On her scruffy, downtrodden bank of the river, teashop-owner Khin works just a few hundred metres across the muddy water from Yangon and dreams of the riches promised by a new bridge linking to Myanmar's commercial heart.

Creating new products, processes and ideas, innovators are at the forefront of development and progress. Be it a corner-shop or a multinational company, businesses that innovate are able to attract the best talent, increase revenues, scale up more efficiently and grab bigger shares of their respective markets.The best innovators are able to capture a niche market and help their brand stand out by meeting their customers’ ever-changing needs – key to any business’ longevity.

Myanmar and Lao PDR look to be the biggest winners of an ASEAN plan to boost connectivity with a series of infrastructure projects.The regional bloc unveiled a list of 19 projects in the Initial Rolling Priority Pipeline of Potential ASEAN Infrastructure Projects (Initial Pipeline) on Monday, one of the initiatives under the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025.The 19 projects in seven countries cover transport, energy, and information and communication technology, sectors which will contri

Critics often claim that China is using its massive “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) as a form of coercive “debt-trap diplomacy” to exert control over the countries that join its transnational infrastructure investment scheme. This risk, as Deborah Brautigam of John Hopkins University recently noted, is often exaggerated by the media.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is set for a revamp, and it is squarely aimed at countering China’s growing geopolitical influence.

For the West, the year 2008 marked the beginning of a difficult period of crisis, recession, and uneven recovery. For China, 2008 was also an important turning point, but one followed by a decade of rapid progress that few could have foreseen.Of course, when the United States (US) investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis, China’s leaders were deeply worried.

Jakarta commuter Irnawati can spend up to four hours daily in her car, but now she and millions of others may get some relief as the traffic-clogged Southeast Asian city opens its first mass rapid-transit (MRT) system.Today, Jakarta will inaugurate the US$1.1 billion project seen as crucial to tackling some of the world's worst congestion, which can turn commutes into hours-long endurance tests.For Irnawati, the new line means she might now be able to move back to her suburban home on th