Mining top of land concession investment pile
Mining top of land concession investment pile
The mining sector is still top of land concession investment in Laos after constantly attracting investors to the field over the last few years.
In 2012, the government approved 54 mining projects, 48 projects last year and 13 projects in the ten months of this year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
Most of the investment projects in the mining sector have been foreign joint ventures.
In 2012, foreign joint ventures comprised about US$310 million of the total investment value of US$397 million, while domestic investment between the private and government sectors covered about US$87 million.
In 2013, the foreign joint ventures reached about US$1.07 billion out of a total of US$ 1.18 billion in the mining sector with domestic investment from the private and government sectors making up only US$103 million.
Meanwhile, for the ten months of this year, foreign joint ventures comprised about US$707 million of US$742 million total mining investment with the remaining US$34.8 million from domestic private investment.
Despite the government having suspended concessions for some mines targeting the export market over the last few years other mines supplying domestic demand have still needed investors.
The other popular sectors attracting domestic and foreign investors are hydropower followed by agriculture and then services.
While the value of land concession investment around the country this year is expected to decrease for trading, industry and handicrafts as well as construction, overall business investment still remains high.
Last year, the government agreed to approve 69 land concession investment projects worth around US$3billion, of which over US$700 million was from domestic sources and almost US$2.3 billion from foreign investors.
While for the ten months of this year, there were only 31 projects worth about US$924 million approved, of which about US$ 173 million was from domestic investors and US$751 million in foreign joint ventures.
Of these, many large projects are still under construction while others are just starting operations, so the number of new approved projects decreased.
However, the amount of small and medium enterprise (SME) investment especially in restaurants, hotels and property development is continuing to increase, in response to growing demand.
The government is also giving the green light for domestic and foreign investors to invest in different sectors to expand economic development.
vientiane times
