"Southeast Asian ministers are gathering in Vietnam this week to push ahead with the bloc's vision of becoming a united community by 2015. Leaders will talk about things such as how to build roads, rails, air transport, and telecommunication to connect each country with the rest.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said ASEAN has entered a new stage of development and members must work to address the association's central role in maintaining regional security. Much remains to be done in order to realize the goal of the ASEAN community, which must be politically harmonious, economically integrated and socially responsible. ASEAN General Secretary Surin Pitsuwan said the world's center of growth was shifting from North America to East Asia and the bloc must maintain its centrality."

"The World Trade Organization on Friday lauded China for the significant role it has played in reviving global trade growth and said the nation has more than fulfilled its commitment to the organization. The WTO said in its annual report released on Friday that it expects global trade to grow by 10 percent this year.

The Chinese market is now said to be one of the most open markets worldwide. Tariffs on commodities were slashed to 9.8 percent in 2009 from 15.3 percent before 2001. The tariffs on agricultural goods have fallen to 15.2 percent and 8.9 percent for industrial goods. In terms of service trade, China has opened up 100 service sectors, including banking, insurance, telecommunications, education, distribution and accounting."

"Poverty remains a big stumbling block to progress in Bangladesh and by extension the South Asian region. That fact has been confirmed once more by the UNDP's Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) prepared to assess the factors related to poor living conditions in South Asia. There is, surely, good reason for Bangladeshis to feel happy about the findings, which place them slightly before neighboring India in the index. Of the 104 countries assessed in the MPI, Bangladesh has been ranked 73, with India close at 74. Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been placed at 82, 70 and 32 respectively.

In the present context, all the average indicators regarding poverty may be fine. But there remains too the contradiction of an increasing rich-poor gap in Bangladesh. The MPI does not take into account such vital matters as cost of basic needs. It is in this area that a big majority of Bangladesh's people remain hamstrung by a lack of purchasing power."

"The Asian Development Bank's new Solomon Islands Economic Report 2010 shows that immediate government action is needed to ramp up good governance and private sector development reform activities to boost sustainable economic growth. After several years of steady economic growth prior to 2009, GDP remains flat in Solomon Islands. Almost a quarter of the population in the Solomon Islands lives below the national basic needs poverty line. Revenue growth has fallen sharply.

The economic report recommends that infrastructure projects be brought forward where possible, to support economic growth. In the short term, the report points out that the government's policy mix should include recurrent expenditure restraint and prudent monetary policy. The report warns that the Solomon Islands remains a high-cost, challenging place to conduct business in and many constraints to private sector development exist there."

"India and the European Union are to hold a fresh series of free-trade talks next month in Brussels in a bid to clinch a deal by the end of the year, an official said. Chief negotiators for India and its largest trading partner will meet at the European Union headquarters in Brussels in August as part of a push to conclude negotiations on the India-EU free-trade pact by December.

India and the 27-member EU have been negotiating the market-opening pact since June 2007 to boost bilateral commerce. As part of the drive to wrap up talks, the two sides will meet in Brussels in the last week of August. Around the same time, Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and the EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht will meet on the sidelines of an international meeting in Vietnam."

"Vietnam now has the second highest consumer confidence index in the world according to a second-quarter report from Nielsen. Vietnamese consumers are ready to spend, with new technology being the focus for many after they have paid for essential living expenses.

Six out of the top 10 most optimistic nations in the second quarter came from Asia. According to the survey, 47 percent of respondents in Vietnam stated they would spend excess cash on new technology, the highest percentage in Asia; and 39 percent stated they would spend spare cash on new clothes."

"China is set to launch domestic carbon trading during the next five years, according to reports. Officials have reached consensus on the need for carbon trading as a way to help China meet its target to improve energy efficiency by 2020, but there is still no agreement on the mechanism that should be used.

China is still struggling to achieve a target to cut energy intensity -- defined as the amount of energy used to generate one unit of gross domestic product -- by 20 percent between 2006 and the end of 2010. Efforts to hit that target have focused on administrative tools, such as contracts in which the top 1,000 energy consumers promised the government to improve their energy efficiency, but the meeting agreed such measures would be too expensive in future."

"In 1999, Bhutan went online. For computer engineer Philip Smith, connecting Bhutan to the world wide web was just another task, but it was a quantum leap for the Bhutanese. Since then information technology has progressed by leaps and bounds and has helped locals to share their unique culture.

Currently involved in a five-day program with Bhutanese information communications technology operators in Paro, he observed that Bhutanese operators were 'hungry' for the more sophisticated aspects of networking."

"The Indian government will upgrade around 3,700 kilometres of national highways under the National Highways Interconnectivity Improvement Project. The project involves double-laning of single-lane highways in eight states in the next three years. A senior ministry official said around 80 percent of the funding would come from the World Bank, with the government providing the rest.

The project will help the government achieve its target of building 20 km road a day, set by Union Road Transport Minister Kamal Nath last year. When Nath assumed the charge of the ministry, the pace of construction was as low as 4 km a day, which has improved to over 13 km a day now."

"Draft laws governing Cambodia's commercial contracts and a new commercial court, set to launch in 2011, are months away from being submitted to the Council of Ministers. The two laws are being drafted under technical assistance from development partners and have already undergone multiple drafts and revisions to prepare them for the final approval.

As Cambodia prepares to establish the commercial court, ten judges attended a four-day session last week to gain advice from commercial judges from ASEAN-member countries. Cambodian judges' experiences and knowledge in commercial law is low because normally they are working on general case disputes."

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