Doing Business in Laos Guides. ASEAN and AEC. Laos is establishing itself as a market of real potential, with numerous opportunities. With a new $7bn dollar railway connecting Laos to China in the pipeline and a decade of economic liberalization behind it. The economy has performed well in the past few years. This is mainly due to the ongoing Laos projects in mining and hydroelectrics, as well as increases of garment exports, international tourism and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
Doing Business in Laos Guide
Laos is one of five remaining communist countries in the world. The Lao economic model bears some relation to its Chinese and Vietnamese counterparts, in that it has implemented market-based economic practices while maintaining a very high degree of political control. Laos is politically stable. The Lao population was estimated at 6.8 million in 2014. Approximately 70 percent of the workforce is employed in agriculture, mostly in small scale farming. The Lao population is young, with more than half under 20 years of age. The Lao market economy has grown at a nearly 8% clip for the last decade and is heading into a new phase of regional and global integration. After acceding to the World Trade Organization in 2013, Laos looks to the ASEAN Economic Community formal establishment at the end of 2015 as a marker for its next set of economic policy and trade development goals. Learn more from Laos Business Guide provided by ExportGov from the US Government.
