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This paper explores the relationship between natural resources and economic growth of Brunei Darussalam, an underresearched area in the available literature.

Annual data are sourced from reliable sources for the period 1989–2020. Appropriate cointegration techniques for time series data are employed to estimate the specified models and extract results.

The results provide evidence about the positive and significant role that natural resources have played in the economic growth of Brunei Darussalam. Similarly, trade openness and domestic investment have also positively and significantly impacted the long-run economic growth. On the other hand, the impacts of government expenditure and the growth of human capital on economic growth are although positive but insignificant statistically in the long run. The short-run results show that natural resources, government expenditures and domestic investment have influenced economic growth both positively and significantly. Moreover, the positive and significant impact of trade openness on economic growth, which was observed in the long run, turned negative and insignificant in the short run. Finally, the insignificant positive relationship between the growth of human capital and economic growth observed in the long run remained the same in the short run.

This paper studies the resource curse hypothesis for Brunei Darussalam for the first time, and therefore, the findings will be of significant interest for policymakers and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of the various issues faced by firms involved in foreign trade in Brunei Darussalam and Singapore. It tries to delineate the issues or concerns in export and import trade that are significant, but of either same or different magnitudes in these countries. It also attempts to determine the concerns that are of lesser extent for both importers and exporters, and extent of usage of insurance against non‐payment of export debts, and/or loss of goods in transit.

Judgment and snowball sampling methods are employed to collect data from various companies in these countries. The results are analyzed from two samples of 42 and 25 responding firms of Brunei Darussalam, and Singapore, respectively. Descriptive statistics is used to present and analyze the data.

The paper highlights the various important issues related to foreign trade by firms. The issues that are significant, but are of the same magnitudes in these countries along with the issues that are of different magnitudes are mentioned. Furthermore, concerns of lesser extent for both importers and exporters along with a comparative analysis of buying insurance by firms are also mentioned.

The results are basically from the various trading companies involved in foreign trade in Brunei Darussalam and Singapore. The sample size of firms from Singapore may be another limiting factor.

This study fills the gap in the existing literature about current issues prevalent in these countries. Furthermore, some suggestions to reduce the concerns of foreign trade are also mentioned in the paper. The findings may be useful for financial institutions interested in providing better services to the firms.

In Brunei Darussalam the implementation of a technical infrastructure to improve access to the digital world and various e‐government initiatives are empowering the country through an informed community and an efficient government. A number of ICT‐related projects have been planned and implemented under the Brunei Economic Development Council and e‐government initiatives. Digital libraries and the digital transformation of heritage information have been identified as the most viable areas to be developed in an effort to strengthen the information basis of the community. This paper describes the plans for one important project, the Virtual Library System of Brunei (VILIS Brunei), and outlines the economic sustainability issues being considered.

This paper examines the national solidarity in Brunei Darussalam during the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequential impact on younger generations. Utilising Emile Durkheim's solidarity theories, I examine how young people's social media use builds on state discourse in the pandemic. I contend that a shift towards an organic society is visible through a social cohesion that is based on differentiated roles. I argue that the citizenry plays a vital role in the forward momentum toward Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0, which illustrates that solidarity cannot be forged as a top-down directive. By prompting economic and creative divisions of labour, the local use of social media in a public health crisis has shown the government a new way to foster solidarity. Significant implications for youth as future leaders of the nation are discussed.

The objective of this paper is to assess the degree to which Islamic banks in Brunei Darussalam use risk management practices (RMPs) and techniques in dealing with different types of risk.

The researcher developed a questionnaire which covers six aspects in the first part: understanding risk and risk management, risk assessment and analysis (RAA), risk identification (RI), risk monitoring, credit risk analysis and RMPs. The second part consists of two questions based on an ordinal scale dealing with two topics: methods of RI and risk facing the sample banks.

This study found that that the three most important types of risk that the Islamic banks in Brunei Darussalam facing are foreign‐exchange risk, followed by credit risk and then operating risk. It also found that the Islamic banks are somewhat reasonably efficient in managing risk where RI and RAA are the most influencing variables in RMPs.

The paper's findings are limited to the RMPs of Islamic banks in Brunei Darussalam.

The paper explores the RMPs of the Islamic banks in Brunei Darussalam. The results can be used as a valuable feed back for improvement of RMPs in the Islamic banks in Brunei and will be of value to those people who are interested in the Islamic banking system.

Using evidence from Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Indonesia, the purpose of this paper is to explore how Islamic welfare regime notion evolves in a South East Asian (SEA) context.

To gain a broad frame of reference in discussing Islamic welfare regimes in SEA, this paper employs a combined political-economic and cultural approach to analyze how Islamic welfare ethics in Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Indonesia are developed. The specific criterion used to make a comparative analysis of these countries is an interconnection between four levels of Islamic welfare actors (state, market, community and household/relatives) in providing social welfare.

Malaysia and Indonesia have demonstrated the most balanced form of “Islamic welfare diamond” in the relationship between welfare actors, even as the state-centered welfare initiative continues to be expanded, while Brunei has taken a different route. A monarchical political system underpinned by high economic growth has enabled the state to play a major role in welfare distribution, rather than other welfare actors. For this reason, Malaysia and Indonesia are described as having an “Islamic inclusive welfare regime,” while Brunei is reported to have an “Islamic welfare state regime.”

For the purpose of theoretical advancements, there is no doubt that this paper has proposed an alternative framework to developing an understanding of how the Islamic ethical code is articulated in a wide range of welfare configurations within the “South East Asian context.”

This paper analyses the professional accounting environment in Brunei Darussalam with particular reference to the organisation of practitioners. In terms of the wealth of the country, its stable economic, social and political structure, the formal regulatory structures in place and the ongoing British influence, one might expect to find a vigorous accountancy profession in place, actively pursuing a collective mobility project. However, such an expectation would be misplaced. Drawing upon the functionalist, interactionist and critical theories of the professions, as synthesised by Willmott, this paper explains the lack of a powerful accounting profession in Brunei and speculates as to whether such a profession might emerge, in particular one capable of adequately gauging and safeguarding the public interest. The paper argues the case for the negative given the prevailing market, institutional and power structures.

Isu diskriminasi antara kaum telah tular di media sosial berikutan isu pemberian vaksin secara jumpa terus yang mula dibukakan di Pusat Vaksinasi Stadium Tertutup pada hari Jumaat, 24 September 2021. Jumlah orang ramai yang ingin mengambil vaksin telah melebihi jangkaan sehingga menyebabkan keadaan menjadi tidak terkawal dan berlakunya pelanggaran Prosedur Pengendalian Standard (SOP). Kajian ini dijalankan untuk membincangkan isu diskriminasi kaum yang berlaku semasa gelombang kedua pandemik COVID-19. Penelitian menggunakan metode kualitatif secara deskriptif. Data yang diperolehi daripada komen-komen dalam halaman Brunei Dot Com, dan Facebook ini seterusnya dianalisis menggunakan model tiga dimensi Fairclough (1992). Hasil kajian mendapati kesemua komen telah menunjukkan sikap diskriminasi dalam kalangan masyarakat Brunei secara sedar ataupun tidak. Isu diskriminasi ini bukan sahaja dapat dilihat dari sudut representasi linguistik, tetapi juga penghasilan dan pewahanaan wacana berkaitan pada halaman Brunei Dot Com, dan Facebook. Kajian ini juga menunjukkan bahawa wacana bukan saja mampu dibentuk masyarakat tetapi juga membentuknya.

The issue of racial discrimination concerning the commencement of walk-in vaccination at the Indoor Stadium Vaccination Centre on Friday, 24 September 2021 was widely addressed in the social media. Chaos ensued as an influx of people attended the centre and violated the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This paper examines the issue of racial discrimination during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Brunei. As a qualitative-descriptive study, data obtained from Brunei Dot Com, and Facebook page, were analysed using Fairclough's (1992) three-dimensional approach. Findings have shown presence of discriminatory attitudes among the local community displayed as deliberately or unintentionally. This is manifested in its linguistic representations, discourse production and consumption in the selected Brunei Dot Com and Facebook pages. This study indicates that a discourse is not only capable of shaping but is also shaped by the community.

Despite the world’s effort in grappling with the coronavirus disease that has affected many sectors globally, knowledge and research on the COVID-19 pandemic as well as on the halal food and beverage industry remain limited, particularly in Brunei Darussalam. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the halal food processing industry face amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the sultanate.

A qualitative approach based on four semi-structured interviews was employed using a purposive sampling of managers and business owners of the manufacturing SMEs. Several government agencies were also interviewed to further supplement the findings. This paper also uses the support from a review of relevant academic journal articles, and other secondary data including newspapers and websites, to uncover the hindering factors surrounding the phenomenon.

Four themes emerged, covering four overarching and inter-related challenges including limited production; closure of retail stores; delay in exporting; and less sales to cover overheads.

This study positively contributes to the understanding of the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into the country as well as adds and enriches the halal research sphere. Several implications for the SMEs, policymakers, as well as academic scholars, and limitations are also discussed.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to investigate the halal food processing industry in Brunei Darussalam especially, during the time of uncertainties such as the COVID-19 era. The paper’s value also lies in addressing the gap that there is a need to study on the impact of this outbreak on SMEs in the developing countries, inclusive of Brunei Darussalam.

Universiti Brunei Darussalam has been fostering the study of foreign languages in Brunei to expand their undergraduates’ accessibility in the job market and overall give them equal opportunities to have a quality foreign language learning experience. This paper is a critical analysis of past studies by Ainol and Isarji’s (2009) on foreign language learners at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), and Farhana’s (2019) study on Universiti Brunei Darussalam’s (UBD) foreign language learners’ motivation. A focused investigation at how different motivation types, namely intrinsic, extrinsic, instrumental, and integrative, affect foreign language learners at the university level in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia. A pattern observed in Brunei and Malaysian universities is that intrinsic motivation is the foundation of foreign language learning. Bruneian undergraduates are learning out of interest, and their Malaysian counterparts are learning because they enjoy the experience. While the university's language policy determines the number of students learning a foreign language each semester, the outcome is still highly dependent on the student's motivation to learn the foreign language.