AEC Feed

 Many foreign online travel agents, especially from China, are operating illegally in Bali, according to the Indonesian Tour and Travel Association (Asita).
Asita chairman Asnawi Bahar said it had reported the matter to the Indonesian Tourism Ministry as well as the Chinese Consulate-General in Denpasar, Bali.
“Asita does not reject or oppose digital technology or the online package sales system. What we oppose are the illegal activities, [including those] conducted by foreigners,” he said in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday.
Indications of foreign online travel agents who operate without permits have reportedly been noticed since last year.
“We have found many of them in Bali, [mostly] Chinese citizens who arrived in Indonesia as tourists and later offered online ticketing services, tourism packages and arranged travel trips from China to Indonesia at a very low price,” Asnawi said. “These practices will harm not only local tourism players but also the state, since they don’t pay taxes. It [is] also against the law, including immigration, labour and trade.”
Illegal practice has taken around 10 per cent of the tourism visit market, he said. – The Jakarta Post

 Laos, Vietnam cooperate in information sector
 Laos’ Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam have signed agreements in relation to cooperation in the development of the information sector from 2016-2020.
Laotian minister Professor Dr Bosengkham Vongdara and Vietnamese minister Dr Truong Minh Tuan signed the agreements on Tuesday.
Over the past year, cooperation between Laos and Vietnam in this field has made good progress,
Projects such as the construction of radio and television stations in Laos’ Savannakhet province have been |completed according to plan.
During the meeting on Tuesday, participants discussed the operation|of a radio station in Laos’ Oudomxay province and another two projects under way in Luang Prabang and Champassak provinces.
Laos and Vietnam also reached agreements in relation to newspapers and other printed products, exchanges of radio and television programmes and technical matters, and training. - Vientiane Times
 

 Spanish investors keen on Philippine rail projects
 The governments of the Philippines and Spain will sign an agreement to intensify economic and financial cooperation, especially as Spanish investors eye participation in rail projects, the Philippine Department of Finance (DOF) said on Wednesday.
In a statement, the DOF said Finance Secretary Carlos G Dominguez III and Spanish Ambassador to Manila Luis Antonio Calvo Castano met on Tuesday to discuss the proposed signing of a memorandum of understanding on economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.
The MoU “aims to explore cooperation between the two countries in various fields, including agriculture, industry, energy and services, water infrastructure, climate finance, environmental economics and disaster risk financing”, the DOF said.
Castano also told Dominguez that Spanish firms were “interested in investing in the Philippines’ infrastructure build-up, particularly rail projects”, as the Spanish envoy noted that his country’s high-speed railway network was the second-biggest in the world after China’s. - Philippine Daily Inquirer
 

 Correction
 A quote by Tommy Jacobs, senior vice president for client support services at Visa, on Page 2B of Wednesday’s edition with the headline “Visa opens new BPO service hub in Manila” should have read, “This site demonstrates Visa’s commitment to insourcing its third-party global operations, allowing us to build the function from within, to provide superior service to our cardholders and clients.”
We apologise for the error.Quang Ninh seaport approved