The portable camping bed was conceived by two British entrepreneurs residing in Brunei, Lucy Bartlett and James Clark, who used the popular online crowdsourcing service to fund the development of the project.

The couple has commissioned Brunei-based textile company Famous Textiles Sdn Bhd to manufacture the beds.

These beds will carry a ‘Made in Brunei’ tag.

Bartlett said that she has placed an order for 700 units of Bundle Beds with 500 adult beds and 200 children beds.

“We are hoping that these will be made and ready to ship by July 1 which is approximately one month after when we would have liked them to be shipped,” Bartlett said in an email interview.

The beds would then be shipped to various backers from around the world.

Bartlett said that the material needed to make the beds has been delivered to the factory on June 1 after which production began.

However, she said, high shipping costs and long delivery time for the materials resulted in slight delays in production.

“Shipping was one of our biggest costs but we overcame this issue by combining all of the items into one container. But the container could only leave when all of the materials were sent through.

“We had planned to send them piece by piece to allow production of different sections to start earlier, but we weighed this up against the excess cost and decided to delay and save the money,” she said.

Bartlett said that Bundle Beds had a total of 362 backers out of which 272 of them bought beds which come in different sizes.

She also said that Bundle Beds has signed up with BackerKit, a company that facilitates the collection of data after a Kickstarter project, to allow preorders for the beds even after the funding campaign is over.

She added that the beds are currently on a 20 per cent sale until June 19 through BackerKit.

The funding campaign began on February 22, 2016 with a target to reach 25,000 pounds (US$36,000) within 30 days.

The campaign reached its funding target within 65 hours but more funding continued to pour in due to the large amount of interest.

When the campaign ended, the funding pot amounted to 66,785 pounds from 362 backers which is over twice the amount that was initially targeted.

Famous Textile owner Stephen So previously said that the project will help put Brunei on the map.

The Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) April 2016 Labour Force Survey (LFS) showed that the unemployment rate went down to 6.1 per cent from 6.4 per cent in April last year, although higher than the 5.8 per cent posted last January.

Despite a growing population as well as more and more individuals entering the labour force, the number of employed Filipinos rose to 39.9 million last April from 39.2 million a quarter ago, while the unemployed numbered 2.6 million.

In a statement, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said the employment rate of 93.9 per cent was “at the high-end range of previous April rounds of the LFS since 2011.”

“The high proportion of working persons to the total labour force indicates an upbeat labour market,” Neda said.

The unemployment rate was also below the full-year target of 6.6 per cent, Neda noted.

Neda attributed the higher number of employed Filipinos in April partly to election-related activities that generated temporary jobs, although majority of employment in the country involved permanent positions.

“Of the employed, more than three-quarters are permanently employed and just over a fifth are short-term or seasonal workers. Other indicators of quality employment, such as wage and salaried employment (24.8 million or 62.1 per cent of total employed), full-time employment, and mean hours of work have shown an increasing trend, supportive of an optimistic outlook on employment,” Neda said.

“These employment numbers are a reflection of the country’s vibrant economy,” Economic Planning Secretary Emmanuel F. Esguerra said.

“If the labour market trends are maintained, the Philippine Development Plan target of 6.5-6.7 per cent for unemployment rate in 2016 is likely to be achieved,” added Esguerra, who is also the Director-General of Neda.

However, Esguerra said he was alarmed over “economic inactivity of the youth.”

Unemployment among the youth, defined by the PSA as aged 15 to 24, hit 14.6 per cent last April, more than double the national unemployment rate.

“Moreover, some 23.8 per cent of the total young working population were neither in school nor in the labour force, implying that 4.7 million young Filipinos are underutilised as their skills are not being honed by education, training or employment,” Esguerra added.

The underemployment rate also remained high, at 18.4 per cent in April, up from 17.8 per cent a year ago as well as higher than the target for this year of 17 per cent.

Local fintech firm Doku, which claims to be Indonesia’s largest and fastest-growing facilitator of electronic payments, offers consumers an electronic wallet that can be topped up at any time through bank transfers.

The “Doku wallet” can be used to make payments at various retail stores, tour and travel agencies, and at electronics shops, as well as at many more merchants that are in partnership with Doku. The electronic wallet can also be|used to pay for donations, TV cable services and insurance premiums.

Withdrawing money is also possible with a “Doku wallet” through Alfamart Group points of sale that total more than 10,000 across the archipelago. The e-wallet can even be used to transfer money to friends who don’t have a Doku account, only requiring the recipient’s email address.

These conveniences are just a few examples among many of how fintech is mushrooming in Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, where only 20 per cent of the adult population has an account in a formal financial institution.

Estimates vary about the size of Indonesia’s fintech industry. Statista’s Digital Market Outlook estimates that the transaction value of local fintech reaches US$14.5 billion at present and expects it to grow by 18 per cent annually until it reaches $28.8 billion in 2020.

That compares with commercial banks’ total assets of more than 6 quadrillion rupiah ($451.20 billion) as of March this year and nears the sharia banks’ total asset value of 290 trillion rupiah ($22.4 billion).

“There needs to be a clear regulatory framework that creates a win-win solution for all stakeholders. Otherwise, it will be chaos without clear standards,” said Teddy Setiawan Tee, chairman of the fintech division at the Indonesian Venture Capital and Startup Association (Amvesindo).

The future potential for fintech is lucrative. Indonesia’s local marketplace for peer-to-peer lending, Modalku, launched in January and has already disbursed 22 loans worth 5.1 billion rupiah with zero defaults.

Modalku facilitates lenders and borrowers for financing worth 50 million rupiah to 500 million rupiah, considered the “missing middle” lending segment, with a tenure of three to 12 months.

They are targeting micro enterprises that total about 57 million, of which only 1 per cent manage to grow to the sustainable size of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), partly because of a lack of access to credit, according to research conducted jointly by Oliver Wyman and Modalku.

For Indonesia, the research suggests regulations should be put in place as soon as possible. “Regulators should equip the |[fintech] industry with protective mechanisms before it grows too big and maintain comprehensive vigilance while also keeping regulatory compliance costs down,” it read.

Global financial regulators put fintech in the spotlight at a recent Financial Stability Board (FSB) meeting of the G20 countries, inching closer to regulating the sector that may potentially “|disrupt” traditional banking, to ensure its rapid growth does not pose any risks to the financial |system.

The Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) is working on it. The regulation, which will be rolled out before year-end, will protect both consumers and fintech and not limit development of the new sector by any means, said Dumoly Pardede, the OJK’s deputy commissioner for non-bank financial institution supervision.

“The regulations are more to regulate business transparency on how they capitalise and manage the businesses and what kind of sanctions are to be imposed if breaches are committed. However, we’re not going into details like setting their loan interest |rates or others, for example,” he added.

Major banks such as Bank Mandiri and Bank BCA have already partnered with or pledged funding to fintech companies, but most of them have not yet considered the threat of fintech, which has a miniscule market share of less than 1 percent of the overall commercial banking industry assets.

Bank Mandiri digital banking and technology director Rico Usthavia Frans said collaboration with fintech companies should be established as soon as possible as the latter could eat banks’ market shares if ignored.

The failure caused great loss in forestry resources over recent decades.

A researcher from the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI), Dr Palikone Thalongsengchanh, said that many companies were only interested in cutting down big trees, without caring about Lao forests.

“Some companies have carried out projects solely with an aim to cut trees,” he said, saying that Laos had lost enormous areas of woodland over the past years devastating ecosystems.

Indeed, planting trees is part of the obligations for companies operating in Laos to compensate forest cut down to pave the way for the construction of their projects, notably hydropower, mining and other mega projects.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Mr Thongphat Vongmany commented yesterday that laws and regulations related to this matter shall be enforced strictly to ensure all companies fulfilling their obligations.

According to the law, those carrying out concession projects which permanently converted woodland areas into other classifications must plant trees to offset the areas lost.

Therefore, projects temporarily carried out in woodland areas must plant t rees after their projects ended.

Mr Thongphat called for government sectors to take this matter into account before approving investment projects and pledged to collaborate with other sectors to ensure all companies met their obligatio ns.

Currently, forests covered only roughly 47 percent of the country’s land area and the government plans to increase this to 70 percent (around 17 million hectares in total) by 2020.

This year the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry planned to encourage other government bodies and the private sector to plant about 24,000 hectares of trees and reforest over 200,000 hectares for environmental protection areas.

Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith also issued a ban on timber exports in a move to minimise loopholes for illegal logging.

The government announced forestry closure nationwide to review wood quotas granted in the past year.

Forests play an important role in sustaining water supplies, protecting the soils of important watershed areas and in minimising the effects of catastrophic floods and landslides.

Most forestry loss is due to slash and burn cultivation, development projects and illegal logging triggered by strong demand for timber in both Laos and abroad.

Dr Palikone said the loss of forests would affect Laos both short and long term given that the country will have to spend large sums of money assisting people affected by natural disasters.

NTUC FairPrice yesterday (June 8) said it is giving a 5 per cent discount on its house brand wholegrain rice items for three months. It will also give a 5 per cent discount on all “healthier choice” products for two weeks.

Its wholegrain rice sales in the first quarter of this year rose 30 per cent on the same period last year, and the price discount is expected to save customers a total of about S$500,000 (US$369,053).

The chain’s chairman, Bobby Chin, said: “By promoting wholegrain rice as a healthier alternative, we are taking a proactive approach in the prevention and management of chronic diseases like diabetes.”

He said studies show Singapore has the second-highest proportion of diabetics among developed nations, after the United States.

Other supermarket chains such as Cold Storage and Sheng Siong have similar plans.

The focus on the Asian staple comes after The Straits Times reported that white rice is the Health Promotion Board’s main concern in fighting diabetes.

Nutritionist Christine Rubi-Cruz, who works with the merchandising team at Cold Storage, said the chain stocks about 20 brands of wholegrain rice. There have been discounts from 10 to 15 per cent on these rice items for the past month.

“We are bringing in another type of wholegrain rice called sprouted rice. It has the same benefits, but is also easier to digest,” she said.

Rubi-Cruz added that there has been a 10 per cent fall in sales of white rice, and 15 per cent increase in wholegrain sales in the past three years.

Dr Kalpana Bhaskaran, a nutritionist on the council of the Diabetic Society of Singapore, said wholegrain rice varieties are healthier because they release sugar slowly into the blood. “It contains lots of fibre and nutrients, but even then, portion control is important,” she said.

A Sheng Siong spokesman said that from next month to October, its stores will have dedicated space for items with the “healthier choice” symbol.

The chain is also distributing a “nutrition toolkit” to seniors later this month. This includes a nutrition guide, poster and recipe book, available in four languages.

Wholegrain rice generally costs more than white rice. A 5kg packet of white rice costs about S$5, while a 2.5kg packet of red rice can cost around S$6.

Dr Kalpana said: “For people to be more receptive to wholegrain rice, retail outlets can sell it at a price that’s comparable to white rice. If a family of five or six take wholegrain rice, it can be expensive.”

(US$1 = S$1.35)

“In Malaysia, growth should slow to around 4.4 per cent in 2016, as the economy adjusts to weak commodity prices and public spending cuts due to lower natural resource sector revenues,” the World Bank wrote in its latest Global Economic Prospects report,

“Growth is expected to rebound gradually in 2017-18, as commodity prices stabilise and reforms are implemented to spur investment, which has already showed signs of bottoming out,” it added.

The central bank, Bank Negara, in May reiterated its target for the Malaysian economy to achieve 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent growth in 2016.

The World Bank, meanwhile, is projecting growth in the East Asia and Pacific region, which includes China, to slow to an unrevised 6.3 per cent rate in 2016. China’s expansion is expected to ease to 6.7 per cent.

The region excluding China is projected to growth at 4.8 per cent in 2016, unchanged from 2015.

This outlook assumes an orderly growth slowdown in China accompanied by steady progress on structural reforms and appropriate policy stimulus as needed.

“Growth in the rest of the region is expected to be supported by rising investment in several large economies, in nations like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

“Meanwhile, strong consumption supported by low commodity prices is expected to occur in Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam,” it said.

Slowing growth in China is expected to offset a modest pickup in growth among members of Aseanthis year.

The region is expected to benefit from the strengthening recovery in advanced economies, low energy prices, improved political stability, and continued favorable conditions in global financial markets, despite anticipated monetary policy tightening in the United States.

Among commodity exporters, growth in Indonesia is projected to pick up to 5.1 per cent in 2016 from 4.8 per cent, provided reforms are implemented to encourage investment and boost productivity.

Growth in Thailand is expected to accelerate gradually, but remain below 3 per cent on average in 2016 to 2018 as high household debt holds back consumption and export growth remains lukewarm.

Countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Mongolia would benefit from making further progress in reducing reliance on commodity-related revenues.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave these updates late Wednesday at a reception with Singaporeans in Yangon at Sedona Hotel, which is built by Singapore developer Keppel Land.

These “stopover flights” from Singapore through Yangon or Mandalay would benefit tourists.

“When people come as tourists, they can come to Yangon, stop over for a couple of days, get back onto the next aeroplane, go on to Mandalay and then go home,” PM Lee said, calling it a more attractive network of connections.

The 49 direct flights a week between Singapore and Myanmar are international, with flights to and from Singapore and Mandalay, or Singapore and Yangon.

PM Lee said the Myanmar government is keen to work with Singapore to improve connectivity. Both sides have also been discussing ideas that can improve things for their peoples and business communities, he said. “They listened to me. Some of this will move; some of the others, they will still study.”

A key announcement on Tuesday was visa-free travel between Singapore and Myanmar for 30-day trips by their citizens. It will take effect on December 1.

PM Lee told the 300 Singaporeans at the reception: “I hope when your family members come back and forth, it will be more convenient for them. They won’t have to apply for a visa, and you’ll keep in touch with home more often.”

The Singaporean community in Myanmar has grown from 150 a decade ago to at least 500 now.

The number looks set to soar as Myanmar is opening up and is “an adventurous place to be in”, PM Lee noted. “Not everything is solved yet, so there is some uncertainty… but that’s what it means to be on the frontier. We need Singaporeans to be out there, finding new opportunities and doing well.”

Agreeing, Lim Chong Chong, 38, group chief financial officer in a Myanmar company, told The Straits Times: “There are a lot of jobs and business opportunities in Myanmar for Singaporeans, but many are scared off by their negative impressions of the country.”

He cheered the visa exemption, saying: “It will make life easier, not having to keep going to the embassy to get a visa.”

But globally, Singapore is now the 18th most expensive location for expats, up 13 places in the last five years.

ECA International, which conducts its cost of living survey twice a year, said Tokyo remains the most expensive city in Asia for expats, followed by Hong Kong and Shanghai.

From a global perspective, however, Tokyo has moved down from 1st place over the last five years to 7th place, while Hong Kong is up 26 places from 2012’s 35th position.

Hong Kong now ranks higher than all Chinese Tier 1 cities for the first time in five years. The Hong Kong dollar has appreciated against most major currencies owing to its peg to the US dollar, which has pushed up prices of goods and services compared to those in locations whose currencies have weakened against the greenback, said ECA

Cities in China have jumped in the global rankings over five years. Shanghai, which was ranked as the 25th most expensive location for expats in the world five years ago, has moved up 15 places to the 10th most expensive. It is just ahead of Beijing (11th), Guangzhou (15th) and Shenzhen (24th).

ECA’s survey compares a basket of like-for-like consumer goods and services commonly purchased by expats in over 450 locations worldwide.

It excludes certain costs like accommodation rental, utilities, car purchases and school fees, because these are usually covered by separate allowances, ECA said.

The rankings reflect differences in inflation levels as well as exchange rate movements between the employee’s home and host countries.

“Singapore is a case in point,” said Lee Quane, regional director, Asia, ECA International. “In spite of relatively low levels of inflation in the past 12 months, a strengthening currency versus the Australian dollar and slightly higher rates of inflation for international assignees over the period as a whole has pushed Singapore above locations in Australia over the course of the past five surveys.

“This is also the case when compared with locations in Europe, who have experienced lower inflation rates and a depreciating currency over this time period.”

Jakarta fell 49 places in the last five years to 156th place in the world ranking mainly due to the weakness of the rupiah, said ECA. Kuala Lumpur, the most expensive location in Malaysia, fell by 19 places over five years to 197th place in 2016.

Australian locations continue to fall significantly down the global rankings – a reflection of the weakened Aussie dollar. Sydney, the most expensive location in Australia, fell from 15th place in 2012 to 70th in this year’s survey. Adelaide had the biggest fall for the country, now lying at 109th place, down 92 places from 17th.