Vietnam and Laos have agreed on a number of measures to removedifficulties for their businesses and facilitate cross-border goodsexchange in an effort to raise two-way trade in the future.
The two sides reached the consensus during talks between visitingVietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu and hisLao counterpart Khemmany Phonsena in Vientiane on August 22.
In the coming time, the two nations will create a legal framework for their businesses’ trade and investment activities.
They will also focus on studying a possibility of establishing a newtrade agreement that suits the current situations of the two nations,especially when they are members of the World Trade Organisation.
The two sides suggested measures to increase border trade, improvepeople’s living conditions and maintain political stability and securityin areas sharing the border, thus contributing to fostering theVietnam-Laos special relationship.
Two-way trade betweenVietnam and Laos has seen a robust growth in recent years, reaching866 million USD last year, a 17 percent increase from the 2011 figure.It was 504 million USD in the first half of this year, up 8.3 percentyear-on-year.-VNA