Vietnam-Laos trade value surges over 30 percent in 2021

Garment - one of Vietnam's key exports to Laos (Photo: VNA)

Two-way trade between Vietnam and Laos is estimated at 1.3 billion USD in 2021, a year-on-year rise of 30.3 percent, according to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Phuong.

Phuong made the statement on January 9 while co-chairing a senior official meeting within the framework of the 44th session of the Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee on Bilateral Cooperation with Vice Chairman of the Laos-Vietnam Cooperation Committee Viengsavanh Vilayphone.

Currently, Vietnam has 209 valid investment projects in Laos, with a total registered capital of about 5.18 billion USD. Last year, there were five newly-registered projects and four seeing capital adjustments, with a total combined capital of 112.84 million USD, an increase of 27 percent compared to 2020.

Many projects continued to operate well, fulfil financial obligations to Lao state agencies, create stable jobs for tens of thousands of Lao workers, and make important contributions to the process of economic regulation of Laos. As a result, Vietnamese enterprises contributed more than 1 billion USD to the Laos budget, and donated about 80 million USD for social welfare activities in the past 5 years.

Viengsavanh Vilayphone acknowledged the results of economic cooperation between the two sides in 2021.

He and Deputy Minister Phuong discussed cooperative measures to be submitted to the two Prime Ministers at the 44th session of the Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee on Bilateral Cooperation.

They focused discussions on measures to address difficulties facing enterprises, particularly those related to capital, taxation, import-export, and land lease, while agreeing to coordinate in creating a stable and transparent legal corridor, and a favourable business environment.

Regarding trade and investment promotion, the two sides agreed to focus on promoting the growth of trade turnover, striving to achieve a stable increase of 10 percent or higher compared to 2021./.