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Country Snapshot - Lao PDR  

HighlightsRankingsQuantitative DataLegislationAnalytical WorkProject Portfolio
  • East Asia & Pacific
  • Low income
  • 6,436,093 (2011)
  • 1,010
Lao PDR Flag
Below are select highlights for the data included in the profile.

  1. Laos is ranked 171st out of 183 economies in Doing Business 2011.
  2. According to the latest Enterprise Surveys (2009), Tax Rates, Access to Finance and Inadequately Educated Workforce constitute the top constraints to firm investment in Laos. Among the firms surveyed, 43% of them identify tax rates as a major constraint to investment. Only 18% of the local firms report having a line of credit or loans from financial institutions, compared to 40% regionally, and 34% for all countries surveyed.
  3. Laos’s economic freedom score is 51.3, making its economy the 141st freest out of 183 countries in the 2011 Index. Its overall score is 0.2 point better than last year, with improvements in monetary freedom and property rights offsetting a large drop in labor freedom. Laos is ranked 31st out of 41 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is below the world and regional averages. The economy is growing quickly, in part because of large inflows of Chinese and Vietnamese investment into its mining sector.