Government’s economic healing measure in effect

(KPL) An economic stimulus measure of the Government has been in effect over the past eight months and brought about the economic recovery.
The Government approved a large amount of its budget to stimulate and remedy the economic downturn in the country resulted from the global economic crisis.
This is an evaluation of the Standing Deputy Prime Minister Somsavat Lengsavad at a joint meeting of the Cabinet and provincial governors held here mid-last month.
He pointed out that the measures identified by the government for the remedy in each sector had been fruitful. For example in agriculture, the allocation of 76 billion kip which exceeded the approval, has been spent on the renovation and repair of flood-affected irrigation facilities.
As a result, the previous harvest of the dry-season rice crop amounted to 460,400 tonnes of paddy rice from the transplanted fields of 94,466 hectares nationwide.
The injection of 50 billion kip of loan has purchased rice output from farmers, established rice stock and supplied rice seeds to flood-hit farmers. The Government has so far addressed the problem of low price of maize and discussed border trade problems with neighbouring countries related to the volume of exports, the introduction of forms, fair royalties and fees, among others. He also touched on the establishment of the farm production and processing association to ensure the supply of meat and fish as much as 137,000 tonnes, native pig farming and fish culture, and finished-product promotion.
The stimulus package also includes the reduction of the electricity price for rice farmers affected by flood and wage hike by 20 percent for the lowest wage workers at the textile sector. “The export volume of Lao handicraft products to Japan and European market has fallen sharply by 70 percent, due to the poor standard of Lao products,” according to the Vice-Premier.
Over the past eight months, the export volume has also fallen due to the fallen goods price and the appreciation of the local currency kip, making the payment for export up by nearly 10 per cent.
The export of copper has also declined by 60 percent, electricity by 30 percent, garment by 10 percent and coffee beans by 18 percent.
In contrast, the volume of imports increased by 7 percent and 5 percent of investment leading to an increasing the volume of trade deficit.The Government has an ambitious plan to promote tourism in various forms for its growth. But there are problems to the plan, including higher costs of service than neighbouring countries, the non-uniform fees of visas issued at different border checkpoints, price of hotel rooms, guesthouses, foods and others, that should be addressed, said Mr Somsavat. He also urged for the improved air link between Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos to stimulate the growth of the Lao economy.

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