The economy of Laos

The Laos government is communistic since 1975. In their early years they have devastated the economy. In the early 1990s Laos was among the ten poorest countries in the world. Over the years Laos slowly tried to become liberal but had only limited success. The country still depends for a lot of things on international aid and the basic human rights are heavily restricted. Economic freedom is still held back by poor institutional development and the lack of economic-reform, which is highly needed.

This makes that Laos only has an economic freedom score of 51.2 in 2014. A score between 50.0 and 59.9 means the country is “Mostly Unfree”. This score is below the world an regional averages. Although Laos’ score is a little higher than last year it is still too low. The country has made small improvements in five of the 10 economic freedoms. With this score it is ranked 31^st out of 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

But we must say that the southeast nation of Laos has achieved some remarkable things. They have engineered a huge multibillion-dollar road and diverse high-speed rail infrastructure projects. We have also seen some massive hydroelectric dams who were made possible due to investments from China, Thailand and Vietnam. Laos has a very interesting and ambitious hydroelectric power sector. The country already has 13 dams in operation, and plans to construct 70 more. By 2020 they hope to produce 12,500 megawatts of power annually. This would give a great boost to their economy.

The fastest growing industry in the economy of Laos is tourism. The government had opened Laos to the world in 1990, and is now a popular destination among tourists. The country attracts people by a country untouched by the modern demands, stress and peace of life. This is highly attractive to tourists all over the world nowadays.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/laos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

http://www.ibtimes.com/laos-rapid-economic-growth-landlocked-southeast-asian-country-leaving-rural-poor-behind-1559619

http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/laos/ECONOMY.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Laos

http://www.tourismlaos.org/