Thailand
Lao gov’t improves cross-border trade
Trading across borders has improved due to the government’s effort to create a more business-friendly environment, a local report said on Thursday, quoting Lao Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
Lao ministries and other government bodies are making efforts to improve the ease-of-doing-business (EDB) climate after Laos’ EDB ranking as assessed by the World Bank dropped 13 places to 154th among 190 economies worldwide, local daily Vientiane Times reported.
Lao Ministry of Industry and Commerce said trading across borders, one of the 11 indicators the World Bank used to assess the ranking, has improved considerably.
Laos’ trading across borders facilitation ranking climbed from 124th in 2018 to 76th so far this year — an improvement of 48 places, according to the Lao ministry’s 2019 trading across borders report.
This progress has put Laos at the fourth place among the members of ASEAN. Other ASEAN members, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, took the top three places.
Trading across borders facilitation is measured by such indicators as time taken to complete paperwork, procedures at border crossings, import, export, as well as total time taken and expenses.
Thanks to Laos’ improvement in this regard, the time taken to complete import-export documents dropped from nine days previously to two and a half days, the Lao ministry said.
Source: http://en.ce.cn/World/biz/201901/10/t20190110_31229462.shtml