Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Lao counterpart Sonexay Siphandone co-chaired a Vietnam-Laos investment cooperation conference in Hanoi on January 7, as part of the latter's ongoing official visit to Vietnam, according to a report from the Vietnam News Agency (VNA).

Along with highlighting the investment environment and incentives for investors of Vietnam and Laos, participants evaluated bilateral investment and business cooperation over the years, and sketched out collaboration orientations in the future.

Vietnamese investors in Laos pointed to obstacles facing them and proposed solutions.

Currently, Vietnam is investing in 245 projects in Laos with a combined capital of $5.47 billion.

The Lao PM noted opinions and proposals by investors, affirming that the growth of Vietnamese investors in Laos has encouraged the development and implementation of socio-economic targets of Laos as well as the country's efforts towards an independent and self-reliant economy.

He held that the two Governments, business communities, and peoples should continue working hard together to make new breakthroughs, implementing new projects and specifying agreements reached between the two Parties, thus making the bilateral ties deeper, more substantial and effective.

The Lao leader said that his Government has focused on building and completing institutions, including policies to encourage investment, while redesigning their planning, including those for 12 economic zones and industrial parks across the country.

It has ordered ministries and sectors to continue researching and supplementing policies to call for investment in particular periods, and listen to the voice of enterprises to deal with their difficulties, he said.

PM Sonexay said he hopes Vietnamese firms will continue to invest in areas of Laos’s strengths such as clean agriculture, agricultural processing, mining, and clean energy.

This year, Laos is taking the role of the ASEAN Chair, he said, expressing his hope for support from Vietnam in general and the Vietnamese business community in particular

Laos hopes to welcome more Vietnamese visitors, especially in the Lao Tourism Year 2024, he stated.

The Vietnamese PM highlighted the all-round development in the Vietnam-Laos great friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation, including economic and investment collaboration.

He said that the two sides should make a breakthrough in bilateral economic and investment partnership, strengthening public-private partnership to expand infrastructure systems, fostering connections between the two economies by developing expressways, railways, and air routes between the two countries, and building the infrastructure system linking border gates.

Alongside, breakthroughs are also needed in high quality human resources training, which should become a focal point in the bilateral relations in the time to come, the Vietnamese leader said.

He proposed that the two sides focus on prioritized areas such as high-tech industries, innovation, energy, mining, high-tech agriculture, and e-commerce.

He asked ministries, sectors, localities and businesses of the two sides to coordinate closely together in dealing with current problems to speed up projects and strengthen investment cooperation.

The two Governments should continue to complete institutions and policies, creating favorable legal frameworks, improving the investment environment, and speeding up administrative reform to reduce investment costs for businesses, while giving priorities to each other's businesses in the spirit of harmonious interest and shared interest.

PM Chinh emphasized that each cooperation program and project carries in-depth political meaning, showing bilateral political trust and contributing to the socio-economic development in each country and the growth of the Vietnam-Laos special ties.

At the conference, the two PMs witnessed the granting of investment licenses and the exchange of memoranda of understanding among agencies and businesses of the two countries across various fields, including finance, agriculture, and mining.