The Week in News
3-7 August, 2026

Vietnam attracted USD 38.06 billion in registered foreign direct investment in the first seven months of 2026, up 58% year-on-year, the National Statistics Office reported. Manufacturing and processing took USD 11.58 billion of the USD 21.05 billion in newly registered capital across 2,429 projects. Singapore led all investors at USD 7.5 billion, ahead of South Korea, Hong Kong and China. Disbursed FDI reached USD 15.2 billion, the highest seven-month total in five years.

Editor’s View: Singapore supplies over a third of Vietnam’s new FDI – a concentration that flatters the headline number but narrows the base. When one source accounts for more capital than the next three combined, “record inflows” is really a bet on one relationship holding.

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Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade confirmed the EU-Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement is on track for signing in Q4 2026, nearly a decade after negotiations began in 2016. The deal, substantially concluded in September 2025, will eliminate tariffs on 98.5% of tariff lines and open investment in EVs, electronics and pharmaceuticals.

Editor’s View: Ten years for a signature is its own data point. The substance was agreed in September. What’s left is administrative. Indonesian manufacturers have had a year’s warning to prepare for EU market access. The ones ready in Q4 will move first.

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Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing agreed to raise bilateral trade from USD 7.4 billion to USD 12 billion, reopening the Second Thailand-Myanmar Friendship Bridge linking Mae Sot and Myawaddy. Three MOUs were signed covering labour, water management and Earth observation technology, alongside commitments on cross–border crime and scam network enforcement.

Editor’s View: A reopened bridge moves goods. A trade target is just arithmetic until it does. Thailand’s own border trade data show conflict-driven checkpoint closures have hit targets before. The USD 12 billion figure is aspirational until the crossing stays open past the next security scare.

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Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Johari Abdul Ghani toured five semiconductor and E&E plants in Kedah and Penang – including Micron, Infineon and Inari – pressing for greater local company involvement in back–end operations. The sector supports nearly 646,000 jobs; Johari framed Micron’s expansion as a potential launchpad for Malaysia to export memory chips globally.

Editor’s View: “Launchpad to the world” is the pitch. Back-end assembly is the reality. Malaysia has run this back–end strategy for decades without fully climbing into design or fabrication. Local participation in packaging isn’t the same as capturing the margin. That distinction is the actual test.

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Toyota and Nissan resumed regular production on 6 August after a 7.1–magnitude earthquake shut down Kyushu–area plants on 28 July. Toyota’s Miyata plant – source of 90% of its exported Lexus ES, RX, UX and NX models – is fully operational; Nissan lost roughly 5,000 units of output. Honda remains down until 19 August due to unresolved supplier issues.

Editor’s View: Nine days to restart Toyota and Nissan, three weeks for Honda – the gap is the story. Thailand assembles both brands for ASEAN and export markets and inherits whichever timeline its parts flow follows. The Kyushu quake is a Bangkok production-line problem too, just with a lag.

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