VIENTIANE (Vientiane Times/ANN) – The government is holding a special meeting to establish common ground among state agencies about ways to ensure effective implementation of the national development plan for 2020.Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith presided over the opening of the two-day open government meeting at ...

The longstanding friendship between Laos and Australia has strengthened the effectiveness of cooperation between the two nations, according to a bilateral consultation meeting held in Vientiane yesterday.More ...

(KPL) The Lao National Museum has inked an agreement with the Nanning Museum of the People’s Republic’s of China to strengthen cooperation.More ...

A fifth Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge linking Borikhamxay province with Bung Kan province in Thailand is set for construction after authorities from both sides gave the official go ahead.  An official from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, who wished to remain anonymous, told Vientiane Times on ...

The Japanese government has donated canned fish and rice worth 27 billion kip (US$3.2 million) towards the World Food Programme’s (WFP) school meals and resilience building projects in Laos.The assistance is specifically designed to help communities cope with disasters and incidents that impact food supplies.More ...

The Ministry of Finance will start to issue 2017 road tax stickers in August, but vehicle owners will be paying more this year. The percentage increase is not yet known but the Tax Department is currently accepting comments from the National Assembly. Some Assembly members ...

Laos has affirmed its commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, while calling on countries the world over to also support the ban on the use of such devices.More ...

Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith yesterday told the Ministry of Home Affairs to speed up work to downsize state organisations after learning that many state departments are too large and employ too many civil servants.Laos currently employs 184,871 civil servants, representing 2.8 percent of the entire ...

The government has agreed in principle to a plan to build a 14-km expressway linking Vientiane city centre to the outskirts in Xaythany district, in a bid to ease congestion. The project was agreed to at the government’s monthly meeting for February held last week ...

The Human Development Report ranks countries based on the Human Development Index (HDI) which measures average achievement on three basic aspects of human development, life expectancy, education, and per capita income. Between 1990 and 2019, the Lao PDR’s HDI value increased from 0.405 to 0.613, an ...

I was on a 3-month bike ride across five countries of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand , Cambodia and Nepal, to challenge the everyday use of plastic through an activity called Plogging – a mix of jogging and picking up trash.  Dwarfed by the five-feet jumble of trash ...

Revenue earned from potential mining operations, revamped state enterprises and from other as yet untapped sources will be used to pay debts amounting to almost US$14 billion, the government has told the National Assembly (NA). Foreign debt has accumulated to about US$13 billion and domestic debt ...

Lao authorities and Chinese developers are speeding works in an attempt to begin boring tunnels of the Laos-China railway project before the coming rainy season, a senior government official involved of the project has said. Tunneling is an important component of the 417 km railway ...

Representatives of the European Union (EU) and the Lao government have held discussions on an agreement on combating illegal logging and promoting trade in legal timber products. The issue was discussed at the fourth Joint Expert Meeting (JEM) on a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) on forest law ...

A newly-amended Investment Promotion Law has moved to cut by half the maximum investment period for new concession projects to 50 years, down from previous maximum period of 99 years. The move is aimed at maximising investment benefits for the Lao economy, an official from ...

A new first of its kind atlas detailing data on changes in agricultural production across the country was launched in Vientiane on Thursday. The ‘Atlas of Agriculture in the Lao PDR – Patterns and Trends between 1999 and 2011’ is intended to serve in planning, decision-making, ...

(KPL) More than 2,000 Lao officials have benefited from various programmes conducted since 1980 under the Malaysia Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP).More ...

VIENTIANE (Vientiane Times/ANN) – The government has created two national parks in northern and central Laos to protect forests, biodiversity, natural beauty and the country’s geological development.Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith signed two prime ministerial decrees last month, giving birth to the Nam Et–Phou Louey Park ...

(KPL) The Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, Vietcombank, officially inaugurated its Vietcombank in Vientiane on Oct 19.Located on Lane Xang Avenue, a finance-banking hub in downtown Vientiane, the Vietcombank Laos chapter has a charter capital of US$ 80 million, the highest ...

The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has agreed to provide a grant of US$11 million for a project to establish an effective water resources management system and enhance disaster response capabilities for the Nam Ngum River basin. According to the KOICA Office in Laos, the project ...