Vice President pledges to facilitate to investments of ASEAN and Chinese businesspeople

(KPL) The Lao Government has pledged to provide more facilitation to investment projects of ASEAN and Chinese investors and businesspeople under the Lao government�s policy on investment promotion, said Vice President Bounnhang Vorachit.
The commitment was made during he gave speech at the 5th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit took place at Nanning City, Guangxi province, 22 October, with the attendance of ASEAN leaders and Vice Premier of China Wang Qi Shan. Vice President Bounnhang highly highlighted previous bilateral cooperation between ASEAN and China, and Chinese efforts have further cooperation and provided assistance to ASEAN member countries in building ASEAN community.
�The effort has effectively initiated last year considering as opening new era of relationship between ASEAN and China which resulted to it has been further enhanced mutual understanding and trust,� he said. As result, the effective cooperation ties have driven the ASEAN economies growth respectively.
The Chinese investment volume in Laos stood at 3.5 billion, (around 30 trillion kip), which covered agriculture, mining, hydropower and other sectors.Vice President Bounnhang called on Chinese business people to strengthen cooperation with ASEAN member countries. This is due to ASEAN has political stability, particularly the acceleration of establishment ASEAN Free Trade Area (ATF).
�For Laos has widely opened and facilitated environments for trade and investment to foreign businesspeople by focusing on building infrastructure to support agricultural industry and services,� he added. �This includes the construction of railway in the country, connecting north-south and east-west, a number of potential projects construction of hydropower, mining exploitation and tourism�.
The trade volume between two countries reached US$114 million in 2004, and in it hit a record of US$249 million, showing an increase of 218.4% over 2004.China�s main exports to Laos have been mechanical and electrical products, which have taken up to 80 % of the total, and the rest have been consisted of steel, wire and cable, textiles, motor vehicles and chassis. Laos exports to China.
Laos exports to China include logs, minerals, copper, farm products, lumber, ore and its concentrates.
By December 2004, Laos had 21 direct-invested projects in China with a contractual value of US$44.17 million and an actual-utilized investment of US$16.03 million. By the end of 2007, Laos actual investment in China counted at US$17 million.From 1990 to 2006, China provided to Laos a total aid of US$4.722 billion, with US$615 million as gratis assistance, US$1.769 billion as preferential and US$2.030 billion as commercial loan.
Up to April, statistics showed that there had been 236 Chinese-invested projects in Laos, covering 12 industries and totaling US$877 million. Among them, 65 projects were undertaken in 2006, with a sum of US$328 million, which then put China in the position as the second largest foreign investor in the country. By the first half of 2008, China became the largest investor in Laos, followed by Vietnam and Thailand.