes; residents are blaming upstream gold mining for choking the river's drainage.

Response Plan Half-Funded

Myanmar's humanitarian caseload has risen to more than 16 million. Displacement is reportedly near 3.8 million and many of the people have been uprooted more than once. By the end of March, aid groups had been able to reach 1.6 million of the 4.9 million people they hope to give aid to this year, but the 2026 response plan needs $890 million and has raised a little more than 40% of that, roughly halfway through the year.

Read more: ReliefWeb (confirms), ReliefWeb (election)

Beijing's Spy Agency Takes Over Scam-Center File

Xi Jinping has said that Southeast Asia's scam center industry is a national emergency, and the Ministry of State Security is giving orders. Just a few weeks after a Great Hall of the People signing with Min Aung Hlaing, China's civilian spy agency has given orders to follow through on the junta chief's commitment to shut the compounds down. No public timeline or benchmarks have been released for what the crackdown might mean in reality, however. The MSS, which runs China's foreign intelligence and counterespionage operations, had no formal role in the scam-center file before June.

China-Myanmar-Bangladesh Corridor Moves

The China-Myanmar-Bangladesh Economic Corridor got a name and some delineation on the map during Bangladesh PM Tarique Rahman's June trip to Beijing. The deal was for a road-and-rail route running Kunming to Mandalay to Chattogram and Mongla. The plan was folded into the third joint communique Dhaka and Beijing have issued since 1975. Chinese Ambassador Yao Wen said it was a "historic milestone.” Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, asked what money Bangladesh secured, apparently retorted that the country hadn't gone "with a begging bowl," but, having said said that, no financing numbers or construction timeline were shared. The corridor's middle stretch passes right through Myanmar.

Read more: The Daily Star (trade gap), The Daily Star (Naypyitaw visit)

Junta Bets on Bagan for 1.8 Million Tourists

Arrivals were 448,205 through May, up only 5 percent vs last year, so the junta's 1.8 million visitor target will need to almost triple the pace in the second half. Chinese and Thai travelers are doing most of the numbers - Chinese arrivals up 12 percent through May, Thai arrivals up 7 percent. Visa-on-arrival is now available to visitors from China, India, Japan and South Korea, and Thai influencers Farose and Go Went Go's Bas have been filming in Yangon. Even if Myanmar hits the full-year target, the number of visitors will still only be about a third of the 4.7 million tourists it attracted in 2015.

Belarus Opens Its Door to Myanmar Passports

Belarus's 30-day visa-free window for Myanmar citizens opened on July 8, and Maung Maung Soe has presented credentials in Minsk as Myanmar's first ambassador to Belarus. Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou is keen on a 2026-2028 roadmap on trade and work on joint-industrial projects, and a Belarusian embassy in Naypyidaw is also on the table. The improvement in relations follows on Lukashenko's November 2025 visit to Naypyidaw. One of the challenges is that most young Myanmar citizens who would be willing to visit (or keen to leave) still have no passports.

Read more: Mizzima (passport ranking), Reform News (roadmap)

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Cambodia 20260713

August Whitcraft — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 01:35:09 GMT

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IMF Cuts Growth Forecast to 3%

Real GDP growth is expected to slow to 3% in 2026, the IMF said, which is appreciably down from 5.3% last year and would be half the 6.0% pace posted in 2024. Inflation is expected to find 5.6% this year as higher fuel prices run into a mix of problems, including reputational damage from the cyber scam industry, tepid tourist arrivals, weak external demand, and a real estate sector still struggling as regulatory forbearance winds down. The Article IV mission recommended targeted cash support for vulnerable households instead of broad fuel subsidies, as well as putting the heat on Phnom Penh to expand the tax base instead of leaning further on debt. The riel has stayed more-or-less steady against the dollar, which remains an anchor for the heavily dollarized economy.

Read more: Nikkei Asia (border fallout), Cambodia Investment Review (IMF review)

US Takes 42% of Exports

Merchandise exports were $17.09 billion in 1H 2026, up almost a fifth year-on-year, and the United States bought $7.17 billion of it. Garments, footwear, and travel goods, the sector that keeps 1.1 million workers on payroll in 1,800 factories, grew more slowly (6.2% to $7.99 billion) and still made up almost half of all exports. Vietnam was a distant second at $2.52 billion, followed by China at $943 million, Japan at $907 million, and Canada at $634 million. Imports rose faster, coming in at $19.76 billion and leaving a $2.67 billion trade deficit for the half.

Read more: Khmer Times (export markets), Fibre2Fashion (product mix), Xinhua (trade deals)

Border Blast Wounds Four in Green

A blast in an Oddar Meanchey cashew plantation on July 5 wounded four Cambodian soldiers. Phnom Penh says it was an unexplained explosion behind a departing patrol, but Bangkok insists its troops were only guarding road construction and that the detonation happened on Cambodian soil. No independent evidence has supported either story. Malaysia's defense chief, General Malek Razak Sulaiman, took a tour of the ASEAN Observer Team's post in Banteay Meanchey on July 8 before promising closer military ties with Vong Pisen, another visit Phnom Penh is using to put outside eyes on the border. The resettlement effort is also taking shape, with six new Rong Cham villages outside Slakram, nicknamed "Waiting Villages" by Hun Sen, built to replace the shuttered Kandorl Pagoda tent camp. The Interior Ministry claims that more than 640,000 people are still affected and 20,840, including 6,066 children, remain unable to go home because Thai troops are still in their villages.

Read more: Cambodia Daily (blast site), Khmer Times (new villages), Asian News Network (observer team), Cambodianess (military ties)

Phnom Penh Files Another Protest Over Razor Wire

Cambodia has filed a new protest accusing Thai troops of building fortifications inside its territory. Phnom Penh says that’s in violation of the December 2025 ceasefire. The Foreign Affairs Ministry documented two incidents in Oddar Meanchey, saying Thai soldiers excavated an embankment and strung razor wire near Boundary Pillar No. 14 in O'Smach commune, then laid more wire near Boundary Pillar No. 22 in Banteay Ampil district. Phnom Penh says the work breaches the 1904 Franco-Siamese Convention, the 1907 Treaty, and the de-escalation measures agreed at the December 2025 General Border Committee meeting. It wants Thailand to stop construction at the two named sites and "any other areas unlawfully occupied by Thai forces since last year."

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (diplomatic protest), Khmer Times (site damage)

El Nino Dries Out Rice Paddy

Rainfall has been reduced by as much as half since early 2026, and the Water Resources Ministry expects El Nino to continue getting stronger. Hun Manet told his people to coordinate monitoring, secure food reserves, and make sure that emergency response plans were refreshed.

Read more: Cambodianess (farmer concerns), CamboJA News (weather outlook)

Photo by sam onn chan on Unsplash

H-Pay Liquidator Says the Money Is Gone

Reach & Partners, the liquidator for H-Pay, said that the payment platform is insolvent and had been operating beyond the license granted by the National Bank of Cambodia. The company was offering loans, crypto remittances, and fixed-term deposits that its permit… did not permit. The reveal comes three months after H-Pay and predecessor Huione Pay put a freeze on withdrawals, and weeks after Washington extended sanctions to H-Pay as Huione Pay's successor over alleged billions in scam-connected laundering. Creditors had until May 25 to file claims, and authorities have already said that nobody is likely to get his money back. Huione Pay’s its license was quietly revoked in September 2024, but the central bank didn’t disclose that publicly until December 2025.

Authorities Deport 1,362 Scammers

Cambodia sent 1,362 foreigners from 24 countries home during a 10-day sweep of online scam compounds, including 79 Thai nationals. The pace, more than 136 removals a day, suggests authorities are clearing suspects out rather than letting cases pile up in court. No breakdown of the other 23 nationalities was shared.

Read more: Khmer Times

Tokyo Kidney Broker Arrested Over Transplant

Tokyo police arrested Hiromichi Kikuchi, 66, his son Mitsuru Kikuchi, 42, and Takaki Ando, 66, on charges of brokering a living-donor kidney transplant for a Tokyo patient at a hospital in central Phnom Penh. Japanese media said it is the country's first criminal case over paid organ-transplant arranging. The patient gave roughly 25 million yen in U.S. dollars to a Chinese coordinator in January for "local medical expenses," then wired another 12.3 million yen to the trio's Tokyo association as physician honoraria and administrative fees. Chinese doctors performed the surgery. The donor was reportedly a Cambodian woman. Kikuchi arranged this transplant after being released on bail from a 2023 arrest for running unauthorized transplants in Belarus, a case that ended in an eight-month prison sentence. The Phnom Penh hospital director told Asahi Shimbun only, "I do not want to talk about it."

NIAID Signs $36 Million Disease Research Deal

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Cambodia's Ministry of Health agreed to a five-year, $36 million research pact, the first Asian deal under Washington's "America First Global Health Strategy." Four institutions, including the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology, and Malaria Control and the National Institute of Public Health, will work with NIAID on dengue, chikungunya, zika, H5N1, and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria. The US Embassy said the goal was to "contain outbreaks before they reach the United States."

Baby Is Fifth Bird Flu Case This Year

A nine-month-old girl from Prek Takong village in Phnom Penh's Meanchey tested positive for H5N1 this week, the fifth human case this year. Doctors have her in intensive care while health teams try to find the source, sample close contacts, and distribute Tamiflu as a precaution. The previous case, in April, was a 66-year-old woman in Svay Rieng near the Vietnam border. In Kandal's Koh Thom district, dengue has affected more than 570 people, with six severe cases sent to Kantha Bopha Hospital.

Read more: Khmer Times (public advisory), Khmer Times (health ministry), Cambodianess (poultry risk), Outbreak News Today (animal carriers)

France Previews Trade Agenda Before Macron Visit

Nicolas Forissier was in Phnom Penh this week laying the groundwork for the arrival of Emmanuel Macron for the Francophonie Summit in mid-November. With Mines and Energy Minister Keo Rottanak, Forissier talked about an 800-megawatt hydropower project valued at $1.2 billion, and a Phnom Penh waste-to-energy plan, though France wants more details (read: studies) before it cuts any checks. Forissier interestingly mentioned that French airlines are looking into direct flights, which would be a boon.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (trade agenda), Cambodianess (business forum), CamboJA News (energy plans)

Kem Ley's Archive Opens

Ten years after Kem Ley was gunned down at a Phnom Penh gas station, digital security consultant Nget Moses released a 71,000-file, 48-gigabyte archive of his speeches, notes, and research, including the full 2016 "Country Road Map" that pushed for opposition wins in the 2017 commune elections. LICADHO and ADHOC used the anniversary to renew their calls into a new investigation of who, if anyone, helped Oeuth Ang plan the killing that he blamed on a $3,000 debt. .

Read more: The Star (anniversary protest), CamboJA News (archive release), Cambodia Daily (accomplice questions), Khmer Times (reconciliation)

High Fuel Prices Drive EV Sales Boom

Cambodia has registered 14,056 EVs since 2021; 3,693 of them in March through May as fuel prices went through the roof. BYD and GAC lead sales.

$43 Million Tiger Plan Stalled by Lack of Prey

Cambodia hopes to fly in tigers from India to repopulate the Cardamom Mountains, nearly twenty years after the last confirmed sighting was caught on a camera trap. The $43 million reintroduction would bring several of India's more than 3,600 tigers into protected rainforest in the southwest. There’s a hitch, however. Indian tiger biologist Ullas Karanth, who once led surveys of Cambodia's tigers, says prey populations "went extinct" and have not recovered enough to feed the new arrivals. Consultant Jimmy Borah of Aaranyak disagrees, however, and says that camera trapping shows that there’s enough prey for initial arrivals and that "the conservation message is more important right now than worrying about prey availability." Tigers were meant to arrive in 2024. A May plan approved by the Environment Ministry now proposes arrivals beginning next year, but funding is still being negotiated after a carbon-credit project that was expected to finance the effort fell through.

Thailand 20260710

August Whitcraft — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 05:10:38 GMT

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CP Wants Out of the Three-Airport Rail Deal

CP Group has sent the State Railway of Thailand a letter asking to end the three-airport high-speed rail contract, saying it still can’t get an investment promotion certificate from the Board of Investment or issue a notice to proceed with construction. SRT governor Anan Phonimdaeng said the matter will need to be sent to the Eastern Economic Corridor Policy Committee by August, after a joint committee meets on July 15 to settle the terms of what both sides are politely saying is a mutual termination. Killing the main contract also ends Asia Era One's right to run the Airport Rail Link, whose operating contract expires September 30. SRT is now working on contingency plans that may include hiring the private operator to keep trains running while lawyers work through the wreckage.

Read more: The Star (termination talks), Thai Enquirer (House panel)

Nestle Pours About $690 Million Into a New Coffee Plant

The Board of Investment approved 66.3 billion baht ($1.99 billion) for nine projects, with the biggest deal featuring Nestle's 23-billion-baht ($690 million) Nescafe factory in Samut Prakan. It is the company's first wholly owned coffee plant in Thailand after a 34-year joint venture with Quality Coffee Products ended in December 2024 and sent the two sides to court (Nestle won). The new facility, due online in the second half of 2028, will make 170,000 metric tons a year of soluble coffee, mixes, and ready-to-drink cans, will have an on-site distribution center and employ more than 500. Other approvals included Thai Airways aircraft leases, Datasection's GPU server infrastructure in Bangkok and Pathum Thani, and Donsan Group's circuit-board materials plant.

Read more: Bloomberg (jobs), Bangkok Post (BOI approvals), Nestle (local spending), Foodbev (market), Yahoo Finance (joint venture)

Court Upholds Anutin's 400-Billion-Baht Decree

The Constitutional Court ruled that Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's 400-billion-baht emergency loan decree is lawful, splitting the money between the Thais Help Thais Plus consumer subsidy and a green energy transition package. The opposition People's Party, which brought the case, claims that the government never faced the "urgent and unavoidable necessity" that the law requires and could have funded the programs through a normal budget bill.

Read more: Bangkok Post

House Passes Amnesty Bill, Keeps Youth 112 Cases in Court

The House passed an amnesty bill 306-141, related to protest-connected offenses but leaving a carve-out for cases against minors charged under Section 112 (the lese-majeste law). The exclusion means young defendants, some who were prosecuted for actions taken as teenagers during the 2020-21 protests, will remain in the courts even though some other political cases will get covered by the amnesty. The bill will go now to the Senate, where amendments could still change who qualifies.

Southern Protesters Force Bangkok to Scrap Corridor Act

After nine days camped outside Government House, southern protesters got Deputy Prime Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn to pen a memorandum conceding all five of their demands. The draft Southern Economic Corridor Act, the ministry had been preparing through the transport planning office, will not go to Cabinet. The Land Bridge project connecting Ranong and Chumphon is on hold until a new committee, co-chaired by Deputy Transport Minister Siripong Angkasakulkiat and including SEC Watch, finishes a southern development master plan along with another study chaired by the deputy prime minister and the finance minister. Phiphat also agreed to raise issue of a demand to drop Prachin Buri from the Eastern Economic Corridor directly with the Prime Minister.

Bangkok and Putrajaya End Seafood War

Thailand and Malaysia agreed to drop the shrimp and sea bass restrictions that had frozen fishery trade between them; the fix will take effect within a week. Malaysia tightened controls on Thai barramundi and put a ban on five shrimp species after Thailand curbed Malaysian sea bass over talk of chemical residue. The PM, on his first Malaysia trip since retaking office in March, also signed off with Anwar Ibrahim on border infrastructure, including a second Rantau Panjang-Sungai Golok bridge, faster customs channels, and talks on reviving the rail link between the two towns. The leaders set a bilateral trade target of $30 billion by 2027 (up from ~$25 billion last year), and opened a new road alignment at Bukit Kayu Hitam-Sadao.

Read more: Bloomberg (seafood deal), Bangkok Post (ferry reopening), Malay Mail (border projects), Malay Mail (agriculture trade)

Thai-Passports-for-Chinese-Babies Busted

A medical records officer at a private Thonburi hospital allegedly ran a maternity package for Chinese clients that came with Thai citizenship for the baby. The broker put together Chinese mothers with Thai men willing to acknowledge paternity for a few thousand baht. No delivery room appearance was apparently required. Hospital records show 164 such registrations between 2023 and 2024. DNA testing has confirmed that 19 children share no biology with their listed Thai fathers, and the registrations have been revoked. Police have identified 42 suspects, including 18 "fake fathers," 21 Chinese parents, a hospital employee, a district registrar, and one Laotian mother. Warrants have been approved for 21 people and 16 have been arrested so far. The case started with the April 2024 arrest of Chen Yin Lai over a 70-billion-baht scam and money-laundering network, after investigators found his wife's three children all held Thai nationality.

Read more: Bangkok Post (suspects), Khaosod English (police)

BoT Cuts Inflation Forecast, Menu Prices Hold

The Bank of Thailand thinks 2026 headline inflation will come in below its 2.8% forecast, as crude sticks around $64 a barrel. Pump prices won’t go below 30 baht any time soon though, because the ex-refinery price, the bigger piece of the retail tag, has not changed, and the Oil Fuel Fund is still collecting fees to repay retailers. Restaurants aren’t cutting prices either. The Thai Restaurant Association says operators are still burning through inventory bought when diesel was 50+ baht a liter, and nothing on the rent, electricity, and labor costs front has eased. About three-fifths of large retailers plan to raise prices by as much as 10% over the next three months.

Read more: Bangkok Post (inflation forecast), Bangkok Post (steel), Bangkok Post (refineries)

Court Rules ISOC Liable for Harassment

The Court of Appeal says the Internal Security Operations Command is liable for a disinformation campaign against human rights defenders Angkhana Neelapaijit and Anchana Heemmina. The court said the systematic cyberbullying was a form psychological torture under international human rights standards and told the state to pay compensation. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Andrea Bolanos Vargas asked authorities to implement the judgment in full, and members of the parliamentary budget panel have since called for a scrapping of the Prayut-era agency outright.

Read more: Thai Enquirer (abolition push), Prachatai English (UN rapporteur statement)

CM Police Block Petition, Break Protester's Arm

Police blocked the People's Network to Protect the Kok, Sai, Ruak, and Mekong Rivers from marching to Chiang Mai's Chinese Consulate, sealing off the street with metal fences and more than 100 officers. When protesters, some wearing Xi Jinping masks, pushed toward the barricade, officers grabbed at their banners. One demonstrator reportedly ended up with a dislocated shoulder, another with a broken arm. The consulate was closed, so the petition never reached the building. Protesters read their statement to the blockade and gave their document to police to pass along, demanding that Chinese firms answer for heavy-metal contamination from mines upstream in Myanmar. The network has filed a complaint against the officers for excessive use of force.

IATA Rejects Bangkok's Airport Tax Idea

The tourism ministry wanted airlines to collect a 300-baht fee at booking and refund Thai passengers, who are exempt under the law. IATA regional VP Sheldon Hee said airlines do not collect nationality or passport data at booking, only name and destination, which makes the plan unworkable. The Airlines Association of Thailand piled on, saying more than 100 foreign carriers fly to Thailand on incompatible back-office systems. Both groups want the fee paid via the Thailand Digital Arrival Card instead, since Immigration already runs it and reports straight to the government. The tax, first floated in 2020, is meant to cover accident insurance and offset the 2.5 billion baht Thai hospitals absorb yearly in unpaid bills from foreign patients.

Read more: Bangkok Post

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Vietnam 20260709

August Whitcraft — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:26:30 GMT

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Trump Resort Replaces More Than 3,500 Graves

Bulldozers have cleared the cemetery in Hung Yen province where more than 3,500 ancestral graves once stood, making way for Trump International Vietnam, a $1.5 billion golf and villa complex spread over 2,446 acres beside the Red River. More than 4,000 (presumably living) families were also relocated with (accorinding to residents) “scant” compensation. The Trump Organization is expected to collect licensing fees and, eventually, revenue from running the club under a 50-year agreement. President To Lam's government, the finance ministry, and the Hung Yen People's Committee all supported the project, and the ministries of defense and public security are working with local authorities to support foreigners who will be able to buy into two "eco-residential" zones designed for 35,000 residents.

LG Innotek Puts $1B Into Hai Phong Substrates

Hai Phong has approved LG Innotek's $1 billion semiconductor package substrate plant, the first high-tech project to be given the go-ahead inside the city's Free Trade Zone. The 32-hectare facility in Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park should break ground in Q3, start trial runs next year, and hit mass production in ‘28. It will make package substrates, the layer that connects a chip to its circuit board, which is a segment that currently has almost no domestic capacity. LG Innotek knows the city well, having arrived in 2016 with a $550 million camera-module plant in Trang Due Industrial Park. It now runs three factories there worth more than $2 billion between them.

Read more: VnEconomy

11.9% in H2 Needed For Double-Digit Year

GDP was up 8.18% in the first half of 2026, with the second quarter clocking 8.39%, the fastest Q2 in a decade and a half, but that’s still going to leave Hanoi short of its annual goal. Resolution 168/NQ-CP now needs 11.9% growth in the second half to close the year above 10%. Prime Minister Le Minh Hung told a cabinet teleconference that the first half showed "relatively positive progress," despite external challenges (mostly related to the Iran conflict). No sector-by-sector breakdown of the 11.9% target has been shared yet, so as of now, the number seems a bit more like political math than an economic plan.

Read more: VnEconomy (growth target), VnEconomy (PM Hung)

Hanoi Builds a Chip Buyer's Club, Foreigners Not Invited

The Ministry of Science and Technology has put together a procurement list for 16 categories of specialized semiconductors, including for AI, IoT, cybersecurity, and telecoms, guaranteeing state buyers for whatever domestic designers produce. Ho Chi Minh City also came up with a draft subsidy of up to $570,000 per chip design project, for training, R&D, pilot production and equipment, but only for companies that are established under Vietnamese law, headquartered and taxed in the city. Multinationals and foreign-invested companies need not apply, even though the city's $21 billion chip sector runs on barely 7,000 engineers. G-Group signed on with Hanoi's HUST and Russia's MERI to chase secure chip technology, microelectronics and nanoelectronics, restarting a research relationship that dates back to the 1970s.

Read more: VnEconomy (procurement list), Tuoitre (subsidy rules), VnExpress (Hanoi plan)

EFTA Closes Nine-Year Trade Talks

Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland wrapped up talks in Reykjavik, clearing the way for a free trade deal for the EUR 4.8 billion ($5.5 billion) in bilateral trade the two sides did last year. Footwear, apparel and mechanical machinery shipments to the bloc have grown by more than 10 percent yearly for the past decade, and the pact promises to cut or scrap remaining tariffs in a market Hanoi's exporters have found difficult to crack at scale. Electrical machinery, fish and pharmaceuticals are the products heading the other way. Ratification in five parliaments still stands between the text and any lower duty bill.

Read more: VnEconomy

Photo by Leon Wong on Unsplash

PNJ's Gem Lab Chief Stamped Smuggled Diamonds Legit

Dang Ngoc Thao, 52, ran PNJ-LAB, the certification arm of the country's largest listed jeweler, and police say he removed GIA laser inscriptions from smuggled stones and etched his own lab's numbers in their place before issuing new certificates. The diamonds came from India by way of Hong Kong, and were carried over the border on 141 runs since 2024 by a ring that moved more than 28,000 stones and generated an estimated VND280 billion ($10.7 million) in revenue. Raids at 20 locations last month resulted in the seizure of 1,100 diamonds. PNJ-LAB is currently barred from trading any diamonds it certifies.

Read more: VnExpress

Lobster Exports Fill China's Tariff Gap

China bought in $506 million worth of lobster in the first five months of 2026. Imports peaked at $154 million in February, up 150% year-on-year, then settled into a steady $78 million to $87 million a month. Canadian, American, and Australian suppliers, hurt by tariffs and slow production recovery in 2025, gave up ground that exporters in Vietnam were positioned to take. Short shipping times by land and air keep lobsters fresher, and small and medium blue lobsters are priced well for Chinese buyers. China is the largest buyer by far, absorbing the bulk of a roughly $80 million monthly run rate that shows no sign of slowing.

Read more: VnExpress

Police Cuff Seven Behind HiAnime's Piracy Empire

Police arrested seven people behind HiAnime, the piracy service that once upon a time outdrew Disney+ and Crunchyroll with several hundred million monthly visitors, before shutting it down in June. The group ran more than 100 sites hosting more than 26,000 pirated anime films under a rotating cast of domains, from Zoro.to to Aniwatch to HiAnime.to, bringing in $12+ million in ad revenue between 2020 and April 2026. Four suspects are in custody and three are under house arrest, on copyright and money laundering charges.

Read more: BleepingComputer (ACE confirmation), BBC (crackdown)

HCMC Digs 41 Meters for Metro Line 2

Crews have begun sinking a 1.2-meter-thick, 534-meter diaphragm wall at Pham Van Bach Station, the first underground stop on Metro Line 2 and one being built 41 meters deep over half a year. The station will also be the launch site for tunnel boring machines and will be the gateway to Tan Son Nhat airport, the last underground stop before the line goes elevated. City Hall has carved out five transit development zones of 940 hectares along the 11-kilometer route.

Read more: VnExpress (line cost), VnExpress (TOD zones), VnEconomy (property impact)

Decree 252 Grounds Tax Debtors at the Border

If you’ve owed the taxman VND50 million (~$2,000) as an individual or VND500 million (nearly $20,000) as a company’s legal representative for more than 120 days, Decree 252 might keep you from leaving the country. Tax authorities are required to give 30 days' notice by email, registered phone, or the tax portal before making the exit-ban request with immigration, but firms that have abandoned their registered addresses have no minimum limit at all. The new rule replaces Decree 49 from February 2025. Foreign nationals departing with unpaid tax bills are explicitly covered, as well as overseas Vietnamese and emigrating citizens.

Read more: VnEconomy

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Laos 20260708

August Whitcraft — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:58:39 GMT

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Thai Hydropower Financier Gets Life in $24.8M Sweep

The Vientiane Capital People's Court closed four corruption cases by sentencing at least ten of 17 defendants to life sentences and ordering the confiscation of $24.8 million in cash, vehicles, land, and bank accounts. The biggest name is Thai businessman Aphichart Vannakul, the only foreign national named, who got life for his role in a hydropower corruption deal connected to former Electricity of Laos executives, including Thongphet Duangngeun. The other three cases involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Agricultural Promotion Bank, the State Inspection Authority, and the Bank of the Lao PDR, where officials were convicted of misappropriating funds, taking bribes, and forging documents.

Read more: Laotian Times

Thongloun Tells Inspectors There Are No Exceptions

The day after the life sentences above were handed down, President Thongloun Sisoulith told Party and state bodies there would be "no restricted zones and no exceptions" in anti-corruption enforcement. He referred to cases that sometimes sit for years without resolution and court rulings that go unenforced, then told inspection, prosecution, and judicial agencies to work better together so that violations can go straight to prosecution instead of stalling out. He also gave a warning to inspectors by telling them that they shouldn’t turn oversight into a place for "bargaining, compromise or shielding wrongdoing." He wants reports published so the public can see consequences, though he gave no case numbers and no target date for clearing the backlog.

Read more: Asian News Network (inspection review), VietnamPlus (official protections)

PM Reports 4,482 Cybercrime Arrests This Year

Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told the National Assembly that 44 cybercrime operations since January have resulted in 4,482 arrests (25 nationalities, including 779 Lao nationals). June made up almost 900 of the arrests, the year's biggest single month. A raid in Vientiane's Naxaithong district snagged 9 Chinese and 14 Vietnamese suspects, and police later swept a hotel complex near Xang Jieng Market and netted 28 Chinese nationals who authorities say were involved with online gambling. In Phongsaly, officers arrested seven Lao nationals and one Chinese national; the Chinese suspect was passed to Chinese officials.

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane, Naypyidaw Paired as Sister Cities

Three days of talks about defense, trade, energy, transport, and labor cooperation between Lao and Myanmar officials ended with just two signed documents. One was a tourism MOU between the culture ministries and the other was a "friendship city" pact twinning Vientiane with Naypyidaw. Min Aung Hlaing, on his first state visit since Myanmar's much-derided election, got a full honors welcome at the Presidential Palace and a sit-down with Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, who added cross-border air pollution to the agenda. President Thongloun Sisoulith congratulated him on the election victory and the formation of a new government. Thin paperwork but warm optics.

Read more: VietnamPlus (ASEAN framework), Khmer Times (humanitarian affairs)

National Assembly Opens Session on Poverty

Laos's 10th National Assembly opened a five-day special session with lawmakers taking up a National Agenda on Rural Development and Poverty Reduction. It’s being billed as a top governmental development priority. National Assembly President Xaysomphone Phomvihane connected the session to the push to graduate from Least Developed Country status this year, and the government is already talking about a 2055 target for middle- to high-income status. Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told the chamber that the country has continued to grow through the first half of 2026. The sitting is also expected to pass a new State Treasury Law and make some amendments to the State Budget Law.

Read more: The Star (GDP growth), VietnamPlus (session agenda)

Photo by Joule Benjarat on Unsplash

Single Warehouse Fire Does Half the Damage

Fire crews in Laos reported 144 fires YTD, eight people dead and LAK 319.6 billion ($14.3 million) in damages, from 101 burned homes and 18 torched vehicles. One blaze did most of the damage. A June 11 fire at a four-story auto parts warehouse in Vientiane's Pakthang village took firefighters eight hours to wrestle under control and resulted in costs of an estimated $6.3 million. A second warehouse fire in Bokeo's Tonpheung district added $4.1 million more.

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane Adds 9.3 km of Korean-Funded Riverfront

Vientiane's Mekong promenade has been extended by more than 9,000 meters, running from Wat Nak village in Sisattanak District to Hatdokkeo in Hadsayfong and serving 19 villages along the way. The $67.56 million project was reliant on a $57.6 million low-interest loan from South Korea, and the Lao government ponied up the remaining $9.96 million. Built since 2022 using a riprap design meant to survive “once-in-a-century floods”, the new stretch adds 13 parks, boat landings, drainage, and cycling paths to a riverside system that began with a first 12-kilometer phase in 2014. Several of the new parks opened to joggers and cyclists before the ribbon-cutting.

Read more: Laotian Times

Lao Telecom Wires Up Flood Alerts as Rains Hit

Lao Telecommunication Public Company and the NGO People in Need signed an agreement to roll out an SMS and voice-response flood warning system in nine provinces and 33 high-risk districts, funded by Switzerland's SDC, the GSMA, and the UK's FCDO. The southwest monsoon is expected to keep hammering northern and central Laos, with Phongsaly, Houaphanh, Bolikhamxay, Champasak, Salavan, Sekong, and Attapeu all flagged for more flooding and landslides.

Read more: The Star (signatory names), Laotian Times (risk provinces)

Vientiane Exporter Shipped Cancer Drugs as Coolant

Customs officers at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport opened three packages labeled as “coolant.” The formulations, marketed under the Luci/Lucius brand line, were reportedly molecules including sotorasib, capivasertib, vandetanib, selpercatinib, belzutifan, and elacestrant. Investigators say the drugs were bound for resale through WhatsApp and Telegram groups at prices well below branded rates. CDSCO tested the samples and confirmed them as anti-cancer drugs.

ILO Workshop Drafts Harassment Rules

Garment sector employers and union representatives spent two days in Vientiane working through harassment and discrimination policy with the ILO, the Lao Federation of Trade Unions, and the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Canada's Employment and Social Development agency funded the project. Equal pay, dispute resolution, and women's participation in decision-making were all on the agenda. No enforcement deadline was mentioned.

FAO Backs Chilli Exports to China and Korea

The FAO is teaming with Vientiane to crack open chilli exports to China and South Korea, starting with a value chain workshop under its Hand-in-Hand Initiative. The country has about 15.4 million hectares suitable for the crop, but smallholders still dominate production, which makes hitting international quality standards a stretch. Contract farming with foreign investors has shown that better varieties and technology can help to lift yields.

Saysettha Low-Carbon Zone Still Hunting $5 Billion

Solar streetlights, electric buses, and new-energy trucks now run in the 11.5 square kilometer Vientiane-Saysettha zone, one of ten pilot projects under China's South-South climate program. CIDCA expects yearly emissions cuts topping 1,200 tons and is still counting on $5 billion in investment to fill out the industrial park and new urban area inaugurated in 2022. Ambitious.

Read more: Laotian Times

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Myanmar 20260707

August Whitcraft — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:33:11 GMT

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The Post-Coup Death Toll Passes 100,000

ACLED has counted the number of conflict deaths since the February 2021 coup and says the total is 100,114, based on media reports from Asia's deadliest active war. Despite the carnage, the military now controls barely 30 percent of the territory it claims. A separate Assistance Association for Political Prisoners count counts child deaths at 1,083 through June, with 400 more cases still being checked. "I am so deeply resentful and very angry. But I don't even know who to be angry at anymore," said Thein Aye Nu, 49, whose husband was killed in a Rakhine air strike last month. The UN counts 3.7 million people internally displaced.

Read more: France 24 (conscription), Modern Ghana (refugees), Mizzima (child deaths)

Starlink Cuts 2,500 Terminals

More than 2,500 Starlink terminals (more than a fifth of the country’s active units) went dark after the company traced hardware routes through northern Shan State to scam compounds in Karen State's Myawaddy Township. Starlink has no license to run in the country. Users pay monthly fees starting at $100 and register terminals under addresses in Malaysia, Indonesia, or the Philippines, three Southeast Asian countries where Starlink is licensed. The downside is that the same workaround that kept scam compounds online has also kept resistance fighters and civilians connected through the junta's 2022 communications blackout. A People's Defence Force member in central Myanmar said backup communications exist, but none match Starlink's reach.

Read more: DVB (Thai seizures), Indo-Pacific Defense Forum (compounds)

Rohingya Mass at the Naf as Rakhine Fighting Reignites

Explosions loud enough to shake homes in Teknaf sent residents into panic as the military started a new offensive against the Arakan Army in Maungdaw and Buthidaung. Those are the Rakhine townships that emptied into Bangladesh in 2017. Hundreds of Rohingya have reportedly collected themselves along the Naf River to wait for a chance to cross, though Teknaf's executive officer says no confirmed crossings have been recorded. Border Guard Bangladesh has reinforced patrols, and Thailand has shut every crossing in Tak province after cross-border gunfire from fighting with the Karen National Liberation Army damaged homes there. Monsoon landslides killed at least eight Rohingya in Cox's Bazar, part of a settlement of 1.2 million where monthly food rations have been cut from $12 to as little as $7.

Read more: TBS News (border pressure), Anadolu Agency (Teknaf panic), DVB (landslide toll), UCA News (Arakan Army tensions)

Junta Blocks ASEAN Envoy From Seeing ASSK

Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro was turned away a second time, (now in her capacity as ASEAN's special envoy), when she asked to see the embattled Aung San Suu Kyi. Junta spokesperson Khaing Khaing Soe said the 81-year-old Nobel laureate, moved from prison to a "designated residence" in May, is "not allowed to meet with international representatives" and might be granted permission "only after her sentence" (that’s about 19 years away). The visitor list is short, with former Thai foreign minister Don Pramudwinai getting in during July 2023 and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in April. Manila welcomed an amnesty for about 4,500 prisoners but repeated its call to free the rest, Suu Kyi included.

Read more: Straits Times (ASEAN envoy), The Diplomat (summit ban), PNA (Philippines stance), DVB (displacement)

Beijing Detains ISP-Myanmar Director, Then Hosts Junta Chief

Min Zin, the American executive director of ISP-Myanmar, disappeared in Kunming on June 3 after Chinese authorities detained him on suspicion of espionage, twelve days before Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Beijing for his first state visit since 2021. The trip resulted in about 70 business MoUs and 18 state-level agreements. Thirty days in detention have now passed, the threshold under Chinese law when formal charges can be filed, but none have yet been announced. An ISP-Myanmar analysis published shortly before his disappearance described the country as "tethered to Beijing's inescapable influence." The Chinese embassy in Washington has not responded to a request for comment.

Read more: Newsweek (wrongfully detained call)

Photo by Mg Cthu on Unsplash

Sky Villa Developer Gets Five Years, Two Below Statutory Minimum

A Mandalay court sentenced Naing Tun Lin, owner of N.T.L. Construction Company, to five years for criminal negligence in the Sky Villa condo collapse during the March 2025 earthquake, which is two years short of the seven-year minimum set by Section 304-A of the penal code. The 11-story building housed more than 400 tenants when it fell; about half survived. N.T.L. paid families of 146 victims 10 million MMK, about $2,500, for units that had sold for up to 650 million MMK, or $160,000. The ruling comes as the World Bank published its estimate of nationwide quake damage at $11 billion, about 14 percent of GDP, with the economy still contracting a year on.

Read more: DVB (survivor outrage), ReliefWeb (nationwide recovery)

Junta and Laos Sign Off on a Mekong Dam Study

The junta chief spent three days in Vientiane and came away with an agreement on a joint feasibility study for a 2,790-megawatt hydropower project on the Mekong border with Laos, signed by Primus Sapphire Power and Laos's Phongsupthavy Group. The study will run for 34 months and covers technical and economic viability only, with no site location, no investment figure, and no discussion of how the power would get divvied up. The Mekong makes up about 240 kilometers of border between eastern Shan State and northern Laos, and Tachileik, cut off from Thai electricity in 2025, now leans on imports from Laos, which calls itself the "Battery of ASEAN." The deal builds on a 2018 electricity MOU that was extended for five more years in 2023.

Read more: Nation Thailand (Win Myint visit), The Star (GMS energy goals), New Day Myanmar (construction not authorized)

Xi Pitches Bangladesh a Kunming-to-Bay of Bengal Corridor

Xi Jinping pitched Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman a 1,700 km trade corridor from Kunming to the Bay of Bengal during Rahman's Beijing visit. The route would run through Mandalay and Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State before finding Chattogram and Mongla ports. The plan revives the old Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor, which was dropped from Belt and Road plans by 2019 as Sino-Indian ties soured. Ambassador Yao Wen says India is welcome back "if they are willing to join." Dhaka is not biting yet. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman said peace in Rakhine needs to come first, and that is a large condition in a state where the junta controls somewhere between a fifth and 30 percent of the territory, depending on who you ask.

Lukashenko Makes Fifth Visit to Naypyitaw

Aleksandr Lukashenko went to the capital for a one-day visit, his fifth sit-down with the junta chief and second trip to the country since 2021, sandwiched between stops in China and Indonesia. The talks were centered on economic, industrial, agricultural, and pharmaceutical cooperation, with Lukashenko saying the relationship is a model for the region. The general thanked Belarus for sending observers to the junta-run elections. A June 2025 Justice for Myanmar report alleged Belarus has supplied air defense technology and training to the military. Neither side has talked about that publicly.

Read more: DVB (air defense supply), Belsat EU (Lukashenka)

Junta Asks Tokyo to Restart Aid, Gets Nowhere

Parliament spokesperson Khin Khin Soe said "ordinary citizens will suffer" from Japan's aid freeze, in place since 2021. Tokyo, which said the junta-run elections held in December 2025 and January 2026 were likely to "invite more resistance," has so far been unmoved. Human Rights Watch wants sanctions tightened instead, and reminded everyone of past junta misdeeds including those of a military-owned conglomerate that profited from Japan's Bago River Bridge project and army misuse of Japan-funded boats to move troops and weapons into Rakhine State in 2022.

The Matriculation Exam Loses Three-Quarters

Only 255,228 students sat this year's matriculation exam, down from almost a million before the coup. The pass rate rose to about 52 percent, producing a little more than 130,000 graduates. That’s about as many as the old system used to fail.

Cambodia 20260706

August Whitcraft — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 02:24:39 GMT

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Scam Crackdown Fills the Prisons

Cambodian prisons are on track for 85,000 detainees by the end of 2028, and that’s up from about 57,000 today. Almost 5,000 were added so far this year. The scam crackdown is doing most of the work. It’s not a happy place to end up, as each detainee gets one square meter (compare vs a UN standard of three), each officer has to keep an eye on up to 25 prisoners, and more than 300 retired staff have not been replaced. The director-general of prisons went on state TV to warn that conditions like these breed riots, rebellions, and escapes.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (prisons), Straits Times (repatriation), Asia Sentinel (Huione)

Barbed Wire Won't Wait for the Diplomats

Thai forces put up some new barbed wire on two border segments, one in the Mom Bei area of Preah Vihear Province and another at Chob Ruan in Oddar Meanchey's Trapeang Prasat District. Phnom Penh filed a protest, natch. The Foreign Ministry said it was a "persistent" sovereignty violation and said the acts breach both the MOU 2000 demarcation agreement and the de-escalation commitments both sides signed in December.

Read more: Cambodianess (survey team), Asian News Network (UN conciliation), CamboJA News (displaced residents)

Open Skies, Open Wallet

Cambodia and the United States signed their first bilateral air transport agreement at the State Department in Washington. The deal gives US cargo carriers seventh-freedom rights, meaning they can now fly between the United States and third countries without those routes touching Cambodia at all (although, that flexibility will be more relevant to logistics networks than to any direct passenger service). The signing came shortly after the DFC approved $100 million in financing for Techo International Airport, making the aviation package look like it may be a coordinated commercial play. Bilateral trade was $5.96 billion so far in the first five months of 2026, up about a third year-on-year. American tourist arrivals are down nearly 12 percent over the same period, to 91,020.

Read more: Asian News Network (tourism), The Diplomatic Insight (airport loan), Aviation Week (open skies)

One War Undoes Eighteen Years of Work

Cambodia celebrated the 18th anniversary of Preah Vihear Temple's UNESCO listing with an appeal for international restoration aid. Thai military attacks in July and December 2025 reportedly damaged the ancient complex and forced about 16,000 residents from the heritage area. The culture ministry says it is the worst destruction ever inflicted on the monument, and 18 years of conservation work have been undone.

Read more: Phnom Penh Post (recovery), Khmer Times (aid appeal)

The Highest Court, The Lowest Bar

The Supreme Court upheld activist Koet Saray's four-year sentence for incitement, in a conviction related to his advocacy for villagers in a land dispute with rubber company Seladamex in Preah Vihear province. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says his detention is arbitrary, but Phnom Penh seems unbothered. The ruling came two days after Rong Chhun, the former labor leader turned Nation Power Party adviser, petitioned the Justice Ministry for a retrial. The Supreme Court last month upheld Chhun's incitement conviction over public comments about online scam operations and the Vietnam border, set aside his four-year prison term, but kept him under three years of judicial supervision, banned him from politics for five years, and barred him from leaving Phnom Penh. About 20 party members walked him to the ministry. The ministry spokesperson has not yet responded to his petition.

Read more: CamboJA News (Koet Saray), CamboJA News (Rong Chhun)

Photo by allPhoto Bangkok on Unsplash

NagaWorld Standoff Gets Another Court Date

About 50 members of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld met outside the Phnom Penh casino complex after at least 18 former workers received new court summonses over "intentional damage under aggravating circumstances" connected to a 2021 strike. Cambodia's longest-running labor dispute is now grinding toward its fifth year. Union president Chhim Sithar, who did a two year stretch on an incitement conviction, is asking political parties to take notice ahead of next year's commune and parliamentary elections. About 70 LRSU-affiliated workers are still holding out, rejecting company compensation offers they say are inadequate, and hundreds more who were laid off before the strike remain in limbo. The Labor Ministry, which the union accuses of failing to mediate neutrally, says it has done what it can while the courts do their work.

A Billion Dollars, Five Hundred at a Time

Four months after APD Bank put emergency withdrawal limits in place, customers still cannot withdraw more than $500 a day from their accounts. The bank refuses to confirm if and when that will change. APD held more than $1 billion in customer deposits at the end of 2024. Nearly all of the bank is owned by chairman Wang Dong, who took Cambodian citizenship in 2015 under the name Vong Pech. Cambodia is one of the last ASEAN countries with no depositor insurance scheme, a shortcoming that officials have been jawboning about for more than a decade.

Full Seats but Thin Learning

Cambodia has almost cracked universal primary enrollment, but the kids sitting in the classrooms aren’t learning much. Grade 6 students got about half of the Khmer language questions right and less than half of the math questions on the 2021 National Learning Assessment, according to a World Bank report. The public purse is not even doing all the heavy lifting either. Families currently have to cover roughly three-fifths of total education spending; government spending on education is at 2.2 percent of GDP, and about three-quarters of that goes straight to salaries.

Read more: Khmer Times

King Returns Home

King Norodom Sihamoni arrived back at Techo International Airport in Phnom Penh after more than four months in Beijing for prostate cancer surgery and recovery. Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk came back with him. Senate President Hun Sen, National Assembly President Khuon Sudary, Prime Minister Hun Manet, and several other senior royals met him on the tarmac. Sihamoni was diagnosed in April, had surgery on April 20, and had been recovering at the royal residence in the Chinese capital since.

Read more: Khmer Times

ABA Sells the Full Stack

Cambodia's largest commercial bank is now in the insurance business. ABA Bank, which says it has more than 6 million customers, has tied up with Maybank-backed Etiqa General Insurance Cambodia to sell fire, auto, and travel coverage through the ABA Mobile app. Fire cover is at the forefront of the rollout; auto and travel will follow. Policies are issued instantly, claims and support run in-app, and CEO Askhat Azhikhanov is looking into a "fully integrated financial system."

Thailand 20260703

August Whitcraft — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 03:37:49 GMT

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Bangkok Runs Out of Fiscal Room

Thailand's public debt hit 12.8 trillion baht (66.7% of GDP), in April, leaving less than four percentage points of headroom before the government's 70% ceiling. Before the pandemic, the ratio was a little more than 40%. Two emergency borrowing decrees worth 1.5 trillion baht kicked off the climb, and the Finance Ministry is now admitting that the old fiscal buffer is pretty much gone. The ministry's Fiscal Risk Report says net borrowing room has narrowed to only 1.5% of GDP without pushing the debt ratio higher, as interest payments are eating another 1.5% each year. Fixed spending, including civil servant salaries and welfare programs, grew 3.4% in fiscal 2025 and made up more than two-thirds of net budget spending. The ministry's answer is not spending restraint (silly you), but rather a VAT increase from 7% to 10%, beginning with a 1.5-point rise in 2028, along with reforms it says are essential to lift growth above the post-pandemic baseline.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Asset Freeze May Test Investor Confidence

A US$600 million asset-freeze dispute tied to Cambodian businessman Yim Leak and his wife Veereenyah Yim. Yim is turning into a test of legal certainty for cross-border finance. The story says investors are watching whether pooled FX settlement accounts can expose downstream recipients to asset-freeze risk, especially since in this case, the disputed transfer was reportedly only US$150,000–165,000. The outcome may shape views on Thailand’s AML enforcement, proportionality, fintech regulation, and regulatory-risk premiums.

Civil Service Jobs Cost 800,000 Baht

The Interior Ministry's week-long probe into last year's local government recruitment exams confirmed what was widely suspected. Of 79 sampled answer sheets, 48 had scores changed upward, and contractors sat on checked files instead of giving them to the Department of Local Administration. At least five DLA officers are going to have disciplinary charges headed their way. Ten people, mostly civil servants, have so far been arrested after being caught with doctored results. Thousands of candidates reportedly paid between 350,000 and 800,000 baht each to pass an exam that was meant to support the filling of almost 7,000 jobs.

Read more: Bangkok Post (discipline), Bangkok Post (bribes)

Twelve Elephant Bags for 8,800 Baht

A Thai Airways flight attendant known so far only as “Meena,” 26, was arrested at Melbourne Airport after Australian Border Force officers found 1.8 kilograms of heroin sewn into two of a dozen elephant-print tote bags she had agreed to carry to Australia for 8,800 baht, (~$240). She claims she was recruited through an online chat with someone using the name "Rose Rose," whose Facebook account has since been deleted. The ONCB says the heroin came from abroad and was repackaged in Thailand. Spokeswoman Areepak Ngernbumrung said that was a routine sort of deal because that drug is not produced domestically.

Read more: Nation Thailand (official warning), Bangkok Post (recipient), Bernama (aviation response)

Photo by Norbert Braun on Unsplash

Suitcase of Horrors

Simon Peter Carman, a 45-year-old Australian former truck driver, was arrested at Suvarnabhumi on Friday evening as he allegedly tried to board a flight to Perth. He has been charged with murder, concealing a corpse to hide cause of death, and abducting a minor for indecent purposes. The victim, 17-year-old Thunchanok Donhomla, was found naked in a suitcase near railway tracks in Pattaya early Saturday. CCTV shows Carman dragging the suitcase out of a condo around 9:30pm and onto a motorbike. He returned without the bag about half an hour later.

Read more: Thailand Business News (tourism concern), The Guardian (court case), 7News (funeral)

Twelve Years for Abbot Who Banked the Alms

The Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases sentenced former Phichit chief monk Wirach to 12 years and ordered him to repay 3 million baht diverted from a donor's contribution. Prosecutors said he conspired with Wilawan Emsawat, the woman at the center of last year's "Sika Golf" scandal, to send the donation into his personal account. The court convicted him under statutes covering misappropriation and misconduct by a state official. Senior monks fall into that bucket because they draw monthly stipends from public funds.

Read more: Bangkok Post

CP's Bullet Train Runs Out of Track

Charoen Pokphand's three-airport high-speed rail project, the centerpiece of Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor pitch, has stalled because the consortium hasn’t been able to line up financing. The much-ballyhooed-project was meant to connect Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, and U-Tapao into a single corridor, with a contract CP won in 2019 and has been renegotiating almost ever since. Real construction was never even started, but neither side seems eager to declare a default and trigger the fallout that would as a result.

Exports Boom While SMEs Bust

A survey of about 330 SME-listed companies found revenues are still falling, even as the JSCCIB projects export growth of 8% to 10% this year, largely because of growth in electronics and semiconductors related to AI infrastructure. Capacity use in May was only about three-fifths, and the JSCCIB's 2026 GDP forecast is a modest 1.6% to 2.0%, well short of what a real export boom would normally deliver. JSCCIB chairman Payong Srivanich said that exports and investment are growing, but neither is showing up in employment or production in traditional industries. The plan now is to work with the Federation of Thai SMEs to classify businesses by sector, so the government can figure out what support they need.

Read more: Bangkok Post (SME strain), Thai Enquirer (competitiveness)

Peak Shrimp Was 2010

The Thai Shrimp Association is pushing the government to adopt a 5.54 billion baht action plan after disease outbreaks cut production from a 2010 peak of 640,000 tonnes to 270,000 to 280,000 today. Export value has fallen from 110 billion baht in 2011 to about 40 billion; Ecuador and India have picked up much of the market slack. The association puts the cost of 13 years of lost export opportunities at 750 billion baht.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Industry Wants Land Bridge if Environment Allows

The Federation of Thai Industries has set up a panel to push the long-stalled Chumphon-Ranong railway, an 80 to 90 kilometer line between the Gulf and Andaman coasts that has been talked about for years. FTI chairwoman Pimjai Leeissaranukul says the federation has put forward its study and is waiting for the government to call a meeting. The pitch is that a dual-track railway combined with a motorway would shave two to five days off Malacca Strait shipping transit times.

Read more: Bangkok Post

Astana Courts Bangkok With Fine Print

Kazakhstan's ambassador met with Finance Vice Minister Santitarn Sathirathai in Bangkok on Thursday to move along a double-taxation convention and an investment protection pact, picking up threads from Deputy PM Sihasak Phuangketkeow's late-June trip to Astana. The talks also covered hooking Thai firms into the Astana International Financial Centre. Bilateral trade was $255.1 million in 2025, up 7.8% on the year, and Kazakhstan is now Thailand's biggest trading partner in Central Asia.

TAT Pitches Monsoon as European Heat Escape

The Tourism Authority is running campaigns in European markets including Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and the Nordics, recasting the May-October rainy season as an escape from the continent's summer heatwaves. The pitch is that rain in Thailand falls only in short bursts rather than all day (which is true), luxury hotels can be had at discounted rates, and the shorter lines to be found at attractions that turn into scrums by December.

Boy Plows Into Monks on Pilgrimage

An 11-year-old stole his parents’ pickup truck in Mukdahan on Thursday and drove it at full speed into a procession of about 30 monks, killing eight and injuring others. As of press time, officials were still confirming the toll. The group had set off about 30 minutes earlier on a 260-kilometer walk to Ubon Ratchathani when the truck hit them from behind along a roadside about 600 kilometers northeast of Bangkok.

Vietnam 20260702

August Whitcraft — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 05:55:57 GMT

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Big Dong Dreams

Politburo Resolution 10 got its rollout in Hanoi, laying out a $200-300 billion foreign investment target with three-quarters of the total expected to come from developed economies. The quality-over-volume shift is real enough that Hanoi is redesigning its incentive structure, moving from upfront sweeteners to rewards tied to technology transfer, R&D spending, and workforce training. Mitsubishi Corporation Vietnam vice chairman Takuya Sahashi said Resolution 10 and Resolution 68 will be "two wheels" to drive the next phase of Vietnamese growth, adding that more than half of Japanese companies in the country are planning to expand. Dragon Capital chairman Dominic Scriven said it is "a very important resolution for foreign investors" and welcomed the explicit recognition of the foreign-invested sector as "an inseparable part of Vietnam's economy."

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (investment pitch), VnEconomy (2030 targets)

Hanoi Tells the Housing Market to Grow Up

Party General Secretary To Lam's instruction to put rental housing first is the clearest notice so far that the build-to-sell era is running out of road. Home prices in many areas are now more than 20 times annual household income. The financing structure that’s propping the market up (short-term bank loans / corporate bonds funding long-term projects) is the sort of maturity mismatch that tends to keep regulators awake at night. The policy shift puts forward a national housing corporation to manage public land reserves and channel long-term capital into rental developments that could take up to a quarter century to recover costs. That idea is closer to Singapore's HDB model than anything the VN has ever seen. Ho Chi Minh City isn’t sitting on its hands, as nine projects (almost 11,000 apartments) have broken ground since January, and another 59 projects are expected by Q3. Interestingly on the tech/ corruption front, a national property identification system was rolled out yesterday to give each asset a permanent code to track its legal status and transaction history, which should make price manipulation harder to hide.

Read more: VnEconomy (rental financing instruments), VnEconomy (HCMC unit pipeline), VnExpress (property ID system)

Chairman Wants a Buyer for His 30-Year Sentence

The Central Military Court opened a three-day appeal hearing over the transfer of 62 hectares of old Nha Trang Airport military land to Phuc Son Group, a deal that ignored orders from the PM and left the state with a 6.69 trillion VND loss. Chairman Nguyen Van Hau, now lumbered with a 30-year sentence from earlier illegal-bidding convictions, wants the court to let an unnamed businessman buy his shares in Phuc Son and assume the liabilities, backed by cash deposits or bank guarantees. Two former major generals are looking for shorter stints. Of the 683 stranded property buyers, 414 have hired lawyers to argue they are not victims at all. They signed contracts based on official state documents, and they want Phuc Son, or whoever ends up owning it, to fork over the land titles.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (appeal hearing), Vietnam Insiders (buyers' claims)

Factories Humming, Dong Appear to Slip

The manufacturing PMI was reported to be 51.8 in June, the fourteenth straight month above the 50-point line (meaning expansion), though the headline number flatters a less-rosy picture underneath. Output hit its fastest pace since February, new orders held up, and business confidence saw a four-month high, but at the same time, employment was down for the fourth month, input stocks dropped (at the sharpest pace in a year), and manufacturers said they are still having trouble importing materials. On the currency front, the dong weakened on the black market to ~VND26,584 per dollar (Vietcombank's official rate held at VND26,466 and the State Bank's reference rate was unmoved at VND25,206).

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (PMI breakdown), VnExpress (dong exchange rates)

Photo by Chris Slupski on Unsplash

Hanoi Offers $228 for a Baby

A new population law offers mothers a one-off cash bonus of up to $228, free prenatal and newborn screenings, and an extra month (seven, total) of maternity leave on the arrival of a second child. The bonus represents about two-thirds of an average monthly salary. Pham Thi Lan of the UN Population Fund says it is a solid reversal, and a shift from controlling births to encouraging them after decades of two-child policy enforcement.

The Paperwork Says Legal, the Logs Say No

The Environmental Investigation Agency's "Manufactured Legality" report documents how raw timber from Cambodia and Laos is making its way into supply chains by way of fraudulent documents, quota systems tied to dam and infrastructure projects, and logging that goes beyond approved boundaries. Wood of unclear origin is able to get folded in to processing facilities and comes out the other side carrying legal Vietnamese credentials. VNTLAS, the assurance system that is meant to give timber exports credibility in European and other markets, leans heavily on paperwork, and EIA says that paperwork is being gamed upstream before it ever shows up. Imports from Cambodia and Laos are only a small part of the total timber intake, but EIA's Thomas Chung was candid when he said that "Documentation is only as reliable as the system that produces it."

Robusta's Reckoning Runs Dry

A new Coffee Watch report has arrived with a damning prognosis. More than 207,000 hectares of humid tropical forest have been cleared since 1990 in areas that are now mapped for coffee, and Central Highlands wells that once provided water at 10 to 15 meters are now dry down to 45. Groundwater is responsible for more than half and sometimes almost all of the region's coffee irrigation; researchers reckon that to hold the balance in some watershed areas, the coffee acreage should shrink by about a third. Coffee Watch founder Etelle Higonnet says "Robusta's Reckoning" got coverage in El Pais and Le Monde, but Vietnamese-language outlets have stayed quiet, which she puts down to government media control. Deforestation has slowed, the report concedes, largely because the accessible forest has run out.

SG Pours Concrete While Da Nang Drafts Rules

UOB broke ground on a 36-story, $450 million tower at No. 2 Ton Duc Thang Street in HCMC, becoming the first foreign bank to own a purpose-built HQ inside the Vietnam IFC. UOB Plaza is expected to rise 160 meters above the Saigon River and by end-2030, and will give the Singapore bank a wholly owned HQ in all five of its core ASEAN markets. On the same day as the groundbreaking, a seminar in Da Nang was working through the question the rival VIFC-DN has been chewing on for months: what legal framework, what financial products, and what regulatory sandbox might attract the kind of capital that’s getting concrete poured in HCMC? Speakers highlighted gaps in the legal landscape and the absence of specialized instruments, as well as calling for a clearer division of roles between the two hubs to prevent overlap and competition.

Read more: Vietnam News (Da Nang sandbox products), Vietnam News (site footprint, sustainability), VnEconomy (UOB branch)

Outbound Capital Books a Flight to Singapore

Companies sent $713.9 million overseas in the first four months of 2026, a 2.3-fold increase over last year’s spend. Capital that once flowed mainly into Laos and Cambodia is increasingly finding its way to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UAE. Singapore's pull is regulatory as much as geographic, as the country provides tax treaty coverage and HQ infrastructure that Vientiane can’t match. The full-year 2025 total was $1.35 billion of 1,991 active projects in 85 countries, so the early 2026 pace is well ahead of last year’s pace.

Muscat Money Gets Hanoi Silicon

G-Group got an investment certificate Monday for G-Campus Hoa Lac, a $300 million Tier III data center complex of 38,000 square meters in Hanoi's high-tech zone. The site will open with 20 MW of power capacity and headroom for 30 MW. Tucked into the announcement was OTECH, a unit of Oman's Omantel Group, which signing on as strategic partner along with the Hanoi People's Committee. They’ll bring sovereign cloud experience and capital to the table. Hanoi wants at least two hyperscale data centers as it tries to get a digital government running on big data and AI by 2035.

Hanoi Prices Carbon at About a Fiver

The first local carbon exchange opened on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, and greenhouse gas quotas opened with pricing of VND 130,000 a ton (~$5.10), under a pilot for 110 facilities (51 cement plants, 34 thermal power stations, and 25 steel mills). The pilot will run through 2028, and a full national market is expected to follow in 2029. The opening product carries a volume of 511.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent, and the government is waiving exchange fees for participating businesses during the pilot.

Read more: Enerdata (compliance timeline), Cemnet (emissions cap)

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