• Editorial
The first year of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration was marked by sustained GDP growth of 6.7 per cent — the second highest in the region. This growth was supported by higher government spending in economic and social fields, as well as by an increase in infrastructure spending to 5.6 per cent of GDP, as […]
• Editorial
Following its graduation from least developed country (LCD) to lower-middle income status in July 2016 the Cambodia economy has remained healthy. In 2017 Cambodia GDP growth came in at 6.9 per cent, driven by the tourism sector, an ongoing construction boom, and the gradual emergence of non-textile exports. In the first ten months of 2017 […]
• Editorial
After the 2016 US Presidential election hope remained in Hanoi that Donald Trump, once in office, would turn from firebrand protectionist campaigner into a leader who accepted the value of open trade — a cause in which the Vietnamese government had invested so much in preparation for Vietnam’s membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). These […]
• Editorial
Lao PDR is among the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia: economic growth has averaged 7.8 per cent over the past decade. Despite the slow recovery of the global economy, the country’s growth rate was 6.9 per cent in 2017 and is expected to be 7 per cent in 2018. This is buoyed by an expansion in […]
• Editorial
Product innovations such as Apple’s iPhoneX, the Fitbit watch, and Bitcoin are contributing to the mainstreaming of innovation in the development policy landscape. Innovation is now viewed as key to finding enduring solutions to challenges such as job shortages and sustainable energy use. Across the globe countries have committed to fostering innovation by 2030 through the UN […]
• Editorial
The ‘blue economy’ concept — a model of sustainable development concerned with the use of the coastal and marine ecosystem — gained prominence in Indonesia as one of the main components of President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo’s Global Maritime Fulcrum vision. Jokowi’s maritime policy aims to reinvigorate Indonesia’s maritime identity, manage the country’s marine resources, strengthen its maritime […]
• Editorial
Forest fires sweeping across Sumatra and Kalimantan in recent months prompted six Indonesian provinces to declare a state of emergency. Yet the scale of resources devoted to fighting and preventing forest fires remains far short of what is needed to turn around Indonesia’s rising rates of deforestation and meet Indonesia’s ambitious climate pledge. Fires break out across […]
• Editorial
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Ministerial Statement on November 11, 2017 in Vietnam was a big relief for the remaining 11 members of the TPP, especially for Japan and Australia, who have spearheaded the new agreement after the United States’ exit. The accord — which calls to revivify the renamed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) […]
• Editorial
Malaysia’s fourteenth general elections are looming. This time, almost unprecedentedly, they will see the two great Malay political parties — the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS)) — working implicitly as allies, not rivals. The fate of Malaysian politics, despite the nation’s ethnic diversity, is decided by the […]
• Editorial
2017 was a horrible year for Singapore’s government — and for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in particular, which began with an open and vocal stoush with China. Late in 2016 the Chinese government confiscated millions of dollars’ worth of Singapore’s military hardware passing through the port of Hong Kong. The action was in part retaliation for […]
• Editorial
In 2017 economists Carl Frey and Michael Osborne concluded that 47 per cent of jobs in the United States were at high risk of workplace automation. A range of replications and extensions have made similar claims. The World Development Report 2016 asserts that 68.9 per cent of jobs in India are at high risk — and that number […]
• Editorial
Singapore’s new President, Halimah Yacob, is a widely liked and respected former speaker of parliament, as well as the first female ever and first Malay in five decades to become the largely ceremonial head of state. Yet what looks like a milestone for Singapore is triggering anxiety about the political process that selected her and […]