Despite rapid economic development over the past two decades and an increasingly urban population, Vietnam remains a primarily agricultural country. According to 2018 statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 70% of the population (67.5 million) was living by agriculture, with agricultural land (including forests) covering 26 million hectares—an area about the size of the country of New Zealand.

The Intellectual Property Office of Viet Nam (IP Viet Nam) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) have launched a new Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Pilot Program. The program will be in effect for two years, commencing on June 1, 2019, and ending on May 31, 2021. The number of requests accepted per year is limited to 100 from each office.

Myanmar’s Copyright Law was finally enacted into law on May 24, 2019, effectively repealing the old Copyright Act of 1914. The law lays out the new legislative framework for the protection of literary and artistic works and other related rights, to be implemented through administrative bodies and subsidiary regulations that will be issued in due course.Overview

In recent years, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending technology has taken root in Asia, particularly in China, Singapore, and Indonesia, and the P2P market is continuing to expand significantly. The business model allows lenders and borrowers to link up via an online platform. This disrupts the traditional banking model that requires a financial institution to act as an intermediary. For individuals, this means that underbanked populations are able to secure loans where previously a lack of credit history or little access to financial service institutions posed considerable obstacles.

By and large, government regulations are adopted to achieve certain economic, social, and cultural objectives. However, excessive regulation can impose high burdens on society that outweigh these benefits. The current government of Thailand has undertaken regulatory reforms to address the problems posed by poorly designed regulations.

People are often pleased to see themselves or their work on television, but there are some important legal considerations pertaining to these situations. For example, in many television shows, particularly game shows, images of people may appear on the screen during a broadcast and are sometimes even used as part of the show.

In recent years in Vietnam, new policies and changes in the law have led to many situations where foreign companies are no longer allowed to operate as representative offices (ROs), or find that it is no longer optimal to do so. As a result, many companies are converting or considering the conversion of their ROs into full subsidiaries or “foreign-invested enterprises” (FIEs). This has been an especially hot topic in the pharmaceutical sector after changes brought on in 2017 by new legislation.