Laos govt branches 'need to improve for AEC'

Representatives from different sectors of the government and the private sector gathered in Vientiane on Friday to deepen their knowledge about Asean issues under the second Asean awareness seminar. 

The seminar comes under the umbrella of the Laos Pilot Programme for Narrowing the Development Gap towards Asean integration (LPP project). Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Bounthavy Sisouphanthong spoke at the seminar. 

He said the aim is to boost the preparedness of each branch of the government and the private sector prior to Asean integration, especially in regard to the improvement of regulations, human resource development, administrative institutes, financial systems as well as the standard and quality of goods production. 

Meanwhile, senior JICA representative Kimura Hironori reiterated the importance of focusing on preparation for the AEC in Laos, introducing the policy measures and framework of the AEC in Thailand and promoting the awareness of current Asean issues. 

The LPP targets balancing development growth and environmental conservation and the harmonisation of development with three components, these being environment, tourism and agriculture, he said.  Each of these components has made significant progress to date but the opportunities for Lao counterparts of each component and the private sector were limited, especially on learning about Asean integration, Hironori said. 

Laos still has many challenges to integrate with Asean as the knowledge of key personnel in the government and private sector in regard to trading and economics are still limited, Asean Department director-general Khiane Phansourivong explained. 

The ability of the country to compete with other Asean countries is still low, there is poor infrastructure for products, transportation and services, while financial regulation is not strict and the trading and banking system is not sufficiently strong, he noted. 

Preparations by Laos to integrate with the AEC are currently focused on four areas of work. One is to generate an understanding of the AEC to link with the region and the international economy, he said, while the second is to create mechanisms to improve coordination between the various central government sectors and local authorities. 

The third is to study commercial production projects, goods lists, service systems and to increase support to small and medium enterprises, and the fourth is the improvement of rules and regulations in relation to setting up business operations.  “We also want to develop human resources in each sector from the central to the local levels to participate in international economic integration,” said Khiane.