VN, Laos review 3-year implementation of border trade agreement

The news was released at meeting on Friday to review the three-year implementation of the trade deal, which was jointly held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the provincial People’s Committee of Quang Tri.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Viet Nam has poured US$5.1 billion in 292 projects in Laos so far. Of the total figure, there are 110 projects in 10 border provinces in Laos with total investment capital of US$2.7 billion.

These projects have made contributions to Laos’ economic growth, budget revenue, and poverty reduction.

A total number of 36 markets, eight international border gates, seven main border gates and 18 subsidiary border gates have been built along the Viet Nam-Laos border line.

Meanwhile, bilateral trade grew 13% per year between 2015-2018, reported the Vietnamese General Statistics Office.

In 2018, the two-way trade value hit over US$1 billion, up 11.9% against the previous year, and rose 14% to US$594 million in the first half this year.

At the meeting, the participants suggested ministries, agencies and localities should give priority to investing in infrastructure, border gates and markets in line with Viet Nam-Laos border market network development master plan by 2020.

More measures and policies should be designed to further attract and encourage business investment in building border markets and infrastructure in order to spur bilateral border trade.

Addressing the meeting, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh said the agreement should be supplemented in a bid to increase the effectiveness of the deal.

He urged the border provinces to accelerate dissemination of the agreement contents to local authorities, business community and border residents while strengthening supervision of the implementation of the agreement to timely detect arising obstacles. 

By Thuy Dung