According to the report on the socio-economic development plan, fiscal year 2012-2013 of the Ministry of Planning and Investment the main expectation of industry and commerce in this year was to increase the value of imports and exports for all year to reach 4.370m US dollar, attempting to reach an export value of 2,060m US dollar but the actual export value was only 1.89 billion US dollar, a deficit of 7.84% when compared to the plan. By contrast imports, where 21.85% higher than planned. The reason is the increased demand on raw material, tool and equipment for production, construction, vehicles, gas and fuel for use in various foreign investment projects in the country.
The reason exports did not meet the plan is due to external factor that affected production in the country namely the issue of debt in the EU countries, the situation in Middle East countries and North Africa that had an effect on production and exports. Therefore the export figure for the last fiscal year reached 1,898.38m US dollar only.
Exports were mostly of minerals and reached 1,678.64m US dollar, an increase of than 12% on expectations. This figure comes from 19.36 tons of gold, 82,999 tons of copper, 288.990 tonnes of bold copper, 761.094 tons of coal, 1 million tons of marble and 646.000 tons of salt.
Furthermore, the increase in industrial processing of manufacturing and handicraft in the last fiscal year will have a positive effect on exports in future, even though the uncertainty of the world economy and the value of foreign currency may be affect exports, but in the next year Lao products will increase their flow to international markets and the value of exports will increase steadily.
Information Source:
Social-Economy Newspaper
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