"Foreign donors have urged Viet Nam to speed up the disbursement of official development assistance (ODA), noting the country has only disbursed about 38 percent of the year's target in the first five months. Assistance worth $3.5 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was yet to be disbursed. The World Bank has so far committed about $5.1 billion in ODA funds for 42 projects, but $3.8 billion of it had still not been disbursed.

In the first five months this year, Viet Nam gained ODA of more than $1.46 billion, a year-over-year increase of 9 percent. Around $720 million of this assistance has been disbursed, mostly for projects to upgrade the country's transportation and water systems and for urban development. Projects in the power sector topped disbursement speed, followed by those in traffic, urban upgrading, education and informatics technology."

"PRC is loosening its grip on the use of foreign exchange to encourage domestic firms to make overseas investments, as the country sought to diversify the use of its huge forex reserves. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said that it would allow all kinds of firms in China to invest their forex earnings in overseas branches.

Previously, only large domestic or foreign multinationals were allowed to do so. The other firms are required to submit their forex earnings to the government in exchange for the local currency, contributing to the huge pool of the country's forex reserves. SAFE also said that it would allow firms to use self-owned forex and forex purchased with the yuan, expanding the source of forex that firms could use to invest in their overseas subsidiaries."

"The latest IMD World Competitiveness Center study shows a significant improvement in Indonesia's competitiveness ranking. The nation moved up nine notches, from 51st to 42nd, in the overall rankings, which the organization said was an impressive feat. Both the government and the business community must take heart from the results of the survey.

Yet a lot of hard work still lies ahead. Indonesia still ranks below China, India, Malaysia and Thailand, its closest neighbors and thus its main competitors. As the IMD survey reveals, where Indonesia falls behind is in the quality of infrastructure. Better infrastructure will further improve the country's economic resilience and, as such, enhance its competitiveness."

"Twenty tourism projects worth $26 million under public private partnerships are likely to be considered for the next fiscal year. The projects are designed mostly for infrastructure development and capacity building of the sector. The government may go for bank financing to develop infrastructure, including building new hotels, motels, and amusement parks in different districts.

The budget is also expected to allow undisclosed money to be invested in the tourism sector and VAT exemptions for some services. Industry sources say the rate of investment in the sector is slow, which is presently growing at 4-5 percent in recent years."

"Business leaders recently met in a bid to take the next bold steps toward making the country more developed, progressive and beneficial to all Filipinos. They say there are two basic development goals that the country should aspire for in 2010. The first is the reduction of poverty and its transmission across generations while the second is the continued improvement of the living standard of all Filipinos.

In achieving the twin goals, there is a need to partition them into finer components. The first is sustained growth of income and employment because having a job and income empowers an individual to provide for their basics needs and other things necessary to live a better life. The second is to provide a stable and predictable macroeconomic policy environment for the private sector."

"The federal government will spend $5.2 billion to build socioeconomic infrastructure under its Public Sector Development Program during the next fiscal year. Contrary to its claims, the present government cut its development spending massively during the current financial year as it implemented macroeconomic stabilization policies for bridging the widening resource gap.

But the improvement in the fiscal deficit achieved at the expense of development is neither desirable nor sustainable. The central bank, too, underlined this fact in its report on the state of the economy during the third quarter of the current fiscal. The bank points out that the reduction in development expenditure is not desirable because it will have a detrimental impact on the country's human and physical infrastructure."

"Cambodia's target of having 150,000 hectares under rubber cultivation by 2015 has been given a boost with 42,000 hectares of concessions approved by the government in the first four months of 2009. The seven projects have a proposed investment value of $146 million and are expected to employ almost 9,000 workers.

This compares with just four rubber plantation approvals worth $31.5 million in 2008. Cambodia now has 107,901 hectares under cultivation, with 33,673 hectares producing resin and 74,231 hectares of immature trees, according to ministry figures."

"More than a year after Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, food security shows signs of improvement, but huge challenges remain, particularly in the southern areas of the Ayeyarwady Delta. Limited agricultural productivity and low levels of employment or other income-generating activities mean that the coming lean season will be particularly difficult for families to feed themselves.

While the life-threatening crisis is over, communities are still dependent on assistance since their livelihoods are not yet back to normal. More than half the labor force works in agriculture, growing rice, corn, sugarcane and other crops. Agricultural support, including seeds and tools, is critical for the upcoming planting season. A majority (83 percent) of those surveyed were reportedly in debt, with food purchases the dominant cause."

"As economic activities in Bangladesh have slowed down due to an energy shortage, it is absurd that the country does not use its 2.5 billion tons of coal high grade coal buried underground. Futile bickering over the manner of its extraction is unnecessarily delaying the use of the energy source.

The indecision on coal extraction prompted by the controversy has been impeding economic growth. The serious shortage of gas and power has resulted in underproduction in existing enterprises and discouraged expansion. This continues to delay production by newly established industries and frustrates new investment plans."

"What can PRC do to bring back private investment? It is important that the fiscal stimulus provides private firms opportunities through a competitive process. Quite a few provinces and cities have promulgated regulations that require funds from the fiscal stimulus packages to go to local firms, usually state-owned enterprises. This kind of local protectionism is not in China's interest. Since growth now is going to be based primarily on the domestic market, it is important to have a large, competitive domestic platform.

Externally, China may want to consider signing the Government Procurement Arrangement in the WTO, which is an optional protocol. This would open up China's government procurement to international competition, and in return Chinese firms would be able to bid on government contracts in the other economies that have signed the protocol, such as the U.S. and the European Union."

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