ADB officials visit Myanmar
January 19, 2011 by Don Ross
Filed under Mekong Region, News
PHNOM PENH, 19 January – Asian Development Bank officials are visiting Myanmar this week to explore ways to reopen a dialogue that could possibly lead to resumption of ADB funded projects in the country following recent elections.
It is understood that an ADB official, closely linked to tourism development in the region, is leading the team that will have discussions with Myanmar’s economic and tourism related department officials.
Sources at the Asean Tourism Forum said the move “promised to spur development especially through the Greater Mekong Sub-region group that has been backed by ADB since 1990.”
GMS refocuses tourism goals
January 18, 2011 by Don Ross
Filed under Mekong Region, News
PHNOM PENH, 18 January 2011– Tourism minsters representing the six Greater Mekong Sub-region countries endorsed a revised tourism sector strategy, Monday, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum.
The GMS region that stretches from Yunnan and Guangxi provinces in China to Thailand and Vietnam embracing neighbours, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, attracted around 26.19 million tourists in 2009 up from around 19 million in 2004.
Bank identifies GMS transport challenges
December 9, 2010 by TTRweekly Staff
Filed under News
MANILA, 9 December 2010 – A $5.7 million technical assistance grant from ADB will help to improve transport and trade between countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, the bank reported Wednesday.
The grant is financed by the Government of Australia, through the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), and will be administered by ADB.
The assistance will enable cheaper and faster transport across borders by improving border management and transit procedures, and streamlining the exchange of traffic rights between GMS countries. Read more
ADB lifts its 2010 growth forecast for Asia
HONG KONG, 29 September 2010 – Asia’s developing economies should make long-term growth their top priority, the Asian Development Bank said Tuesday as it lifted its 2010 growth forecast for the region.
The economies would expand 8.2% in 2010, up from the bank’s 7.5% forecast earlier this year, as the trade-driven region “recovered from the global (financial) crisis with remarkable speed and vigour,” the ADB said in its twice-yearly economic forecast.
Mae Sot border remains closed
September 10, 2010 by TTRweekly Staff
Filed under News
BANGKOK, 10 September, 2010 – Thailand’s deputy minister of commerce, Alongkorn Ponlaboot, is leading efforts to reopen the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border which has remained closed since 18 July.
Myanmar’s military government closed 20 cross-border checkpoints along the Moei River in protest against the construction of an embankment along the Moei River at Ban Tha At by Thai-based companies that caused soil erosion along the river bank.
Pollution threatens Luang Prabang
September 9, 2010 by TTRweekly Staff
Filed under News
VIENTIANE, 9 September, 2010 – Luang Prabang’s success in tourism is leaving behind a mountain of garbage and other related problems for local authorities to tackle Luang Prabang Province Tourism Office director, Khamphouy Phommavong reported, Wednesday.
Citing a spiraling growth tourism and development in just 15 years since the town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, local authorities now recognise they face an insurmountable mountain of garbage, pollution, waste water problems and illegal building activities.
“We have to look far beyond all the development projects that stand at our door because they will increase the influx of visitors and with them the problems will grow,” the office director told TTR Weekly. Read more
Myanmar the missing link in ADB plans
September 2, 2010 by TTRweekly Staff
Filed under News
BANGKOK, 2 September, 2010 – The thick forested Dawna mountain range in southeast Burma is a major obstacle blocking Asian Development Bank ambitions to link Burma’s road network with the East-West-Corridor highways that cross central Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
A detailed report in the online Irrawady states that “the still-to-be-built 40-km stretch across the mountain in military-ruled Burma is a key to making the Asian Development Bank’s East-West Corridor a reality.”
The Manila-based bank has been promoting the 1,450-km long highway claiming it will improve trade and tourism across mainland Southeast Asia. The East-West Corridor, as it is identified in ADB reports, starts in central Vietnam at the country’s coastal port of Danang and crosses Laos to Savanakhet on the banks of the Mekong River.
