Concrete steps to strengthen collaboration between the three technical secretariats supporting the improvement of the business enabling environment through the implementation of the PM Order No. 02 and No. 03, the National Trade Facilitation Roadmap and Public Private Dialogue under the Lao Business Forum

Vientiane Province, 11 March 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce through its Department of Planning and Cooperation organized a technical meeting for the three technical secretariats, namely the Secretariat for the implementation of PM Order No. 02 & No. 03, represented by the Investment Promotion Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), National Trade Facilitation Secretariat, represented by the Department of Import and Export of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC), and the Lao Business Forum Secretariat, represented by the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LNCCI).

Primary objective of the meeting was to improve collaboration between the three inter-ministerial and public private partnership structures through better understanding of the existing operational structures and reporting mechanism, and adoption of concrete measures for building consensus on ongoing business enabling environment reform measures.

The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Sengphanomchone Inthasane, Deputy Director of the Department of the Planning and Cooperation (DPC), Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC), Dr. Phonexay Vilaysack, Deputy Director-General of the Investment Promotion Department (IPD), Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), and Mr. Phouxay Thepphavong, Secretary-General of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LNCCI).

The meeting discussed existing operations, structures, and priorities of all three inter-ministerial and public private partnership mechanisms as well as their medium-term priorities and agreed several important measures to strengthen collaboration of the three structures to make sure that tangible results can be achieved in key areas of ease of doing business, trade facilitation, and specific issues constraining private sector.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Sengphanomchone reiterated the meeting’s decisions to strengthen technical level collaboration of the three secretariats through informal exchange of information, holding quarterly technical meetings, and semi-annual meetings led by the heads of the three secretariats.

This meeting was supported by Lao Competitiveness and Trade (LCT) project, which is a multi-donor project funded by the World Bank Group, Australian Aid, Irish Aid, and USAID that aims to eliminate barriers to private sector-led growth by improving the regulatory environment, lowering trade costs and raising firm-level competitiveness.