"A new government project in the Philippines will provide the poor with access to insurance products and services. The program will create public awareness on the importance of providing appropriate risk protection for the poor through micro-insurance and will enjoin the private sector's participation in the delivery of simple and affordable insurance products for the low income and informal sectors of society.

The assistance will focus on the establishment of the appropriate policy and regulatory environment, building capacities of both regulators and providers in regulating and providing micro-insurance services, as well as product development and financial literacy for both providers and clients of micro-insurance."

"The recently completed reservoir in Banteay Mancheay province is set to help families triple their rice harvests this year and boost their incomes. The Ponley Water Reservoir, a group of 12 waterworks funded mostly by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and completed in August as part of the Northwest Irrigation Sector Project, is key to unlocking the area's economic potential. The ADB has contributed around $20 million dollars to the project since it got involved in 2003 to help the northwest region catch up with development efforts elsewhere in Cambodia.

For the last 20 years, villagers in Ponley and Phkorn communes have only been able to produce just one crop of rice per year, and yields have been low. Now that they have irrigation, they can produce 3.5 tons per hectare. Efforts to boost rice yields and harvest are central to Cambodia's efforts to improve agricultural output. The sector generates 32 percent of Cambodia's GDP and employs 4.75 million of the country's eight million labor force, according to the United Nations."

"Businesses in Indonesia expect bank lending to speed up in 2010 to support infrastructure, on the back of a plan by the central bank to change the requirement for banks' minimum reserve ratio, a group says. Bank Indonesia (BI) said last week the minimum reserve would be linked to banks' loan-to-deposit ratios. Banks that lend more will have a lower reserve ratio.

The plan is expected to help push lending as banks will channel more loans than place in reserve, the Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs Association said in a statement. BI believes lending will grow by between 17 and 20 percent this year as confidence in the economy picks up. The economy is estimated to have grown 4.3 percent last year, and is targeted to accelerate by 5.5 percent this year."

"PRC's city governments and ministries have been told by the State Council to build more low cost housing. They have also been ordered to push property developers to complete projects more quickly in order to help ease property prices. China's leaders are worried that house prices in many cities here are rising too fast now. If too many Chinese are priced out of the market, it could stir economic and social instability.

Last year China's banks issued $1.5 trillion worth of new loans to help ease the country through the financial crisis. It is thought around a sixth of the total flowed into the property sector and there are some here who worry it is now overheating. The new directive from the State Council sets out measures to try to increase the supply of smaller, cheaper homes for families on low incomes. It also urges financial institutions to promote measures that encourage first time buyers but discourage those who want to purchase a second home for investment purposes."

"In order to tackle poverty among farmers, it is of the utmost importance for Myanmar's rice industry to again become a major exporter worldwide, according to an economist. With a total area of 676,500 square kilometers, Myanmar had been the world's largest exporter of rice as recently as the 1930s. For fiscal year 1938/39, rice accounted for nearly 47 percent of Myanmar's export receipts.

However, by 2007/08 the corresponding figure had sunk to less than two percent, with earnings totaling a mere 1.2 percent of the global sum. Furthermore, the value of Myanmar rice exports is even lower in comparison with competing states, as Myanmar tends to export a low quality of rice."

"Pakistan's total external debt is likely to grow alarmingly by more than 43 percent over the next five years, to about $73 billion in 2015-16 from about $50.76 billion early this year. According to a report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the debt will increase by about 13 percent, or $6.4 billion, to $57.1 billion by the end of the current fiscal year and is estimated to increase by $7 billion, or 12.3 percent, to $64 billion by the end of the next fiscal year.

The IMF's estimate suggests that the external debt will increase by another $2 billion in 2011-12 and cross $72.6 billion in 2015-16. The public and publicly guaranteed debts, including IMF loans, are estimated to increase by 45 percent from $47.26 billion on June 30, 2009, to more than $68.1 billion in 2015-16."

"Bangladesh may experience a 13-17 percent loss in crop production due to the effects of global warming apart from the phenomenon's threats to livestock and fisheries resources. Factors such as shrinking farmland, increasing land fragmentation, limited diversification and declining profitability of the farm sector are also found to have been constraining the country's agriculture and causing more suffering to farmers.

The experts, however, pointed out that Bangladesh has a huge potential to increase crop productivity, fisheries and livestock if the right policies are followed. Bridging the yield gap, scaling up farmers' management practices and bringing fallow land under cultivation may help. There have however, been suggestions that the country must increase food production at faster than 1.5 percent, which is the rate of population growth. At the same time, Bangladesh will have to make surface water available and reduce dependence on irrigation."

"Viet Nam has been developing urban areas by crowding the country with buildings and reducing the amount of space for greenery, transportation and social services. The quality of urban development is getting worse as urban research, planning and management stages have all failed to allocate enough land for public works. This has been especially true in urban areas developed over the past 10 years, said an official from the Institute of Urban Research and Development.

Public land and public construction projects faced the risk of privatization. State-owned buildings have been rented out to private firms, markets turned into supermarkets, hotels built on public parks and lakes filled for commercial purposes. The most frightening trend was how common it had become to build apartment buildings on farmland."

"Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to improve infrastructure after the head of the world's biggest steelmaker Arcelor Mittal blasted the country over delays in getting projects off the ground. Infrastructure bottlenecks, the result of red-tape, difficulties over land acquisition and lack of funding, have long been a drag on Asia's third-largest economy, knocking an estimated 2 percentage points off its growth.

Beset by power blackouts, crumbling roads and choked ports, India stacks up poorly against larger neighbor China, whose rampant growth has been helped by Beijing's development of world class infrastructure. Indian businesses large and small, for example, are forced to self-generate power in order to ensure energy supply."

"PRC's exports in December surged by as much as 17 percent from a year earlier to $130 billion, which ended 13-months of negative annual growth that began in November 2008, according to customs statistics. The December growth, far higher than previous forecasts, is expected to be sustained during the first quarter and to put pressure on the Chinese government to appreciate the yuan, analysts predicted.

In the first 10 months of 2009, China exported commodities worth $957 billion, $40 billion higher than Germany. Although many felt December 2009 would be a turning point for China's exports, no analyst predicted the growth would record such high levels."

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