Jakarta's disastrous water privatization deal has left the city drowning in debt.

Jakarta is not exactly a modern masterpiece. Dirty and polluted, there is trash everywhere, and garbage floats about in open-air sewers. Overpopulated and congested, it regularly places highly on lists of cities with the worst traffic. Between the roadways are strange half-built pylons, constructed for an abandoned monorail project, rising up like metallic trees.

One of Cambodia’s communication pioneers continues to push the country’s connectivity.

You may not have seen Paul Blanche-Horgan, but he and his employees may well have seen you. As CEO of Ezecom, he is the man responsible for establishing numerous traffic and security cameras across Phnom Penh, a road-safety initiative that recently attracted the attention of Prime Minister Hun Sen. To date there are 12 traffic and security cameras situated at Phnom Penh’s main arteries. They have been in place for almost two years and have been shown live on TV news programmes.

With a widening state deficit, it is time for the Kingdom’s fiscal system to mature.

Nearly two decades after the departure of the United Nations’ mission to usher in Cambodia’s democratic system after years of upheaval, the country still receives around half its revenues from foreign sources.

With one of the highest beer consumption rates in the world, foreign brands are scrambling to get a slice of this lucrative market.

In a busy street-side restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, a couple of friends lean back in their small plastic chairs. They’ve just finished dinner and the beer is flowing.

Ian Watson on his plans to make Refresh Mobile the “PayPal of Cambodia”.

Cambodia’s mobile market, arguably one of the most cut-throat in the world, is peculiar indeed. In a country of 14.7 million, there are no less than nine operators and plenty of top-up scratch cards but… no coins to scratch them. 

According to the Ministry of Labour, some Vietnamese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) pay employees three to four times more than other SOEs.

Public companies in forestry, coffee, textiles and garments offer $116 a month to their workers while peers in oil and gas, post and telecoms, finance and banking, and construction pay an average monthly wage of $389.

Private hospitals are capitalising on strained Western health services and rising Asian incomes.

"Specially for you” reads an advertisement by a Singaporean hospital in one of Cambodia’s national English-language newspapers. It is illustrated with a present box and offers a complimentary first consultation with a specialist and a 10% discount on facilities fees.