Though it remains a bright economic spot amid uncertain global times, the 2016 Vietnam GDP forecast is in trouble midway through the year. At the beginning of 2016 the government set an ambitious growth target […]
Once war-torn and poverty-stricken, Southeast Asia is one of the world’s main growth spots. While developed economies stagger along, constantly on the brink of setting off another global recession, countries such as Myanmar and Indonesia […]
The first Indonesian president propelled to office not by dint of dynastic heritage or the number of gold stars on his epaulettes, former property/furniture businessman Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, vowed on the eve of his 2014 […]
When Dung Quat Refinery announced on February 24 th, 2016 that it was encountering difficulties selling its gasoline and gasoil due to Vietnam’s FTAs (free trade agreements) with Korea and Asean, one had to ask […]
Vietnam isn’t a country synonymous with advanced technology. Its most widely-known exports remain basic goods such as rice, fruit and textiles. However, several of the world’s biggest tech companies have major presences here, and ambitious […]
The timing couldn’t have been more calculated: less than 24 hours into an Asean summit hosted by US President Barack Obama, primarily to mull over how best to reduce tensions in the South China Sea […]
In single-party Communist Vietnam there is little in the way of political uncertainty. Decisions are made in committees behind closed doors and delivered to the public via state-controlled media, while the party portrays an image […]
Signing onto the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in Atlanta last October and the high-level state visits of half the politburo to the United States put Vietnam in the international spotlight and, when the dust had […]
In architecture, there is a dictum that ‘form follows function’. The architect decides what a building is being used for and then designs the building for those purposes. However, in Vietnam’s process of economic reforms, […]
Twenty years after the post–war normalisation of Vietnam–US ties, the two nations are increasingly close. This process has sped up with China’s moves in the South China Sea since 2014, although a number of issues […]
Ever since Jagdish Bhagwati coined the phrase ‘spaghetti bowl’ to describe the maze of overlapping preferential trade arrangements (PTAs), trade economists have been split over whether such deals are ‘building blocks’ or ‘stumbling blocks’ for […]
The largest hurdle for the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement — the US president’s ability to get Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track — has been cleared. Many people think that the TPP can be […]