Vietnam has emerged as one of the largest of the 29 foreign investors in Laos over the past five years, ranking fourth in the number of projects and third in registered capital.

The country now has 69 of the 540 foreign-invested projects in Laos, totalling almost US $500 million. Of these, 47 projects worth US $452.6 million are currently operational. The projects are concentrated in agro-forestry, mineral exploration and mining, electricity, and transport.

In the reviewed period, as many as 34 Vietnamese businesses, including 11 joint ventures between Vietnamese companies and Lao partners, registered to do business in the country.

Among those, the most noteworthy is the Vietnam-Laos Electricity Investment and Development Joint Stock Company, with Vietnam's Song Da Corporation holding a 60% stake. The company was permitted by the Lao Government to build two hydro electric power plants in southern Laos with a total investment capital of US $806 million.

The construction of the 250 MW Sekaman 3 power plant, with an estimated cost of US $273.8 million, began in Sekong province in early April 2006 and is expected to be completed in 2009. Meanwhile, a feasibility study for the 465 MW Sekaman 1 power plant in Attapu province is being conducted.

The Vietnam-Laos Joint-Stock Rubber Company and the Dac Lac Rubber Co. Ltd. have, since late 2004, invested US $60 million to grow rubber trees in Champassak province. So far, they have planted nearly 6,000 hectares of rubber trees, creating jobs for thousands of local people.

Apart from electric power and agro-forestry development projects, Vietnamese businesses such as the Vietnam Economic Co-operation Company (COECCO), the Vietnam National Chemicals Corporation (Vinachem) and the Ha Tinh Mineral and Trade Corporation have also poured tens of millions of US dollars into projects to explore and exploit gypsum, Kalinite salt, tin and lead in Bolikhamsay, Khammuone and Huaphan provinces.

Speaking at a recent ceremony to inaugurate Road 18B, which stretches 111 kilometres from Laos' Attapu town to the Bo Y border gate in Vietnam's Kon Tum province, which was built with a soft loan of US $48 million from the Vietnamese Government, Lao Deputy Prime Minister Thongloun Sisolit affirmed that Vietnamese businesses' investment capital into Laos has remarkably increased in recent years.

This is considered a good signal for investment ties between Laos and Vietnam, as well as a firm foundation for their multifaceted co-operation in the coming period, he said.