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LOCA Celebrates Electrifying Milestone: 115 EV Taxis, 440,000 KM Served

LOCA Celebrates Electrifying Milestone: 115 EV Taxis, 440,000 KM Served, Paired With Ambitious Growth Plan!
LOCA's fleet of electric vehicles (EVs) in front of That Luang. ( Photo : LOCA )

LOCA, a leading provider of eco-friendly transportation, proudly announces the expansion of its electric taxi fleet to 115 vehicles. Since the pilot program launch in September 2021 and the full-fledged transition program initiation in May 2022, LOCA has served customers a total of 440,000 km using its environmentally friendly electric taxis.

Technical Consultation Held for Lao 5th Population and Housing Census 2025

Technical Consultation on the Draft Questionnaire for Lao 5th Population and Housing Census 2025
Ms. Phonesaly Souksavath (center) and Ms. Mariam A. Khan (left) attend a meeting to discuss the 2025 Population and Housing Census.

On Sunday, the Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB), Ministry of Planning and Investment, and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), organized a technical consultation on the draft questionnaire of the country’s 5th Population and Housing Census 2025.

EcoFlow Launches the DELTA 2 and RIVER 2 Series in the Philippines

Four new portable power stations make grab-and-go power easy with industry-leading charging speeds in a compact form.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Media OutReach – 4 April 2023 – EcoFlow, a portable power and eco-friendly energy solutions company, has launched four portable power stations – the DELTA 2 and RIVER 2 series in Philippines, providing reliable energy for on-the-go lifestyles and emergency home backup.

Equipped with high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, DELTA 2 and RIVER 2 Series can last up to 3000 full charge cycles before hitting 80% capacity. With the industry’s fastest charging speed of under two hours and compatibility with EcoFlow’s Portable Solar Panels, users can be prepared for outdoor recreation or power outages caused by natural disasters, such as typhoons, earthquakes, floods, etc. Weighing from 3.5kg (RIVER 2) to 12kg (DELTA 2), they are all lightweight and easy to transport wherever needed.

DELTA 2, Not Just a Battery

With an expandable 1-3kWh capacity and a total output of 1800W (2400W with X-Boost mode), the DELTA 2 can power essential appliances such as fridges, TVs, and air conditioners. With the feature to recharge to 80% in just 50 minutes, DELTA 2’s industry-leading recharging speed allows flexibility for everything from sudden blackouts to last-minute camping trips and professional work.

RIVER 2 Series, Power Has Never Been This Easy

The RIVER 2 Series provides the best-in-class entry-level solution, with its fast recharging speeds and ultra-long product lifetime. The standard RIVER 2 model can recharge from 0-100% in just 60 minutes, helping users to power spontaneous day trips and get-togethers, even when plans are made at the last minute.

Availability

With a product lifetime six times the industry average and prices starting from ₱19,290 for the RIVER 2 and ₱63,190 for the DELTA 2, EcoFlow portable power stations offer a new level of long-term value. The DELTA 2 and RIVER 2 Series are now available on Lazada and Shopee.

Hashtag: #EcoFlow

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

EcoFlow

EcoFlow is a leading eco-friendly energy solutions company with the vision to power a new world. Since its founding in 2017, EcoFlow aims to become a reliable and trusted energy companion for individuals and families across the world, providing accessible and renewable power solutions at home, outdoors, and in mobile spaces. Today, EcoFlow has empowered more than 2 million users in over 100 markets worldwide.

Glints Forecasts Increased Demand from Hong Kong Employers for Skilled Southeast Asia Tech Talent

With a talent shortage, Hong Kong-based employers are becoming flexible and adaptable in building high-performing teams in markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 4 April 2023 – The Southeast Asia Startup (SEA) Talent Report 2023 released today by Glints, the leading talent platform and recruitment service in Southeast Asia, and Monk’s Hill Ventures (MHV), unveils the latest data and insights regarding recruitment trends and the talent landscape in Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Hong Kong-based employers can take insights from the report to understand more about improving cost-effectiveness by hiring skilled tech professionals from markets across Southeast Asia.

Increasing Demand from Hong Kong-based Employers for SEA Talent

Hong Kong-based employers are currently faced with a talent shortage and a brain drain, particularly within the market’s burgeoning tech sector. In addition, the government recently announced its plan to “trawl for talent” globally to attract talent back to Hong Kong. As a result, Glints is forecasting an increased demand from employers for skilled Southeast Asia tech talent.

“We are seeing an increasing demand from Hong Kong-based employers for talent from Southeast Asia. These employers are becoming more adaptable in building high-performing teams by hiring skilled talent from markets like Indonesia and Vietnam. By expanding their search beyond a hypercompetitive and costly local market, these employers can tap into a deep pool of skilled tech and tech-adjacent talent in a cost-efficient way,” said Puay Lim Yeo, Managing Director of Glints.

Glints conducted salary research in Hong Kong compared to various markets in Southeast Asia and found cost advantages to hiring skilled tech and tech-adjacent talent in Southeast Asia. for tech and tech-adjacent roles.

The findings include:

  • Median salaries for tech roles such as engineering, product and data are 2.5 times higher in Hong Kong than in Southeast Asia.
  • Median salaries for business development roles are 3 times higher in Hong Kong compared to Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
  • Median salaries for senior software engineers with 5-10 years of experience are 3 times higher in Hong Kong compared to Indonesia and the Philippines and 1.8 times higher than in Vietnam. (The median salary for Hong Kong software engineers is US$67,560 annually compared to US$36,870 for Vietnam and US$22,150 for Indonesia.)
  • Median salaries for product manager roles are 2-3 times higher in Hong Kong than in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The median salary for a Hong Kong product manager is US$59,120 annually compared to US$33,000 for Vietnam and US$14,040 for Indonesia.

Southeast Asia Tech Talent Pool Grows

Glints’ latest report, “The Southeast Asia Startup Talent Report 2023“, identifies hiring trends, salary, and equity data for startup talent from over 10,000 data points and in-depth interviews with founders across Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The report provides local insight for Hong Kong companies considering hiring talent from beyond the city’s borders:

  • Return of the “SEA turtles”: A growing number of tech engineers trained in the United States are returning home and developing an engineering-centric culture in their home countries. These engineers, who have honed their skills in places like Silicon Valley, know how to build systems at scale and have what it takes to build a product-led company. This trend is emerging in Vietnam, where talent is returning from other sectors in addition to banking and finance.
  • Salary expectations will stabilize across SEA: Historically, there are cost advantages for Hong Kong-based employers hiring for Southeast Asia tech talent. In addition to that, the report finds that salary expectations for talent to become more manageable in 2023 compared to previous years, where there was more competition for talent and higher salary inflation. The growth rate will be much lower than in previous years for tech salaries, from upwards of 30% to 10-20% per annum.
  • Potential arbitrage opportunities from emerging Southeast Asia markets: There are opportunities to source strong senior tech talent in Southeast Asia. For example, the report finds that the quality of engineers in the Philippines is not much different from other markets and can be highly economical to hire and scale this talent. Engineering talent in markets like Indonesia and Vietnam can be 3 times lower than in more mature markets.

“One of the key challenges in scaling our edtech startup was finding strong tech talent locally that is also cost-effective. It was also a time-consuming process. We decided to partner with Glints and expand our search to Southeast Asia. We successfully hired two remote engineers in Malaysia to accelerate our growth,” said Andy Ng, founder, and CEO of Tutor Circle, a Hong-Kong based tutoring matching platform.

The report can be downloaded here.

Hashtag: #Glints

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Glints

Glints is the leading talent ecosystem in Southeast Asia. Our mission is to enable the 120 million professionals in the region to grow their careers and empower organizations to hire the right talent from anywhere in Southeast Asia. Officially launched in 2015 in Singapore, Glints has empowered more than 3 million talent and 50,000 organizations to realize their human potential. Today, we stand at the forefront of human capital empowerment as the fastest-growing startup in the career development and talent recruitment space. Glints currently operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan. For more, visit .

About Monk’s Hill Ventures

Founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Peng T. Ong and Kuo-Yi Lim, Monk’s Hill Ventures (‘MHV’) is a venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology companies, primarily pre-Series A and Series A, in Southeast Asia. Backed by institutional investors and family offices worldwide, MHV works with great entrepreneurs to use technology to improve the lives of millions of people in the region. For more, visit .

HDBank outstanding loans to property sector, corporate bond holdings among industry lowest

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM – Media OutReach – 4 April 2023 – The Ho Chi Minh City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank has announced its 2022 results audited by PwC, which shows profit before tax of nearly VNĐ10.27 trillion (US$437.18 million), its highest ever and up 27.2 per cent from the previous year and 105 per cent of the target approved by shareholders.

The non-performing loans (NPL) ratio was low, while operational safety indicators were among the best in the industry.

The operating income for the year topped VNĐ22 trillion ($936.39 million), up 31.1 per cent.

Its credit, services, card, and digital banking businesses all saw high growth. The total number of credit cards it issued quadrupled while their transaction value nearly tripled, and the number of e-banking transactions doubled with their value growing by six times to VNĐ761 trillion ($$32.39 million).

The return on equity and return on assets were 23.5 per cent and 2.1 per cent, both higher than last year.

The bank’s standalone NPL ratio was only 1.3 per cent while the consolidated rate was 1.67 per cent, lower levels compared to industry average thanks to its selective credit policies and effective risk management.

Its capital adequacy ratio (stipulated under Basel II) was 13.4 per cent, among the highest in the sector.

As of December 31 last year, its total consolidated assets were worth nearly VNĐ416.3 trillion ($17.74 million), 11.1 per cent up from 12 months earlier.

Outstanding loans topped VNĐ268 trillion ($11.41 billion), up 25.6 per cent. HDBank’s lending portfolio focuses on priority sectors and those that are key contributors to economic growth such as agriculture and rural development, SMEs, supply and distribution chains, green financing, and small business households.

HDBank owns only VNĐ4.3 trillion ($183.19 million) worth of corporate bonds, equivalent to just 1.6 per cent of total outstanding loans.

The bonds all have mortgaged assets backing them and have been paid on time and fully. HDBank also has a low real estate loan rate of 7.9 per cent of total outstanding loans.

As of last year, HDBank had 347 branches and transaction offices and nearly 24,500 financial transaction points, and 16,326 employees, excluding around 2,000 security guards, with average earnings of VNĐ26.7 million a month, 37.6 per cent higher than a year earlier.

The total remuneration for directors decreased to VNĐ8.4 billion from VNĐ10.9 billion as took voluntary cuts or used their remuneration for social activities.

Last year, HDBank received 24 prestigious awards and titles from domestic and international organisations, including the Top 5 Most Prestigious Banks in Việt Nam from Vietnam Report and Top 50 Listed Companies from Forbes magazine. Forbes also named HDBank among the top financial institutions in Việt Nam.

In addition, the bank received the Certificate of Merit of the Prime Minister, the Emulation Flag of the State Bank of Vietnam, the Certificate of Merit of the HCM City People’s Committee for its contributions to the State budget.

Despite market fluctuations, such positive business results once again affirmed HDBank’s ability to maintain high growth in what was a pivotal year with its new development strategy in terms of both scale and quality in the 2021-25 period.Hashtag: #HDBank

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Weekly Weather Forecast Predicts Extreme Heat and Light Rain for Laos

Central, South of Laos to Continue Experience Extreme Heat With Rain in Some Regions
Sunlight shines down on a street in Luang Prabang (photo: Discover Laos Today)

The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology has issued a weekly weather forecast for Laos, warning of scorching temperatures in the south and central regions this week due to a hot weather low pressure covering the entire country.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise launches new Partner Programme for worldwide network of 3,400 partners

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 4 April 2023 – Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, a leading provider of communications, cloud and networking solutions tailored to customers’ industries, has announced the launch of its new global partner programme, the 360 Partner Experience (360PX) that delivers a unique partner journey tailored to each organisation.

The programme was developed to support ALE’s worldwide network of 3,400 partners and accelerate their proficiency and growth on the company’s end-to-end (E2E) portfolio spanning communications, network and CCaaS sold as on-premise, hybrid, or cloud (either public or private).

A key component of the programme is accompanying partners as they increasingly transition their offer towards “as a service” (XaaS) or subscription-based solutions, while continuing to support their Capex activities. The company also plans to attract new business partners, particularly those with vertical expertise.

An important innovation in the 360PX is the new “à la carte” accreditation framework that supports partners who wish to specialise in either sales or services for any or all of the following solutions: XaaS, Capex or strategic verticals including healthcare, education, government, transportation, and energy and utilities. 360PX offers a level of flexibility and modularity that allows partners to focus on their strengths, including leveraging either their sales or services competencies, or being experts in both.

Partners become part of an ecosystem where they work in partnership to offer solutions that fully meet the evolving needs of customers. ALE facilitates this ecosystem to encourage partners to easily collaborate with each other and combine their complementary strengths.

A unique real-time Business Relationship Management platform enhances collaboration between ALE and each of its partners with strategic planning and efficient execution to ensure mutual success.

According to Claudio Soland, SVP of Alliances and Global partner programme at ALE:

“Our 360 Partner Experience programme allows our partners, existing and new, to do both Capex and XaaS business with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise within a single framework. The enhanced support will help them flourish, especially for those transitioning to a subscription model. In addition, the collaborative ecosystem we are promoting will benefit all our partners around the world.”

“Today, customers are asking for more complete and complex solutions, which requires the combined skills of diverse experts. By facilitating this, the 360PX partner ecosystem ensures that end-users receive optimal solutions with best-in-class service, as they migrate to increasingly integrated platforms”, adds Rukmini Glanard, Executive Vice President, Global Sales, Services & Marketing at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.
Hashtag: #AlcatelLucentEnterprise

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise delivers the customised technology experiences enterprises need to make everything connect.

ALE provides digital-age networking, communications and cloud solutions with services tailored to ensure customers’ success, with flexible business models in the cloud, on premises, and hybrid. All solutions have built-in security and limited environmental impact.

Over 100 years of innovation have made Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise a trusted advisor to more than a million customers all over the world.

With headquarters in France and 3,400 business partners worldwide, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise achieves an effective global reach with a local focus.

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Thai Authorities Detain 63 Chinese Asylum Seekers in Pattaya

Thai Authorities Detain 63 Chinese Asylum Seekers Fleeing Persecution in Pattaya
Chinese Asylum seekers walking out of a police station in Thailand (photo: ABC News)

Last week, Thai authorities apprehended 63 religious refugees from China, including 28 adults and 35 children from 16 families, for overstaying their visas at the Long Lake Hillside Resort in the Bang Lamung district in Pattaya.