Vietnam and Laos have scaled up bilateral relations to the highest level of friendship and cooperation, known as “Great friendship, special solidarity, comprehensive cooperation and strategic cohesion”. It is a new framework between the two former Indochinese countries. The emphasis is on strategic cohesion.

Vietnam’s Party General Secretary To Lam’s state visit early this month to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was not headline news. On the surface, it was a symbolic visit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the LPDR and its strengthened party-to-party relations.

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The People’s Party (PP) has called on the government to tackle arsenic contamination from foreign mining, spreading from northern rivers to the Mekong in the Northeast. It is urging immediate talks with China, Myanmar and Laos.

PP deputy spokesman and Chiang Mai MP Phattarapong Leelaphat posted on Facebook on Saturday, accusing authorities of ignoring the toxic contamination. Arsenic levels in Mekong River passing Loei, Bueng Kan, Nong Khai and Nakhon Phanom provinces exceeded safety standards, yet officials withheld the information from the public, he said.

The pollution originates from neighbouring countries’ mining operations, but the government has failed to act. While contamination in northern rivers such as the Kok, Sai and Salween has long been known, the problem is now spreading to the Northeast, he added.

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The first-ever acoustic telemetry network in the Mekong River has tracked key migration corridors critical to the survival of fish in Cambodia and Laos.

To conduct the study, researchers caught fish from a dozen species and implanted them with small electric transmitters before releasing them back into the river. A network of receivers allowed the researchers to follow the migration movements of 81 of these tagged fish during both the dry and wet seasons.

The findings, published in a recent study, provide empirical data reinforcing local ecological knowledge that underlines the importance of a free-flowing Mekong. With dozens of dams built, planned and proposed across the basin, researchers say the exact data points detailing the Mekong’s massive fish migration underline the risks of cutting off these vital migratory corridors with hydropower.

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Cambodia and China have signed a $1.2 billion deal to finance an ambitious canal project that aims to boost trade efficiency by linking a branch of the Mekong River near Phnom Penh to a port on the Gulf of Thailand, the Cambodian government agency heading the project announced Friday.

The deal to fund the Funan Techo Canal was signed Thursday during the state visit to Cambodia of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the agency said in a news release. Xi returned home Friday after a three-nation Southeast Asian tour that also included Vietnam and Malaysia.

Construction of the 151.6-kilometer (94-mile) canal began last year but was halted shortly after the Aug. 5 groundbreaking ceremony for reasons that were not made clear. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said at the time that the canal will be built “no matter what the cost,” emphasizing that the project promotes “national prestige, the territorial integrity and the development of Cambodia.”

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Vladivostok (VNA) – A business dialogue session between Russia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) took place in Vladivostok on September 4 as part of the ongoing 9th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF 2024).

At the opening of the event, Daniyar Akkaziev, CEO of the Russia-ASEAN Business Council, affirmed that Russia values its cooperation with ASEAN, considering the region’s rapid and diverse development potential in the Asia-Pacific.

With the sides signing a strategic partnership agreement in 2016 and Russia joining the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) in 2004, he noted the moves are prerequisites for Russia to strengthen its dialogue with bloc member countries.

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The United Nations’ cultural agency recommended Thursday that Laos invite a monitoring mission to the historic city of Luang Prabang, a World Heritage Site where a nearby dam project on the Mekong River has raised concerns it could lose the coveted status.

While the World Heritage Committee welcomed Laos’ efforts to improve data collection on the possible effect of the dam and mitigate any harm to the UNESCO site, it recommended the country invite a new team of experts to assess the state of conservation first-hand.

Laos seemed agreeable to the idea, with its delegate telling the group at its annual meeting in New Delhi that authorities were prepared to work “hand in hand” with UNESCO to preserve the site.

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HO CHI MINH CITY — Alibaba plans to build a data center in Vietnam to store data locally in compliance with legal requirements, while it currently relies on government-owned facilities.

The Chinese tech group told Nikkei Asia that for now it rents space for computer servers from telecommunications companies Viettel and VNPT, providing one example of how companies have responded since a contentious law took effect in 2022. Google, Amazon and others fought hard against Vietnam’s plan to force them to keep data in the country, but the policy ultimately went through towards the end of that year.

As a result, businesses have been looking for cross-border options.

Dang Minh Tam, solution architect lead at Alibaba Cloud, said the company uses colocation — a term for renting out space from data center operators — partnering with the two state companies to park client data locally. But it also backs up data at its own server farms located across the region, from Taiwan to Singapore.

Alibaba plans to build a data center in Vietnam to keep pace with demand in one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies, Tam said. He said he did not yet know the cost and declined to give a timeline for the project, as the details have not been made public. The cost of building a data center can exceed $1 billion.

“Vietnam is a very [high] potential market,” Tam said in an interview. “There’s a lot of space to grow.”

One reason companies like Alibaba might want to build their own servers, in addition to cost considerations, is to ensure greater security and control over their information.

Liability can be an issue when multiple companies are involved in managing the same data, said Leif Schneider, counsel at law firm Luther.

Contracts must be clear “so you always know who bears what risk and responsibility,” he said at a cloud and data center conference in Ho Chi Minh City last week.

Local companies, meanwhile, share Alibaba’s bullish outlook on the market.

Viettel IDC, run by Vietnam’s military, told Nikkei that its customers from Alibaba to Microsoft are demanding environmental, social and governance (ESG) improvements.

It calls its approach “ESGT,” with the added use of technology. For example, tech can be used to track and optimize water use, which is used to keep computers cool and can rack up big costs. Viettel does not currently use much renewable energy but is aiming to make renewables count for 30% of its power consumption by 2030, said technical department manager Nguyen Dinh Tuan.

“We need to prepare for the data center boom,” he said in an interview. “We need to prepare for the sustainability trend.”

Viettel projects the Southeast Asian country’s data center market will expand 15% a year for the foreseeable future, and likely more if a big cloud company like Alibaba invests there.

The expansion is fueled in part by the data localization rules, which Hanoi admits violate its free trade agreements, but which ease the one-party state’s ability to access data. The rules have been a boon for cloud providers that already have server farms in Vietnam, including gaming unicorn VNG and IT company CMC, which said it will construct at least two data centers in the next few years, potentially doubling its capacity.

Vietnam should look to Malaysia and Thailand, whose markets really took off once international players entered the competition, said Evolution Data Centers CEO Darren Webb.

“The countries that try to protect their domestic markets, that doesn’t work,” he said at the industry conference. “The pie doesn’t get bigger.”

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Can Tho (VNA) – Australia will provide 2.5 million AUD (1.64 million USD) for the “Business Partnership Platform: Climate Change Adaptation” programme designed to help businesses in the Mekong Delta region to adapt to climate change.

The funding was announced at a ceremony held by the Australian Consulate General and Can Tho city authority on November 21. 

Australian Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City Sarah Hooper said that the programme, to be implemented from 2023 to 2025, aims to promote women’s startups in agriculture adaptive to climate change, which will help women to develop production and increase incomes effectively. 

She stressed that Australia pays special attention to the development and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region including Vietnam, towards sustainable goals. Since 2000, the Australian Government has invested 650 million AUD (over 427 million USD) in the Mekong Delta region to improve infrastructure, and promote investment attraction, human resources, and innovation including two highlight projects – My Thuan bridge and Cao Lanh bridge.

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Dr. Eang Sophalleth, Minister of Environment, received Ms. Rebekah Bell, Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Cambodia, and her colleagues for a courtesy call on September 13, 2023, at the Ministry of Environment.

Sophalleth welcomed and appreciated the cooperation between the Ministry of Environment and FAO on new initiatives, including the Green Climate Fund project and the Global Environment Facility, in response to natural resource management, conservation of protected areas, biodiversity conservation, adaptation to climate change, and REDD+ programmes.

The Minister also outlined the Ministry of Environment’s short-term priorities for activities, focusing on activities to reduce the use of plastic bags in schools with 3.7 million students, the development of protected area communities through the establishment of natural and historical corridors, community livelihoods, and the establishment of carbon neutrality and climate change responses.

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HCM City (VNA) – An energy transition seminar on Norwegian-Vietnamese business partnerships opened in Ho Chi Minh on September 13, hosted by the Norwegian Embassy in Vietnam in collaboration with the Oil, Gas and Coal Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

According to experts, the participation and collaboration of the private sector will play a vital role in the implementation of the Vietnamese government’s Power Development Plan VIII with priority to be given to the development of renewable energy.

They also said that the plan is an opportunity for business communities both home and abroad to introduce their expertise and competitive advantages, particularly technology. Specifically, Norwegian energy firms boast strengths in offshore wind power, clean hydro, carbon storage, and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Deputy Ambassador Mette Møglestue said Norway and Vietnam share a determination to become countries with low carbon by 2050. Energy transition is an inevitable process and all countries on the globe must take efforts to achieve this goal.

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