AEC Feed

The Vientiane International airport expansion project has now achieved 11 per cent of its contractual goals and should be complete by the beginning of 2018, according to a statement from the Embassy of Japan in Laos and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The project is being financed by a concessional loan from the Japanese government of about 9 billion yen.
The expansion will enlarge the existing passenger service facilities to deal with the increasing demand for air transportation and ensure passengers’ convenience and safety. It is estimated that the number of passengers will increase to about 2 million by 2023.
A ground-breaking ceremony for the start of the project took place in December 2015, attended by Laos’ Minister of Public Works and Transport Dr Bounchanh Sinthavong and Japan’s Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. – Vientiane Times

Philippine finance chief expresses concern on mine closures

The head of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s economic team fears that an order by the Environment Ministry to shut down 23 mines could result in the loss of jobs for more than one million people. 
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III expressed concerns about big job losses and forgone tax revenues to be brought about by the environment department’s order to close the mines.
Asked if he deemed the order from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources was prudent, Dominguez told reporters that economic managers “have to assess first [its] decision”.
“I have to consult with other economic managers. But my primary concern is the impact on employees, and my secondary concern is the impact on municipal finances because municipalities collect a lot of taxes from mining operations,” Dominguez explained. – Philippine Daily Inquirer

Strengthening Brunei’s export potential through agri-business

Fifty agribusiness participants from both the government and private sectors received certificates of achievement at the closing ceremony of the Second Workshop on Facilitating Agribusiness Development in Brunei Darussalam.
Held at the Horticulture Business Centre, Rimba, the event saw the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism, Dr Haji Abdul Manaf bin Haji Metussin, on hand to present the certificates, accompanied by the Australian High Commissioner to Brunei Darussalam, Nicola Rosenblum.
As stated in a release from the Australian High Commission, the four-day workshop was made possible through the financial support of the Australia-Asean Council, the generous efforts of a team of experts from the University of Western Australia (UWA), and the cooperation of the Department of Agriculture and Agrifood, Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism, Brunei Darussalam.
The workshop saw participants explore how to strengthen Brunei’s export potential and increase the contribution of the agribusiness sector to the national GDP, guided by a team of experts from the University of Western Australia – Professor Peter Batt, Dr Nazrul Islam and Dr Amin Mugera. Sessions included how to exploit the value chain concept, what business models could work best in Brunei, and how to monitor and evaluate the performance of the chains. |– Borneo Bulletin

National University of Singapore beats Oxford and Harvard

In class, National University of Singapore (NUS) computing undergraduate Teo De Zhao listens to the perspectives of fellow students and professors from around the globe.
In his second year, he was selected to do a one-year internship at the world's top technology hub - Silicon Valley.
There, the 26-year-old student attended talks by founders of successful startups and helped forge partnerships with technology giants such as Google and Amazon.
Teo’s university experience sums up NUS’ global approach towards education and research.
The university has been named the world's fourth most international university, edging out the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard. It was rated fourth out of 150 universities in the Times Higher Education ranking.
The top two spots were held by Swiss universities ETH Zurich and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. The University of Hong Kong came in third. – The Straits Times

China open to financing plan for Philippines infrastucture 

The Chinese government is open to the so-called hybrid financing of infrastructure projects earlier pitched by the Philippine government, the Department of Finance said on Thursday.
In a statement, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said China Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng had welcomed the proposal “to consider co-financing the projects with other multilateral lending institutions such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank, and China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
According to Dominguez, Gao told Philippine economic managers who met with Chinese officials in Beijing on January 23 and 24 that they wanted “to clarify the operating procedures” for hybrid financing arrangements to know if this would lead to a more efficient and smooth implementation of the project. – Philippine Daily Inquirer