South & Central Asia
Bolstered by increasing foreign investments, Bhutan has embarked onbuildingthree major hydropower projects to boost its industries and revenues. Under a new government, Bhutan has been slowly transitioning to a new Twelfth Five-Year Plan that started in 2018 and spans until 2023. Previously untapped, Bhutan is also building out its tourism sector, which saw a steady rise in revenue to $87.7 million in 2019. While growth in Pakistan at the end of 2019 was less than projected, a three-year program in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund aimed at stabilization and structural reform is promising to address macroeconomic issues. In the intellectual sector, knowledge on Southeast Asia has been consumed generally by the NGOs, namely, those that are national-based ones as well as those that have regional networks. The strength and success of their operation is very much dependent on the amount of knowledge they have about Southeast Asian societies in general as well as the speci...