Phuong made the statement on January 9 while co-chairing asenior official meeting within the framework of the 44th session ofthe Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee on Bilateral Cooperation with ViceChairman 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 werefive newly-registered projects and four seeing capital adjustments, with atotal combined capital of 112.84 million USD, an increase of 27 percentcompared to 2020.
Many projects continued to operate well, fulfil financialobligations to Lao state agencies, create stable jobs for tens of thousands ofLao workers, and make important contributions to the process of economicregulation of Laos. As a result, Vietnamese enterprises contributed more than 1billion USD to the Laos budget, and donated about 80 million USD for socialwelfare activities in the past 5 years.
Viengsavanh Vilayphone acknowledged the results of economiccooperation between the two sides in 2021.
He and Deputy Minister Phuong discussed cooperative measuresto be submitted to the two Prime Ministers at the 44th session ofthe Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee on Bilateral Cooperation.
They focused discussions on measures to address difficultiesfacing enterprises, particularly those related to capital, taxation, import-export,and land lease, while agreeing to coordinate in creating a stable and transparentlegal corridor, and a favourable business environment.
Regarding trade and investment promotion, the two sidesagreed to focus on promoting the growth of trade turnover, striving to achievea stable increase of 10 percent or higher compared to 2021./.