Businesspeople explore investment opportunities in Bokeo
Businesspeople explore investment opportunities in Bokeo
More foreign companies are exploring investment opportunities in Bokeo province inspired by incentives from road linkage and the fourth Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge which opened in December last year.
Businesspeople from Denmark, Hong Kong, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and USA recently visited Bokeo province to learn more about investment prospects as well as the potential and facilities available there.
Provincial authorities briefed them about possible areas for doing businesses in the province as well as laws and other facilities related to investment in Laos.
Director of Bokeo Provincial De partment of Planning and Investment Mr Souban Sompasong told Vientiane Times on Tuesday that since the completion of Road R3 connecting the province to China and Thailand and the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge, many delegations, including Asean ambassadors and business people, have visited Bokeo.
“The business sector has moved up to build hotels, restaurants and other service related businesses after learning that business will boom in our province,” Mr Souban said.
“Meanwhile we are working to facilitate the business sector by providing them the necessary facilities for their businesses such as electricity and water supply.”
Currently an investor from the Republic of Korea is developing a specific economic zone in an area nearby the friendship bridge to accommodate the inflow of foreign investment.
The US$42 million project aims to transform the area into a complex tourism region with a number of activities including hotels, restaurants, spas, a shopping centre and so on.
Mr Souban was optimistic that economic growth in Bokeo will boom in the next 10 years since the province is now integrated with the region and the world.
The bridge is already boosting the province's economy as investors race to reserve land near the crossing. The bridge provides Laos with better seaport access, which could attract more foreign investment to the country and the region.
Bokeo will become a trade and tourism hub of the northern region. Since the bridge opened, more visitors and vehicles carrying goods between China and Thailand have changed to use this route.
But the main challenge is how the province can gain more benefit from the economic integration; otherwise it will be only a transit province for goods and people to pass through.
Bokeo is also strategically located in the centre of the Economic Quadrangle (Thailand, Myanmar, China and Laos) as well as the North-South Corridor (overland connection between Southwestern China and Southeast Asia).
Bokeo province in northern Laos covers an area of 6,196 Km2. Its economy is agriculture-based with a high proportion of subsistence farming.
Rich natural resources exist throughout the vast forests in the province. Such resources and local agro/bio-diversity are yet to be efficiently utilized or correctly managed.
But officials said the province has the potential to become a focal point for business and tourism sectors in the near future.
vientiane times
