Singapore has retained its top spot as the world's most competitive economy in the latest edition of the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking.
Japan has completed its legal procedures necessary for the entry into force of the First Protocol to amend the ASEAN-Japan Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Partnership (AJCEP), announced the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 16.
The Thai cabinet on June 16 approved a domestic tourism package worth 22.4 billion THB (720 million USD) to revitalise a key sector hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
South Korean officials have expressed their intention to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with Cambodia next month to boost bilateral trade.
Indonesia’s economy is expected to contract sharply in the second quarter this year as trade data show that both exports and imports nosedived in May amid a coronavirus-induced global economic slowdown.
South Korea’s foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha spoke by phone with the chief of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Monday and discussed ways for greater cooperation amid the coronavirus pandemic, her office said.
Vietnam will emerge from the pandemic the least affected of all countries in South-east Asia, though it is not immune to the sharp slowdown in trade flows, according to a report by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and Oxford Economics.
Unlike Europe, North America and recently Russia, Southeast Asia does not seem to have been hit as hard by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of total deaths and confirmed cases. Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia are the worst affected countries in the region, but Vietnam, Cambodia and previously Singapore, have managed to contain the spread of COVID-19.
<p>Time: November 2025<br /> By: WTO and International Trade Group, Legal Department – VCCI</p>
