Radio Sweden quoted an unconfirmed report that the embassies to be closed are the ones in Vientiane in Laos, Manila in The Philippines, Colombo in Sri Lanka and Luanda in Angola.
The report quotes a member of the Swedish parliament as saying the cause of shutting down the embassies are financial reasons.
Sweden's Foreign Ministry is reshuffling its budget as new embassies are to be built in Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am not quite sure about the role of Foreign embassy in Laos or the role of Lao embassy abroad.
Sweden maybe a big donor aid for Laos, but Sweden don't have any big projects with Laos. There are no tourists from Laos to visit Sweden and maybe very few Swedish people visit Laos. That's maybe one reason to close the embassy in Laos.
It is sad and the relationship between the two countries from now on will not be smooth as before.
I guess although the embassy is going to close, the relationship is still going on. It could be the case that its ambassador can work for many countries, say the headquater of its embassy is in Vietnam or Thailand, but the ambassador works with Lao also.
Save money? How much money they can save? If they want to really help Laos, those money for renting house to be use for embassy is just only a drop of water in the ocean.