Tag: Asian Development Bank

Free from darkness – Southeast Asia Globe/RTÉ World Report

Zubaidi working a new fishing boat in Kwangko. Photo: Simon Roughneen

KWANGKO, SUMBAWA ISLAND — As afternoon turns to evening and the high and blinding sun sinks slowly toward the horizon, Zubaidi still keeps the peak of his cap tilted slightly down, all the better to run an eye over the sky-blue paint job on the small skiff he and his small team are putting the finishing touches to. Behind Zubaidi’s seaside house, set about three feet up on stilts to keep the floor above any high tide, the whine of the electric saws and planes readies another batch of precision-cut timber for the next boat, each one to be sold to eager local fishermen at 1.5 million Indonesian Rupiah (US$106) a pop. Less than two years before, Zubaidi and team had to saw the planks by hand. It was only a year and a half ago that his tiny village of Kwangko on the coast of the island of Sumbawa was connected to the national electricity supply. “I can do three times as much now, more than I had before we got power,” Zubaidi says. “Now you have to pre-order if you want a boat.”

Myanmar’s workers, employers clash over minimum wage – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — Myanmar’s garment manufacturers have signaled their opposition to a proposed national minimum wage of just over $3 per day, saying the increase could force factories in the vital industry to close. “With that wage, businesses cannot survive,” said Khine Khine Nwe, secretary general of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association, which represents 280 factories employing around 200,000 workers. The apparel industry’s resistance to the proposed minimum wage drew a sharp rebuke from local labor groups, as well as the International Trade Union Confederation. “The new minimum wage will still leave workers and their dependents just above the global severe poverty line of $1.25 per person, and many will still struggle to make ends meet,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Myanmar launches new export strategy – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON – Aung Soe, deputy director general of the commerce ministry’s trade promotion department, told the Nikkei Asian Review that “we are still mainly exporting primary products, but we hope this is the beginning of an increase in productivity and competitiveness.” But billions of dollars worth of logs, gems and opium have been smuggled out of Myanmar in recent decades, distorting one of the world’s poorest economies but guaranteeing huge wealth for connected elites. Meanwhile, owners of small and medium-sized enterprises, the majority of the country’s businesses, have typically found it difficult to get bank loans due to stringent borrowing requirements, denying them vital funds to grow their businesses or to finance exports.

The builder’s budget – The Edge Review

JAKARTA – Indonesia’s government has proposed boosting capital spending on infrastructure to Rp 290 trillion (US$23 billion) this year, a doubling of last year’s Rp139 billion that is intended to drive much-needed development across the archipelago. Aziz Pane, chairman of Indonesia’s Tyre Manufacturers Association, blames lagging investment in infrastructure for problems including inefficiencies and high costs in Indonesia’s rubber and other agricultural sectors. “We need roads, we need harbors,” Pane said. “That is both for farmers getting raw material to producer, and for producer distributing later on.”