“The Lao government has to do something more to ensure Laos fully benefits from the tourism sector, especially from high-end tourists from Asia, Europe and other parts of the world,” said a senior economics officer with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Soulinthone Leuangkhamsing when addressing ADB’s recent Development Outlook 2016 event.

He noted that Laos is fully integrated with Asean in terms of regional amalgamation, and services was one of the branches of tourism that had generated a lot of income for the government in past years.

The ADB reported that tourism-related services such as accommodation and transportation benefitted as tourist arrivals rose by 12.6 percent to 4.7 million and revenue from tourism increased by 13.1 percent to US$725.4 million last year.

“What is needed is for tourism managers to arrange more interesting activities to increase the number of high-end tourist arrivals and generate more income for Laos,” Soulinthone said.

Laos has a wide range of tourist attractions, giving the country the chance to rake in more revenue from this sector.

Yet there are still many challenges in terms of improving infrastructure and accommodation facilities, as well as personnel development, to ensure better tourism services and management.

Foreign tourists now enter Laos by several channels including air routes and land transport between neighbouring Asean and other countries.

According to the Tourism Development Department under the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, some 1,490 tourist sites are now officially listed in Laos, although some need further development to make them more attractive to visitors.

Most foreign tourists target the northern provinces including Luang Prabang, which is a popular destination for holiday makers from Thailand, China and the Republic of Korea, as well as people of other nationalities.

Meanwhile the capital and Vientiane province are centrally located and visitors usually spend a few days in these areas before heading to the north and south of the country.

Laos’ southernmost province of Champassak is also appealing because of its natural, historical and cultural attractions such as Vat Phou and the dramatic Khonphapheng waterfall.

Last fiscal year, about 600,000 tourists visited the province, which was 15 percent in excess of the target. The province is hoping to have 600,000 to 700,000 visitors by the end of this year, with a realistic prediction of about 650,000 visitors, according to Champassak tourism officials.

Although visitor numbers have fluctuated in recent years, Champassak is targeting 2020 as the year when it receives 4.6 million visitors.

In a crisis, Perodua achieved one of its best sales ever. During the financial crisis of 2007/2008, the company achieved the most bookings in its 15-year history in July 2008.

The managing director then was quoted as saying: “We were in Nirvana.”

However, things seems to have changed. People have been holding back purchases in times of uncertainty while financial institutions have seen lower profits and higher doubtful debts.

Last Thursday, Perodua announced that its sales fell by 17.4 per cent in the first quarter from 57,200 units a year ago.

“On a month-to-month basis, Perodua sold 17,300 vehicles in March 2016 against 22,400 units in the same month last year, a drop of 22.8 per cent,” Perodua president and chief executive officer (CEO) Aminar Rashid Salleh said.

He attributed the decline to consumers rushing to buy their vehicles before the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) in March last year. The GST came into effect last April 1.

Malaysia Automotive Association (MAA) forecast Malaysia’s total industry’s volume to drop by 2.5 per cent to 650,000 units in 2016 against last year.

The automotive industry grew for six consecutive years from 2010, and peaked at a new all time total industry volume (TIV) high of 666,674 units last year, albeit at a marginal increase of 0.03 per cent against 2014.

The lower car sales, slower property market and slowdown in household loan growth could be a grim reading on the health of the country’s consumer demand and the challenging times.

Besides residential properties, cars would be the most expensive purchase most consumers would make in their lifetime. This explains why economists look to car sales to gauge the country’s economic performance.

According to analysts, the rising cost of living coupled with a series of subsidy rationalisations, higher car prices by major marques, relative to the lower disposable income will weigh on car sales with more downside pressure to be seen among national marques whose buyers are more sensitive to the cost of living.

“People don’t buy big ticket items when there is uncertainty about the economic outlook. Car dealers are sacrificing their margins and giving out big incentives to help attract buyers. The sense of consumer optimism does not appear to be strong,” an analyst said. In February, the country’s inflation rate rose at a faster-than-expected pace of 4.2 per cent from a year ago following higher food prices and a jump in alcoholic beverages and tobacco.

The Statistics Department said the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for February rose by 4.2 per cent to 114.5 compared with 109.9 a year ago. Economists had forecast a 4.1 per cent increase.

Another element to this is the consumer credit. Banks have been imposing stricter lending rules over the past year for loan applications and approvals have shown a contraction.

Maybank Investment Bank Research sayid industry loan growth continues to slow, with the moderation in household loan growth notably more significant in February 2016.

“While still early days, our 2016 industry loan growth forecast of 6.5 per cent (7.9 per cent in 2015) is still within reach and this is premised on household loan growth of just 6.1 per cent and non-household loan growth of 7.0 per cent,” it said in a recent report.

It noted that loan applications rose 5.5 per cent year-on-year on a three month monthly average basis but loan approvals contracted for the sixth consecutive month by 10 per cent year-on-year in February 2016.

Association of Banks Malaysia (ABM), group president and CEO Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said the overall rejection rate for housing loans in Malaysia last year was only 20.39 per cent.

“The total number of applications for housing loans to all banks in Malaysia was 456,000 and of this number, 93,000 applications were rejected,” he added.

For loans where principal amount borrowed was less than 500,000 ringgit, the rejection rate was 19 per cent.

Loans between 500,000 ringgit and 1 million ringgit saw a 20.71 per cent rejection rate, between 1 million ringgit and 3 million ringgit saw 25 per cent loans rejected, and those over 3 million ringgit saw 36 per cent being turned down.

Between January and February this year, the overall loan rejection rate was at 20.6 per cent.

Retail Group Malaysia (RGM), which tabulates quarterly retail data, said the retail industry in the first three months of this year is expected to register a negative growth of 0.4 per cent, compared with the same period a year ago.

RGM maintained its forecast of 4.0 per cent growth rate for Malaysia retail industry in 2016.

It added that the 3 per cent cut in employees’ EPF contribution from March 2016 was not expected to contribute significantly to overall retail sales in 2016.

Structural constraints to investments will remain a major challenge to Myanmar’s medium-term growth, the World Bank has warned.

According to the bank’s “East Asia and Pacific Economic Update” report, despite progress over the last four years, expansion of private business activity is now running into bottlenecks because of the lack of electricity and impediments to finance, land and skilled labour.

Rural areas remain isolated by limited transport infrastructure, which restricts the ability of farmers and local non-farm businesses to access markets.

“These factors are affecting the productivity of the private sector, which is struggling to compete with imports, including in labour-intensive light manufacturing sectors. Therefore macroeconomic policies that are conducive to stability and low inflation are critical to not only off-set loss of competitiveness, but also encouraging investments in infrastructure and supporting services,” the bank said.

Promoting these investments will not only require fiscal flexibility, but also require the leveraging of resources from the private sector. Needed investment in the utilities sector alone is projected to be US$30 billion (Bt1.05 trillion) over the next 15 years. Although a gradual increase in public revenue, reprioritisation in the budget and concessional financing from external donors may contribute, such adjustments will not be sufficient to plug major infrastructure gaps.

Economic growth in Myanmar has eased to 7 per cent in 2015-16 due to floods, inflationary pressures and a slowdown in new investments.

Medium-term growth is projected to average 8.2 per cent per year in real terms. This reflects pent-up demand but also assumes continued progress on structural reforms, including measures to improve business regulations, continued expansion of access to financial services and major investments in the power sector.

Pressures on Myanmar’s current account are likely to remain strong due to the drop in international commodity prices and the slowdown in China. The fall in oil prices has already started to feed through to Myanmar’s gas export prices, and production is unlikely to grow significantly over the medium term. The demand for and prices of mineral exports are likely to remain down. These developments may also put pressure on government receipts, although that is expected to be offset to some extent by gains from tax administration reforms.

Import growth in the first three quarters of 2015-16 has decelerated to 2.5 per cent compared to 25 per cent in the same period last year due chiefly to the decreasing demand for imported industrial raw materials. The overall trade deficit, however, will remain large due to a drop in exports. This is due to a combination of falling commodity prices, which have translated to a slight drop in the value of gas exports, and falling mineral exports.

The bank said that the historic elections of November 2015 have created a general sense of economic optimism. However, the floods contributed to rising food prices and slower private consumption growth. Private investment growth in 2015-16 has also slowed due to a combination of structural constraints and a moderation in new investments.

Following the Central Bank of Myanmar’s downward adjustment to the reference exchange rate in August 2015, the kyat has moved broadly in line with market forces. The kyat appreciated slightly at the beginning of 2016, largely due to seasonal factors, but has remained supportive of external competitiveness.

Risks to Myanmar’s economic outlook include thin external and fiscal buffers, the capacity of the government to maintain reform momentum, ethnic and sectarian tensions, and vulnerability to bad weather.

State Tourism, Trade and Consumerism Committee chairman Tee Siew Kiong said last year some 6.95 million tourists visited Johor, compared with 6.4 million in 2014.

“The increase helped to make the state as the one with the biggest increase in tourists last year,” he said in a reply to Hamimah Mansor at the state assembly on Sunday.

Tee added that in 2015, the state attracted about 4.39 million domestic tourists and 2.56 million foreign visitors, compared with 4.02 million local and 2.4 million foreign tourists in 2014.

He said a variety of tourism products catering for all age groups also helped to lure more visitors to the state.

He added that the average hotel occupancy rate also increased by 1.9 per cent to 58.5 per cent in 2015.

Tee said the state government, through Johor Tourism, had intensified promotion activities by organising Explore Johor programmes and Fam-trips involving media and outside tour agents.

Meanwhile, Johor executive councillor for education and entrepreneur development Md Jais Sarday said the state government hopes to increase the number of fair-price Koperasi Iskandar Malaysia Berhad (imCoop) outlets from four now to 150 by the end of the year.

He welcomed the participation of other cooperatives to help open up more imCoop outlets.

“At the moment, we have the participation of 96 cooperatives with some 60,000 members statewide,” he said.

He said the cost to open an imCoop outlet is about 400,000 ringgit (US$102,552) to 500,000 ringgit, and it can attract about 400 customers per day with sales of 8,000 to 10,000 ringgit per day.

“Sales can shoot up to about 17,000 ringgit a day at the end of the month,” he said in his reply to questions from Adam Sumiru (BN-Tanjung Puteri), Abd Taib Abu Bakar (BN-Machap) and Ayub Jamil (BN-Rengit).

imCoop, which was launched in November last year, sells about 2,000 items and the state government hopes to increase this to 6,000.

Md Jais stressed that imCoop is not in competition with traditional sundry shops and it wants to provide goods at reasonable prices to help consumers cope with the rising cost of living.

He added that sundry shops can also get their goods from imCoop’s warehouse in Kulai.

(US$1 = 3.90 ringgit)

In their meeting here yesterday, they also discussed ways to advance projects and policy innovations in the four areas identified under the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI) to enhance Chongqing’s connectivity and to lower financing and logistics costs.

A statement from Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said: “Both sides affirmed their commitment to working closely together in order to achieve the vision of anchoring Chongqing’s hub status in western China.”

The CCI, whose theme is modern connectivity and modern services, is the third government-led project between Singapore and China after the Suzhou Industrial Park in 1994 and the Tianjin Eco-city in 2008.

Unlike the first two projects, the CCI, which has identified four priority areas in finance, telecommunications, aviation and logistics, is not limited to physical development. Initiatives that promote modern connectivity and services within China or with other countries could be parked under the CCI, which was launched when President Xi Jinping visited Singapore.

In January, the CCI inked 11 deals with Singapore businesses with investment value of some US$6.56 billion. By March, the Chongqing government said it had identified some 260 initiatives worth US$115 billion that could be parked under the CCI and would be “gradually implemented”.

The meeting with Sun kickstarted a two-day visit for Chan, who is Singapore’s point man for the CCI and also its labour chief.

Chan is attending the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative Seminar, which is being held today for the first time.

The event is organised by MTI and the Chongqing government, in partnership with Singapore’s Chinese-language daily Lianhe Zaobao and Chongqing Daily.

It is expected to draw over 200 participants from Singapore and China, who will brainstorm ideas for the CCI and also seek new business opportunities.

Among them are some 50 top honchos from 29 Singapore firms who make up the largest business delegation from the Republic to visit Chongqing since last November.

To adapt to the AEC, leading director Anixay Keola told Vientiane Times that Lao filmmakers can seek funding partners from foreign countries. The production of ‘Saynam Lai’ was a coproduction between Laos and Japan which helped generate more revenue in addition to the income from the Lao film release.

“At the very least, the country that is co-producing with us will try to release the movie in their country too,” Anixay explained.

He said co-producing with other Asean countries was slowly happening with Laos and Thailand having previously produced many films together. “Lao Art Media is preparing a movie with Brunei to be filmed in Laos,” Anixay revealed.

According to Anixay, the first step to target other countries could be releasing movies through Major Platinum Cineplex, which has many branches in Aseancountries. However, cinemas would be more concerned with ticket sales than supporting Asean films. They were unlikely to show Lao films that weren’t popular.

“Another solution to this problem is a joint effort by the governments of each Asean country,” Anixay commented.

In response to Anixay’s comment, Deputy Director of Advertising and Film Support Division, Dethnakhone Luangmovihane, said “Film Asean has been supporting the growth of Asean films since the organisation was founded in 2013.”

Dethnakhone was hopeful in the future, there would be cinemas just showing Asean films with profit not the only objective.

“Since the AEC, there is more awareness in terms of film festivals. Asean films are getting more coverage. For example, the upcoming Bangkok Asean Film Festival,” Anixay noted. On the other hand, he thought it was difficult for Lao filmmakers to target cinemagoers in other countries.

“I think it’s impractical to expect people to want to watch things that are not from their country. For example, Lao people wouldn’t want to see Vietnamese films, but perhaps from big-player countries like Thailand,” Anixay said. Therefore, his priority was producing films that Lao people would like and not worrying about targeting other countries.

Anixay plans to encourage staff from Lao New Wave Cinema to become filmmakers. The company will fund US$1,000 for each team to make separate short films. The short films will then be woven together to make one story. The teams have already come up with a concept of an “18- movie”, especially for teenagers.

Another distinguished filmmaker, Jear Pacific, is still interested in making romantic comedies because it’s his passion. He has produced two films in the genre which have proved very popular with the public.