But why Lao people complain a lot when it comes to the invesment from China like a china town project or Vietnamese projects
The Lao People are not complaining about the investment from China or Vietnam. The Lao People are in fact welcoming all sorts of foreign investments. It is only a small segment of the Lao Diaspora groups that are bitter and Xenophobic. Hence, they are no longer Lao Citizens.
But if you check Lao website webboard such as in inlao.net, you will know that a lot of lao people in Laos complain about the chinese projects alot.
The inlao.net users does not represent the majority of the Lao population.
nevertheless, it shows that the sentiment of some Lao citizens and some of the exiles are the same. (this comment does not mean I am against foreign investors)
nevertheless, it shows that the sentiment of some Lao citizens and some of the exiles are the same. (this comment does not mean I am against foreign investors)
There is always a small group of ill-intended people that will do everything in their power to undermine the Lao Government's modernization projects. However, they will only met with failure as the Lao people are eager to catch up with the rest of our ASEAN brethren. The year 2000-2020 is the era of Lao modernization and development.
Think some people are just trying to point out that some of the foreign investments do not respect Lao people, environment & culture. Having spent time overseas, they have seen how such projects can be carried out in a better way such that locals will not end up with just a tiny share of the benefits, or worse, none at all.
& some who comment on such issues are not just 'Lao nok', but foreigners who have seen the negative effects of :
[1] some of the Chinese/etc foreign investments in their own countries (including ASEAN countries), China (the Chinese themselves do screw up their own land & people, due to greed), Laos & other countries, &
[2] some of the investment decisions made by their own governments that turned out to be lacking in wisdom & foresight, & cost a lot to clean up the mess.
These foreigners can keep quiet & watch the same mistakes being repeated in Laos, but they chose to speak up because they realise it's gonna affect their 'Lao nok' friends & even in-laws. That's all the foreigners can do, ultimately it's the 'Lao nok' who will decide whether to chose the path of sustainable development, or the path of destruction for themselves.
nevertheless, it shows that the sentiment of some Lao citizens and some of the exiles are the same. (this comment does not mean I am against foreign investors)
There is always a small group of ill-intended people that will do everything in their power to undermine the Lao Government's modernization projects. However, they will only met with failure as the Lao people are eager to catch up with the rest of our ASEAN brethren. The year 2000-2020 is the era of Lao modernization and development.
I couldn't argue with you more. Laos need development like all of countries in the world, and I think the road or the way of development is not paved by beuatiful flower, but Laos has to get through it, and now Lao people can see their bright future in not so far away.
These foreigners can keep quiet & watch the same mistakes being repeated in Laos, but they chose to speak up because they realise it's gonna affect their 'Lao nok' friends & even in-laws. That's all the foreigners can do, ultimately it's the 'Lao nok' who will decide whether to chose the path of sustainable development, or the path of destruction for themselves.
Oops! I meant 'Lao nai' in this part. Sorry, Lao is a foreign language for me.
Think some people are just trying to point out that some of the foreign investments do not respect Lao people, environment & culture. Having spent time overseas, they have seen how such projects can be carried out in a better way such that locals will not end up with just a tiny share of the benefits, or worse, none at all.
& some who comment on such issues are not just 'Lao nok', but foreigners who have seen the negative effects of :
[1] some of the Chinese/etc foreign investments in their own countries (including ASEAN countries), China (the Chinese themselves do screw up their own land & people, due to greed), Laos & other countries, &
[2] some of the investment decisions made by their own governments that turned out to be lacking in wisdom & foresight, & cost a lot to clean up the mess.
These foreigners can keep quiet & watch the same mistakes being repeated in Laos, but they chose to speak up because they realise it's gonna affect their 'Lao nok' friends & even in-laws. That's all the foreigners can do, ultimately it's the 'Lao nok' who will decide whether to chose the path of sustainable development, or the path of destruction for themselves.
Peace.
I totaly agree with this comment Having foreign investments is a good thing as long as you have a strong and applied regulation. An investor is interested only in one thing : his personal benefits. The regulation is necessary to be sure that local people and economy will also benefit from this investment, and won't suffer from it's "bad consequences". Many people just worry that maybe, in some cases, this regulation is not strong enough or really applied in Laos.
There is nothing evil in this behaviour, but just love and worry for Laos People who live in countries that have long and bigger experience of development just want to share this experience and knowledge. They saw too many projects that promised some great benefits turning into a very bad choise because of unpredicted bad consequences (social, environmental, etc...).
They also know that their current way of life is not sustainable, they know they have NOW to dramaticly change their way of life to preserve future, so they don't want the people from "emerging countries" to copy this way of life, because it will dramaticaly strenghten the problems and ruin their efforts to try to solve the problems (what are 600 milions of "westerns" -europeans+USA- against 1,5 billions of chinese, 1 billion of Indians + all the people of the "smaller" emerging countries like Laos? Can you imagine the consequences if those so numerous people do the same mistakes as western people did/do?)
Nothing on earth is perfect 100%. So long as we loose less and gain more why not we go ahead.
That's precisely the point. You're right. But are you sure all the studies are always seriously done to analyse all the good and bads of every project (economic, social, environmental...short term and long term)? Many many project seems to have more good than bad at first view, but experience or a detailed analysis often show that in fact, the project brings more "bad" than "goods". This is just what "people who are not as enthousiastic as some would expect" want to avoid when we talk about such subjects.
Too many people in this world just consider the present and near future, and don't care about the consequences of what they do after many years. Example, protecting environment is not "just for fun", not just preserve "beautiful places, for the pleasure of our eyes"! The purpose is to preserve our interests at long term, preserve the planet that make us live for our children and their children.
Too many people in this world also just see the economic considerations, and forget that what is important is not economic, but human being.... economic is just one of the many parameters that can help people to be happy and have good life. Sacrify some other parameters just to improve economic a little bit is stupid.... but that's the behaviour of many politics/investors (all over the world, not especialy in Laos)...
To finish, even if a project have more "good" than "bad", don't you think that's it's clever to constructively criticize/analyze the project and try to force people responsible of it to do everything possible to minimise the bad aspects ?
In developed countries it's the same. Businesses would love to rape the land but we have oversight. Also we have some sort of accountablity called elections. If any person or group of people tried to sell out our land to a foreign country our legislature, which is directly elected, would stop it, or lose the next election in 2 years.
In Laos if you sign a contract for a large develpment project you pay a thousand or two to each displaced family, collect massive "tea" money from the foreign business, buy yourself a mercedes and send your kids to Australia for an education.
paris_vientiane wrote: But are you sure all the studies are always seriously done to analyse all the good and bad sides of every project (economic, social, environmental...short term and long term)?
-- Edited by paris_vientiane at 12:48, 2008-05-12
May I ask you merely one question. Do you trust our specialists who are in charged to study the impacts of all projects in Laos before approval ?
It's a little strange...when Chinese advisors & specialists are hired to do EIA (environmental impact assessment) studies for projects by Chinese developers...which has happened in some cases. Not that it is guaranteed that they will be biased & give only favourable reports, but the possibily exists, & it is not small. Just need some 'tea money'?
In fact projects like Nam Theun 2 are not that bad - so many Westerners & foreign NGOs came into the picture because it was so high profile with ADB's involvement...a lot of international attention is focused on the project, there is a lot of accountability & so it's much harder for corruption to be covered up. If they screw up, there can be quite a backlash. The developers even had to hire experts to clear UXO from the land for resettlement of villagers displaced by the project, & fund the construction of new infrastructure in the resettlement villages.
But how often does this happen for other development projects in other parts of Laos? Villagers end up being moved to land that is often poorer in quality & smaller in size thus giving poorer harvests, & have to source food from unfamiliar forests that might be UXO-contaminated, in some cases they have to rebuild their water wells, storage 'barns' (for keeping rice), schools, temples, etc from scratch by themselves since compensation $ doesn't always cover this, or a large part of the $ disappeared into someone's pocket...(not always the investors' fault, sometimes it's the local officials) Do you trust our specialists who are in charged to study the impacts of all projects in Laos before approval
Of course i wish that all of them are above board, uncorrupted, & truly hold the interests of all Lao (not just city folks & business people) at heart rather than that of their own pockets...but then there is something called reality & corruption.
Welcome investors - the ethical ones who will make some effort to achieve a win-win situation for both parties. Won't be fun when you wake up 10-20 years later & discover that you have been on the losing end of a win-lose situation.
Perhaps Laos could negotiate agreements whereby as part of the investment deal, the foreign investors must train up local people in the skills & knowhow needed to set up & run the operations...something like the Singapore system where the foreign investor has to accept a certain number of locals for training at their headquarters in US/Europe/Japan/etc, & then send them back to run things, in return for the opportunity to invest...a certain number of years later, the trained locals are free to leave the foreign investor's company & use their knowledge to do something to expand the industry. Just a suggestion to file away...although it's more for high tech engineering stuff...but could also be applied to fields like agriculture technology?
paris_vientiane wrote: But are you sure all the studies are always seriously done to analyse all the good and bad sides of every project (economic, social, environmental...short term and long term)?
-- Edited by paris_vientiane at 12:48, 2008-05-12
May I ask you merely one question. Do you trust our specialists who are in charged to study the impacts of all projects in Laos before approval ?
What do you think, should Lao people believe foreigners or their own specialists?
Perhaps Laos could negotiate agreements whereby as part of the investment deal, the foreign investors must train up local people in the skills & knowhow needed to set up & run the operations...something like the Singapore system where the foreign investor has to accept a certain number of locals for training at their headquarters in US/Europe/Japan/etc, & then send them back to run things, in return for the opportunity to invest...a certain number of years later, the trained locals are free to leave the foreign investor's company & use their knowledge to do something to expand the industry. Just a suggestion to file away...although it's more for high tech engineering stuff...but could also be applied to fields like agriculture technology?
Yes, similarly to such a method I remember that I'd ever suggested to Lao parliament 2 years ago when they opened hotline; they accepted letters and emails for ordinary people. Morever, at that ime all kind of critism were welcome.
I knew from Lao news, the method is also currently used in some projects of constructing dams and big projects which also need the so called not so high qualification workers, like carpenters, welders and the like.
yeah ! our country is advancing to the top, the government seriously takes care of its people except for my village which is not that far from the thatluang stupa, we still do not have water supply, our road is still unpaved, children go to school covered with mud when it rains, yeah ! we are really advancing...
paris_vientiane wrote: But are you sure all the studies are always seriously done to analyse all the good and bad sides of every project (economic, social, environmental...short term and long term)?
-- Edited by paris_vientiane at 12:48, 2008-05-12
May I ask you merely one question. Do you trust our specialists who are in charged to study the impacts of all projects in Laos before approval ?
What do you think, should Lao people believe foreigners or their own specialists' opinion?
yeah ! our country is advancing to the top, the government seriously takes care of its people except for my village which is not that far from the thatluang stupa, we still do not have water supply, our road is still unpaved, children go to school covered with mud when it rains, yeah ! we are really advancing...
Not all area in Washington D.C. is riched and developed like Beaverly Hills. There are certainly a lots of work to be done in Vientiane. Even in Bangkok there are area such as Din Daeng and Phra Ram 9 are not that pretty if you asked me! Now, is it fair to say that these two respective cities are poor and underveloped due to certain depressed areas of the cities? I would say that Vientiane is the most developed city in the world but it is gradually progressing every day.
thanks for your encouragement but I really want the governor of VT city to pay a littke bit more attention to the small raod relying villages to the main raods of the city. thanks and regards !
yeah ! our country is advancing to the top, the government seriously takes care of its people except for my village which is not that far from the thatluang stupa, we still do not have water supply, our road is still unpaved, children go to school covered with mud when it rains, yeah ! we are really advancing...
Not all area in Washington D.C. is riched and developed like Beaverly Hills. There are certainly a lots of work to be done in Vientiane. Even in Bangkok there are area such as Din Daeng and Phra Ram 9 are not that pretty if you asked me! Now, is it fair to say that these two respective cities are poor and underveloped due to certain depressed areas of the cities? I wouldn't say that Vientiane is the most developed city in the world but it is gradually progressing every day.
yeah ! our country is advancing to the top, the government seriously takes care of its people except for my village which is not that far from the thatluang stupa, we still do not have water supply, our road is still unpaved, children go to school covered with mud when it rains, yeah ! we are really advancing...
Not all area in Washington D.C. is riched and developed like Beaverly Hills. There are certainly a lots of work to be done in Vientiane. Even in Bangkok there are area such as Din Daeng and Phra Ram 9 are not that pretty if you asked me! Now, is it fair to say that these two respective cities are poor and underveloped due to certain depressed areas of the cities? I would say that Vientiane is the most developed city in the world but it is gradually progressing every day.
There called Ghettos, Slums, etc, every city has them. Vientiane isn't an exception.
