The European Union (EU) has granted Indonesia USD 16.37 million (IDR 232 billion) through a four-year program called ARISE+. The program aims to boost the country’s export competitiveness and integration into the global value chains. The program intends to advance the...
The Malaysian Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC) recently announced that high-net-worth individuals, venture capital (VC) or private equity (PE) funds can now claim income tax deduction on their investments with...
The Philippines becomes the third largest recipient of loan funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), as the multinational donor aims to support the government in its massive Build, Build, Build (BBB) program to address issues brought by rapid urbanization. The...
Singapore achieved the top rank in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index for 2019. In the 2018 index, it was ranked in the second place behind the US, among 141 economies. The index is an annual yardstick for policy-makers to assess their...
Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) approved four investment projects from Japan, Taiwan and Singapore worth around USD 1 billion in September 2019. According to the BOI, the largest of the four projects consists is a joint venture between Thai, Japanese and...
A recent report by the US News and World Report ranked Vietnam 8th out of 29 best countries to invest in. This is a remarkable improvement against the 23rd position in 2018, surpassing neighbors like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. As a testament to this, since...
By the end of 2019, the Indonesian government will announce plans to increase foreign ownership of businesses in some sectors, according to the head of Indonesia’s investment board. The move comes as a potential way to support the country’s digital economy by easing...
Economist Lee Ju Ye from Maybank Kim Eng Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Maybank stated that Malaysia’s economic growth for the second half of 2019 will be positively driven by the continuation of mega projects such as the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), the Klang...
House Bill (HB) No. 78, a proposed amendment to 83-year old Public Service Act or Commonwealth Act No. 146, which aims to open up certain utilities to investments from foreign players and foster healthy competition between them and local companies, has further...
The Singapore government launched a new government e-service, Trade Finance Compliance (TFC), on its Networked Trade Platform (NTP) in September 2019. The NTP under Singapore Customs serves as ne-stop trade and logistics ecosystem for Singapore linked to other...
Thailand is planning to launch a stimulus package worth USD 10 billion. The package will consist of three main groups of measures: assistance for people affected by the drought crisis, efforts to mitigate the impact of the global slowdown on the Thai economy, and help...
The government of Vietnam recently released its Vietnam Development Strategy draft for 2021-2030, which emphasizes the country’s need to transform into a modern market economy and embrace technological advances. The Vietnamese prime minister called on businesses to...
