When Melvyn Pun agreed to take his former boss to Myanmar in 2012, little did he know that the trip would cause him to quit his high-profile job at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.Melvyn had wanted to stay as head of corporate sales for Asia excluding Japan at Goldman, rather than join his father Serge’s empire – a sprawling conglomerate that runs businesses from real estate to the KFC chicken franchise in Southeast Asia’s poorest nation.

The Southeast Asian region will continue to surprise analysts and pundits on the upside, as 2018 continues to unfold.“The stars are aligned for the ASEAN region,” Manu Bhaskaran, Chief Executive Officer for Centennial Asia Advisors told an audience of 700 journalists, diplomats, academics and industry leaders during the 2018 Regional Outlook Forum in Singapore.

Indonesian investigators were sifting through the rubble at Jakarta's stock exchange complex Tuesday as they looked for clues on what caused a walkway collapse that left scores injured, including dozens of students.A mezzanine floor at the tower in the sprawling city's business district collapsed shortly before lunchtime Monday, injuring a total of 73 people, police said, adding that there were no deaths.Dramatic CCTV footage showed a group of about 40 visiting students on a balcony

A pile of rusty pipes and materials are all that remain of Lanzhou New Area’s tram project. Only a year ago it was a flagship public-private partnership for the planned city in Central China, before it fell victim to President Xi Jinping’s debt clampdown."The project is dead," said a guard at the office, who gave only his surname, Le.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Switzerland might seem an odd pairing at first glance. However, relations between the two have just begun to intensify over the past year.In 2009, the European nation appointed its first ambassador to ASEAN and in 2016, it was conferred the status of sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN at the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) in Vientiane, Lao.

If the resilience of emerging markets to rising interest rates is all about the growth outlook, then data from China this week will be key.The country, the world’s biggest emerging market, releases gross domestic product statistics on Thursday.Less than a week after Angola abandoned its dollar peg, another African nation – Morocco –is due to make good on a promise it made several years ago to relax its currency regime.And policy makers in South Korea, South Africa, Turkey and Indonesia are du

In 2017, Vietnam’s retail industry growth totalled US$129.6 billion rising 10.9% from the year before. This covered all sections of retail, including fashion, food & beverage, and convenience stores. Key to this growth, especially in supermarket and convenience stores, is foreign investment, which has seen large players enter the market since 2007, and who still aim to expand their slice of the pie.

Singapore which prides itself as one of the "cleanest" countries in the world is now listed at number seven on the top 10 biggest penalties paid list after being prosecuted under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).The last biggest case seen in Singapore was the Singapore Technologies (ST) Marine scandal, where seven senior executives were towed to court and given six-figure fines and jail sentences for making petty-cash claims on fake entertainment expenses, but was instead

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) recently announced its three-year strategic plan under the theme, “Towards Sustainable Growth and Innovation.” Under this plan, the SET aims to make innovation a key driver to ensure functionality and sustainable growth of the Thai capital market.The strategy is in line with the Capital Market Development plan - approved by the Thai cabinet in September 2017 - which takes into account Thailand’s ageing society and the need for informal workers to gain acce

In 2017, Vietnam deputy prime minister Vuong Dinh Hue announced aims of increasing the number of businesses operating in Vietnam from 500,000 to one million by 2020. Given the relative low costs of operating in Vietnam, a youthful pool of talent from which to recruit, and a tech savvy generation to market to, this target appears achievable. Vietnam’s startups grew 14% in the first quarter of 2017, with 39,580 startups entering the market.