Vientiane (VNA) – Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith has sa🀅id his country wants more Vietnamese investment in consumer goods production and timber processing to diversify the trading portfolio between the two sides.

He met Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh on August 4, who was in Vientiane to attend the 48th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting and related events. Anh said his ministry has strongly bolstered industry and trade cooperation with Laos and reaped encouraging outcomes, including the issuance of a circular guiding the implementation of the countries’ border trade agreement so as to soon put the deal’s special incentives into practice. The ministry has also held a series of workshops to popularise the Vietnam – Laos Trade Agreement and the border trade pact in Laos’s Vientiane, Savannakhet and Luang Prabang provinces and Vietnam’s capital Hanoi. It has completed a 220kV power line project which is now ready to connect with the Laos-based Xekaman 1 hydropower plant to bring electricity from the country to Vietnam. Efforts have also been made to implement projects on potassium salt mining in Khammouane province and building a hydropower plant in Luang Prabang on schedule, the official noted. At the meeting, the Lao leader asked his guest to ensure the progress of Vietnam’s hydropower and mining projects in his country, while promoting the use of the East-West Economic Corridor, which traverses Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, to augment bilateral trade. The application of the one-stop-shop model at Vietnam’s Lao Bao border gate and its Lao counterpart Densavanh also needs to be reviewed to extend this model to their other ports of entry, he said.-VNA