Southeast Asian growers can now ship durians to China faster than before using a new cold-storage rail service linking Thailand, Laos and southwest China’s Yunnan province, slashing prices for the pungent fruit. The first goods train laden with durians from Thailand – China’s biggest source of the fruit – began winding its way north through Laos to China over the weekend, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Tuesday. More than 90 per cent of the world’s durian exports – worth about US$7.5 billion...
Singapore and Thailand ranked among the world’s “least miserable” economies in an annual index compiled by a Johns Hopkins University economist, who said Southeast Asia was one of the “healthiest economic neighbourhoods” in the world. The 2025 Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI), compiled by applied economics professor Steve Hanke, measures the “economic temperature” of a country and seeks to approximate how its average citizen experiences the economy. This year’s HAMI found that several...
Thailand is turning to live-streamers to clear a looming durian glut, slashing prices as weaker Chinese demand threatens its biggest export market. Top online seller Pimradaporn Benjawattanapat, or Pimrypie, led a high-energy live stream on Tuesday night, pitching to her combined 31 million TikTok and Facebook followers. Known for selling everything from her own-brand fish sauce to luxury perfumes, Pimrypie priced premium Monthong at as low as 100 baht (US$3) per fruit, well below typical market...
A dawn gloom hangs over the pier in Bangsaray, eastern Thailand, as buyers arrive to wait for the first fishing boats to return. But like everyone else relying on the day’s catch they have already lost money to someone else’s war. Thailand’s multibillion-dollar fishing industry has been brought to its knees by the runaway price of diesel, a result of Iran’s throttling of the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US and Israel’s attacks. Half of the kingdom’s vast fishing fleet is already docked,...