If we are in the status of least-developed country, we can ask for more money from abroad anytime. If we become developing country, money will not come to us. So, i personally don't support the idea to get out from the list of developed country
A reliance on exporting natural resources is destroying Lao's forests and fuelling inequality
THE BAREFOOTED children, hands cupped to the windows of the air-conditioned JoMa cafe, are uncomfortable reminders to the tourists within of Lao's poverty and inequality.
Lattes and carrot cake are comforts expected by the growing numbers of backpackers and Singaporean package groups coming to this hilly southeast Asian state of almost six million.
Unfortunately, the tourist dollar hasn't delivered much comfort for ordinary Laotians. The People's Democratic Republic of Lao (locals resent the "Laos" spelling as a reminder of the country's experience of French colonialism) ranks 133 out of 177 countries on the UN human development index.
Nissan and Mercedes dealerships on the drive into town suggest wealth in the pretty and dozy capital on the Mekong river, Vientiane. Those lucky to live in this neat, green city can access jobs in a thriving local tourism industry or work as translators and administrators in the local offices of NGOs and UN agencies.
The barefooted destitute who emerge like ghosts at night come from outlying villages where children run naked on gravel roads.
Roughly the size of Britain, Lao aims to graduate from UN "least-developed country" status by 2020. Given Asia's economic rise, it seems like a modest ambition. Economists suggest Lao is doing well, reporting 7.5 per cent gross domestic product growth in 2007, according to the World Bank.
Similar growth rates are expected this year. But the growth depends almost entirely on the executives of the world's largest mining firms, who ride out of Vientiane every morning in blacked-out SUVs, headed for the hills, where copper, gold and iron ore is dug out of the rich, red soil.
Mining and hydropower account for the bulk of foreign investment, says Dublin native Jack Sheehan, a tax consultant at the Vientiane office of Ernst & Young. Two Australian-controlled mining projects, Lang Xang Minerals and Phu Bia Mining, pumped $700 million (€453 million) into the economy last year, 90 per cent of foreign investment in 2007.
Lao's ruling party, the nominally communist Pathet Lao, has built few of the factories and highways which soak up workers in Vietnam to the east and China to the north. Shipping out natural resources is a road to ruin, according to NGO workers in Vientiane who talk of jungle hilltops scarred by mining and of farmers displaced for hydropower and mining projects.
Locals are sometimes willing participants in the destruction. Tension has emerged as peasants hack into protected forest lands to grow rubber for Chinese wholesalers, says David Fullbrook, a researcher attached to the government-sponsored Laos Extension for Agriculture Project.
Lao used to be the most forested country in southeast Asia, but a flurry of logs going northwards to China account for 35 per cent of Laotian exports - and that's not counting the huge illegal trade in tropical hardwood, sold to Chinese furniture makers.
Chinese government researchers prefer to see the positive side of resource extraction and cross-border trade. "Lao wants to explore its natural resources but needs foreign capital and technology," says Yang Yun, a professor at the Southeast Asian Institute at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences in southwest China. "Lao has land, labour and resources to offer."
China's prosperity bodes well for Laotian farmers (they account for 80 per cent of the working population) who grow watermelons in rice paddies left idle during the rainy season before shipping them north.
China's free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Lao is a member, is "mutually beneficial" for both sides, says Yang.
Lao's fruit and vegetables are shipped tariff-free into Chinese supermarkets thanks to the deal. China does well too, as the source of most of Lao's imports. Locals buy Chinese fridges, cars and toothpaste because there's little in the way of local manufacturing capacity. That's ironic, given the Pathet Lao development model, like Beijing's, mixes five-year plans for industrialisation with market liberalisation.
The country also suffers more than others from brain drain: 35 per cent of educated Laotians live abroad, according to the World Bank. The brain drain means Vientiane has relied on help from the World Bank and the US Agency for International Development in drafting laws on banking and intellectual property essential to its application to join the World Trade Organisation.
Sickened by violent decades when the country was dragged into the Vietnam war and a subsequent civil war, overseas Laotians are now trickling back.
Returnees speaking Australian-accented English treat family to ice cream and beer at the Patuxay arch, a Vientiane folly built in 1968 to celebrate independence from France.
Vientiane's cosmopolitan dining scene, for those who can afford it, should be buffered next year when the Southeast Asian Games are hosted here. But with Lao depending on little but its natural resources, inequality is likely to be a feature of Laotian life for a long time to come.
It is confusing because you don't know for sure what is least "developed country; less developed country, developing country and developed country and even "fully developed country". Laos is still ranked the least developed country, not the developed country as you said in the last sentence when you said you don't want Laos to get out from the developed counties.
It is confusing because you don't know for sure what is least "developed country; less developed country, developing country and developed country and even "fully developed country". Laos is still ranked the least developed country, not the developed country as you said in the last sentence when you said you don't want Laos to get out from the developed counties.
Definition of least developed countries.
The term "Least Developed Countries (LDCs)" describes the world's poorest countries with following 3 criteria:
Low-income criterion based on a three-year average estimate of the gross national income (GNI) per capita (under $750 for inclusion, above $900 for graduation)
Human resource weakness criterion involving a composite Human Assets Index (HAI) based on indicators of: (a) nutrition; (b) health; (c) education; and (d) adult literacy.
Economic vulnerability criterion based on indicators of the instability of agricultural production; the instability of exports of goods and services; the economic importance of non-traditional activities (share of manufacturing and modern services in GDP); merchandise export concentration; and the handicap of economic smallness.
Though Laos is still listed as the least developed country, but her GDP is still slightly higher than many other least developed countries due to small poplulation. So it really depends on how you want to look at it. But a simple classification consists of (1) the least developed country (2) the developing country and (3) is developed country. These classifications were actually re-established after cold war was ended.
During the cold war, it was classified as First World, Second World and Third World for the purpose of political discrimination among U.S and the Soviet Union.
If we are in the status of least-developed country, we can ask for more money from abroad anytime. If we become developing country, money will not come to us.
That's completely false. The US government has attempted to donate money to Laos, however the Lao government keeps rejecting it. There are many organizations/countries (World Bank, IMF, UN, etc.) that are trying to give monetary aid to the people of Laos, but our stubborn, rather your, stubborn government continues to push these organizations away.
Regardless, even if Laos elevates its country status to developing country, money will still be filing in (or trying to be filed in). Money will stop coming in once Laos is declared a 'fully-developed country' and is able to sustain itself within that status.
That's completely false. The US government has attempted to donate money to Laos, however the Lao government keeps rejecting it. There are many organizations/countries (World Bank, IMF, UN, etc.) that are trying to give monetary aid to the people of Laos, but our stubborn, rather your, stubborn government continues to push these organizations away.
Regardless, even if Laos elevates its country status to developing country, money will still be filing in (or trying to be filed in). Money will stop coming in once Laos is declared a 'fully-developed country' and is able to sustain itself within that status.
Jj,
I don't know what you're smoking but the Lao Government are doing everything in their power to bring prosperity to their people. See what the World Bank are saying about the GoL as reported by VOA, below.
WB: Laos' Economic Development in the Right Direction
By Dara Baccam 19/06/2008
The World Bank representative in Laos says the country is taking the right direction in its economic development, as evidenced by growing foreign investment and trade. It also shows that Laos is moving farther away from the socialist-style economy.
The economic progress has improved the lives of thousands of Laotians, as reflected in the declining rate of poverty which went down from 47% of the population in 1995 to 31% in 2005 to currently 26%.
Meanwhile, Lao authorities say they expect the economy to expand at the rate of about 8% this year, after a growth of 7.9% in the first six month, which translates into a per capita income of about 7.4 million kips per year or roughly $810 at the current exhange rate which is about 8700 kips to a dollar.
In another development, the Lao Statistics Bureau says
inflation has risen continuously in the first five months of this year, reaching over 10% in May, which is the first time in many years that the inflation has reach a double digit rate. Last month's 11.2% inflation rate more than doubles the rate for the same month last year, which was 4.5%. Lao officials say they fear inflation will continue to rise because of increasing fuel prices in world markets.
