#Cambodia - Thailand’s Big C to build ‘supercentre’ in Poipet city

Big C, a grocery and general merchandising retailer headquartered in Bangkok, will invest $6.8 million to build a store in Banteay Meanchey’s Poipet city, in the border with Thailand.

The ‘supercentre’, approved by the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC) on Feb 20, will be located in Spean I village and, according to the company, will create more than 1,200 jobs.

Oum Reatrey, deputy governor of Banteay Meanchey province, told Khmer Times he did not have prior knowledge of the project but said it will help promote trade between the two countries.

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In October, the government also greenlighted the construction of an airport in Poipet city to tackle the rising number of tourists to the country. The project is expected to cost from $40 to $50 million and it will occupy 100 hectares.

Cambodian and Thai leaders have pledged to reach $15 billion in bilateral trade by 2020. During the first nine months of last year, trade exchanges between the two countries were worth $7 billion, exceeding figures for the entire year of 2017.

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Source - Khmer Times

#Thailand - Conservation plan for hornbills

THE NATIONAL Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation Department announced yesterday that it would develop a national plan for the management and conservation of hornbills.

 This plan would be in line with an international action plan introduced yesterday for the critically endangered helmeted hornbill.

A working group will be set up to develop the national plan, Pinsak Suraswadi, the department’s deputy director-general, said.

He said Thailand is committed to protecting the majestic bird’s habitat as well as reducing trafficking and trade of the bright-billed bird. The future plan will also focus on reintroduction programmes so hornbill populations can be restored in natural habitats.

 The country also recognises the importance of research and training while engaging all sectors, he said, and thus the Centre for Research and Training of Hornbill Conservation will be created.

Pinsak also praised the international plan and lauded Thailand’s decision to adopt it, which marks a watershed in efforts to preserve the species.

“We are very pleased to support hornbill conservation in the region,” he said at a press conference. “Today will be a great starting point for moving forward together to save our species.”

After the conference, a group of bird experts, including members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, got together to discuss the plan. 

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 Found in regions ranging from Africa to Asia, the birds are facing increasing threats of extinction despite their critical ecological roles.

Helmeted hornbills, with specific home ranges in the forests of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, are of a critical concern to ecologists as demands for the bright yellow and black casques atop their bills have surged in recent years, particularly in China for carved ornaments.

This is despite the fact that the species has been placed under the protection of the Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which has banned all kinds of trade since 1975.

In 2015, global bird experts came together to address the situation at Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), prompting the species to be up-listed from “near threatened” to “critically endangered” by BirdLife International.

 A Helmeted Hornbill Working Group (HHWG) was also created under the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

A year later, a resolution calling for an action plan for helmeted hornbill conservation was issued at the IUCN World Conservation Congress and the CITES CoP17, backed by members of the HHWG, while urging all CITES parties to take necessary steps to develop and implement the action plan.

This 10-year, wide-ranging conservation strategy calls for international collaboration and an increase in financial resources to scale up conservation attention aimed at targeted population recovery across the species’ range.

A key priority is the need to eliminate trafficking and trade in helmeted hornbills and derivatives by ensuring that the CITES Appendix I listing for the species is effectively implemented.

 Anuj Jain from BirdLife International (Asia) and a coordinator of the HHWG, said: “Unless we protect key population strongholds and reduce international demand, we stand little chance to save the helmeted hornbill.”

Thailand is an important country for the species, with high levels of protection. Most long-term research on the species has been by the Hornbill Research Foundation.

Source - TheNation

#APEC leaders swear by multilateral trading

LEADERS of 21 economies in Asia and the Pacific yesterday expressed their strong commitment to the multilateral trade system in the digital age and anti-protectionism, but also recognized the importance of bilateral agreements as strongly pushed by the United States.

“The Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment, and the support for the multilateral trading system as well as the growth of connectivity strategies and programmes have provided long-term orientations for Apec’s activities and afforded hundreds of concrete cooperation areas,” said Vietnam’s President, Tran Dai Quang, chair of the meeting.

Members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) gathered in Vietnam’s central city of Danang to champion the multilateral trading system and liberalization amid changes in the global situation after one of its major members, the US, shifted its policy to focus on bilateralism.

In the declaration issued yesterday the leaders said they “recommit to fight protectionism, including all unfair trade practices, recognizing the role of legitimate trade defense instruments”.

The statement is a compromise between the US’s demand to promote bilateral economic cooperation and the majority of Apec members who champion a multilateral trade framework at the core of cooperation among the economies.

 President Donald Trump, who attended the Apec summit for the first time this year, has pushed his “America First” policy and earlier withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which Washington had strongly pushed.

The remaining 11 members of the TPP held a meeting on the sidelines of the Apec in Danang and told a press conference yesterday that they had finally agreed to go ahead without the US, by suspending 20 provisions from the original deal.

Japan and Singapore are the most active members of the TPP. Japan’s Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said that the CPTPP would go into force after six of the 11 nations ratify it.

The 11 are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

The Apec ministerial meeting issued a statement yesterday, rather than immediately after the meeting on Wednesday, also voicing concerns about protectionism.

“We recall our pledge to extend our standstill commitment until the end of 2020 and recommit to fight protectionism, including all unfair trade practices, recognising the role of legitimate trade defence instruments,” the statement said.

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said Apec should keep its faith in free trade amid the growing trend of protectionism and anti-globalisation.

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The world is keeping a close eye on free trade pacts in the Asia and Pacific, which is a great challenge for the region, he said. Thailand and other Apec members hoped to see progress at the 11th ministerial meeting in the World Trade Organisation, he said.

Prayut proposed at the summit yesterday that Apec should also focus on human resource development, digital access, food security and green innovation.

Apec has a framework on human resource development in the digital age as a guideline for all to develop their human resources in keeping with advancing technology.

The Asia Pacific region is one of the major food producers of the world. Countries in the region should utilise digital technology to develop productivity in the agriculture sector to ensure world food security, he said.

The Thai government has applied HM the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s sufficiency economy philosophy, which is compatible with new technology, to move the agriculture sector in the country towards “smart farming”, Prayut told Apec leaders.

In order to support and enhance micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), Thailand has joined hands with Peru to push the Apec Strategy for Green Sustainable and Innovative MSMEs, he said.

As the Apec summit this year has approved the strategy, Thailand is ready to implement it, he said.

Apec aims to become a low-carbon society and to generate jobs in the growing “green industry”, he said.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the meeting that the government should play a key role in distributing the gains of globalisation and digitalisation.

While free markets and private enterprise are required to drive innovations that have opened up new frontiers for trade and commerce, efficient and fair economies are just as important, The Straits Times quoted Lee as saying.

Source - TheNation

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