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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

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All-Weather Friends, Whatever the Forecast

Thongloun Sisoulith finished his Beijing visit on June 6, having signed 32 cooperation agreements. The relationship also got an upgrade to what Xi Jinping is calling an "all-weather China-Laos community with a shared future in the new era," a phrase that does a lot of diplomatic work for a country that's carrying more than $18 billion in cumulative Chinese investment. The deals run the gamut of trade, finance, agriculture, energy, and human resources (training, mostly). Xi is also pushing a new "3+3" dialogue on diplomacy, defense, and public security that both sides say will help to tamp down on cross-border fraud. The last item is probably the most interesting - Vientiane handed nearly 500 telecom and online fraud suspects to Beijing in May. On the economic side, bilateral trade was $9.82 billion in 2025, up more than 19 percent year on year, and Xi is making noise about faster railway connectivity through to Thailand. Thongloun, for his part, said China's development was a "valuable reference" for Laos as it modernizes.

Read more: Asian News Network (AI corridor), CCTV (Li Qiang meeting), Laotian Times (visit timeline), CCTV (3+3 dialogue), CGTN (railway cargo)

Vientiane and Beijing Pencil In Twenty Billion

Bilateral trade between Laos and China has doubled since 2021, reaching $8.8 billion in 2024 (and then the aforementioned $9.82 billion in 2025). Both countries are now looking at a $20 billion target by 2030. The roadmap was hammered out in Suzhou on May 21, when Industry and Commerce Minister Malaythong Kommasith met his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao. It covers energy security (especially timely since March's fuel crunch), electric vehicles, a domestic NPK fertilizer industry built on Lao potash reserves, and mineral processing. The fertilizer play is the sleeper story. Laos supplies the potash, China ships in phosphorus and nitrogen, and the finished product will remain mostly in-house. Beijing and Vientiane also renewed their currency swap agreement, which greases the payment rails that the Suzhou meeting had flagged as a priority.

Read more: Laotian Times (four pillars), TradingView (currency swap)

Vientiane's Villa Problem

Police raided a rented villa in Xaythany District on June 3 and hauled out 24 Chinese nationals, along with electronics tied to alleged telecom scam work. That was the cap on a week in which 73 foreign suspects were detained in both Vientiane Capital and Vientiane Province. The June 1-2 sweep through Vang Vieng, Keo Oudom, and Viengkham netted about four dozen more. Passports and equipment was taken from nationals of China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. The arrests come as part of a campaign that Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone ordered in late April and that’s racked up more than 1,000 detentions across the country in just the month of May, from 605 suspects shipped from Savannakhet to Vientiane on May 7 to a 27-person bust in Chanthabouly on May 26. On June 5, UNODC and the UK government brought partners together in Vientiane to talk about trafficking links, cybercrime, and illicit finance. British expert Rob Clark shared regional notes.

Read more: Laotian Times (arrest breakdown), The Lao Times (UNODC meeting)

Graduating Poor, Still Paying Tuition

Forest cover was reduced by 2.9 percent between 2000 and 2015, public debt tipped 131 percent of GDP in 2022, and only a third of Vientiane's estimated 970 daily tons of waste gets collected and properly taken care of. That's the balance sheet behind this year's UN least-developed-country graduation, an achievement that Vientiane’s been on the heels of since the early 2000s. Debt has since been reduced to 88 percent of GDP (year-end 2025), and poverty is down to 15 percent. The 2055 target to get to “upper-middle-income status” was set in January 2026.

Read more: Fulcrum

Potash Pit Swallows a Village

Vientiane authorities met June 3 to start coming up with compensation rates for land, crops, and structures that were wrecked by sinkholes in Thongmang village, Xaythany district, though no figures have become public yet. Five holes have opened since May 2025, the biggest/ worse one on January 2, when one swallowed four villagers whose bodies were never recovered. Thirty-eight households have been evacuated, mining was stopped in July 2025, and ground stabilization work continues.

Read more: Laotian Times

Thai Cavers Answer the Call Next Door

Lao PM Sonexay Siphandone sent a thank-you letter to his Thai counterpart Anutin Charnvirakul on June 7 and credited three Thai rescue units with helping pull five of seven villagers from a flooded cave in Xaysomboun Province's Longchaeng District. The men had been trapped by flash floods on May 20. The survivors were able to make an exit between May 29 and 30, after rescuers ferried supplies in and pumped water out. Teams stopped work inside the cave on June 6 after they thought that there were signs of a collapse forming at the entrance. Two villagers are still missing after more than ten days.

Read more: Laotian Times

Bombs Outlast the Bombmakers

Michael Boddington, the British consultant who set up COPE in Vientiane in 1997, has passed away at the age of 84. What began as a small operation that made fitted prosthetics for amputees now treats about 1,500 patients each year. Lao staff have run it since Boddington previously stepped back from regular work in 2016. The problem of UXO continues to plague the nation. On March 27, a clearance team destroyed a 500-pound American MK82 bomb in a village near Luang Prabang; three days earlier, another team had taken out a similar one in Xiengkhouang province.

Read more: The Guardian (Boddington biography), Nikkei Asia (MK82 clearance)

Toyota Tsusho Brings the Factory to the Customer

Toyota Tsusho has set up a vehicle assembly subsidiary in Laos called Toyota Tsusho Manufacturing Laos. Production is scheduled to start in April 2028 and output is expected to best 5,000 vehicles a year. The trader has run Toyota's authorized dealership in the country since September 2018, and is now moving past finished-vehicle imports to knock-down assembly. It expects to have components shipped in before it puts them together locally. The Hilux pickup and Fortuner SUV will be the anchor models. Toyota Tsusho says the expansion is about price competitiveness and supply stability, since import costs and logistics have been squeezing margins. About 150 local jobs are expected to be created once the line is running.

Read more: Toyota Tsusho

Vientiane Swats Malaria Down to 269 Cases

Indigenous malaria cases in Laos fell from 15,497 in 2016 to 269 in 2025, a remarkable reduction of more than 98 percent. The success was shared at the 10th Asia Pacific Leaders' Summit on Malaria Elimination in Vientiane on Friday. Deputy Health Minister Phayvanh Keopaseuth has further ambitions, saying he wants zero indigenous cases by 2030. Throughout the Greater Mekong Subregion, confirmed cases fell by more than a third between 2015 and 2024.

Read more: Asian News Network

Not Wine Vats After All

When archaeologists excavated a squat, collapsed stone jar on the Xieng Khouang Plateau in the winter of 2022, they weren't expecting to find ancient rice wine, but they also were not expecting to find what they did find: the jumbled remains of at least 37 people. Skulls were stacked around the rim, thigh bones laid across the edges, infants and adults together in a single multigenerational crypt. The find, published in the journal *Antiquity*, backs what scientists have long suspected. The Plain of Jars megaliths were communal ossuaries, used by Indigenous communities that first let bodies decompose elsewhere before gathering the bones for collective burial. Lead archaeologist Nicholas Skopal of James Cook University said it was a dig that left the team in silence.

Read more: Seattle Times

EDL Pulls the Plug on Vientiane

Three Vientiane districts are losing power for stretches between June 5 and 9 as Electricité du Laos runs maintenance, equipment installs, and pole relocations. Sikhottabong gets the worst of it, with nine straight hours on June 7 in Nahae, Nonsawang, Dankham, and several other villages, from 8 AM to 5 PM. Soknoy village along the 450-Year Road in Xaysettha is getting eight-hour cuts from 8 AM to 4 PM on June 5, 6, 7, and 9. Near Patuxay Monument in Chanthabouly, residents will lose four hours on June 7.

Read more: Laotian Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

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Five Alive, 300 Meters to Go

Divers reached five of the seven men who have been trapped since May 19 in a flooded Xaisomboun cave, and found them alive on a rock in the dark about 300 meters from the exit. Getting them out is not going to be easy. Some tunnels are as narrow as 60 centimeters, floodwater has cut visibility to zero, and Thai rescuers are publicly asking for donated oxygen tanks. Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who worked the 2018 Thailand boys' rescue, said the environment is "extremely remote and hostile.” The two other missing men have not been found. The cave is about 120 kilometers north of Vientiane, and requires a four-kilometer jungle hike to get to. In addition to everything else, rain has hampered the operation since the beginning. Sobering.

Read more: AP News (survivor condition), The Guardian (extraction challenges)

Thongloun Goes Shopping in Hangzhou

Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith got to Hangzhou on Tuesday and spent his first afternoon on a factory floor, watching robots run and somersault at a Deep Robotics facility before going to Alibaba HQ to review the company's global data center and cross-border e-commerce setup. A robot gave him a small plush toy; he thanked it in Chinese. The five-day visit will last through June 6, and is happening during the occasion of the 65th anniversary of China-Laos diplomatic ties.

Read more: Global Times (railway passenger volume), Xinhua (bilateral trade)

Thakhek to the Sea

The Lao National Assembly has approved a rail extension that will connect Thakhek to Vietnam's Vung Ang seaport. The new spur adds to a network that currently delivers Chinese-made electric vehicles to Vientiane from Chongqing in as few as five days, down from the (up to) 30 that it used to require when they were getting sent by sea and road. Cross-border trade on the Laos-China Railway was nearly a billion USD in Q1 2026, still climbing at a robust 62ish% clip year-on-year. Cross-border services have risen from two trains a day at launch to 23 today. The train gets a lot of ink in the Mekong Memo, but it’s truly been a game changer for Laos.

Read more: The Southeast Asia Desk

The Zoo That Wasn't

Authorities and Free the Bears have rescued 27 Asiatic black bears from a Lao bile farm, the largest rescue in Southeast Asia. Authorities say the operation had been registered as a zoo to dodge regulatory scrutiny. The facility, run by a Chinese national, was designed to an industrial scale and built to keep up to 200 bears. Fortunately for our ursine friends, the capacity was never reached. The rescued animals, all aged one to three, are believed to have been poached as cubs and will join more than 150 other bears that the NGO has collected over nearly a quarter century at its Luang Prabang Wildlife Sanctuary. Laos has closed the legal loopholes that once protected older farms, making all commercial trade in moon bears illegal.

Read more: Mongabay

The Mekong’s New Extension Cord

A 100-megawatt stream of Lao hydropower is now running south through Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore, and the city-state's energy regulator says the grid could eventually go all the way north to southern China. Puah Kok Keong, chief executive of Singapore's Energy Market Authority, said the prospect was "very real." Companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia have signed agreements over the past year to further develop renewable projects together and improve cross-border trade in low-carbon power.

Read more: SCMP

Brussels Remembers that Laos Exists

A three-member European Parliament delegation led by Wouter Beke held an EU-Lao Inter-Parliamentary Meeting in Vientiane on May 25. It’s the 7th such meeting, and the first session since 2017. Cybercrime and human trafficking were on the formal agenda along with trade, climate, and ASEAN integration.

Read more: EEAS

Flour Power

A three-year partnership between Dongguan Technician College and the Lao Women's Union Training Center has put 52 Lao women through courses in tailoring, baking, and Cantonese cuisine. Graduates say they’re able to earn monthly incomes up 50 to 70 percent higher as a result. One of ladies, Khanpovan Phanthadasomchith, is a 37-year-old cooking instructor who returned from a May study trip to Guangdong fixated on meat floss sponge cake and now says that she hopes to open her own bakery in Vientiane.

Read more: China Daily

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

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Gold Diggers Stuck Behind a 50cm Gap

Seven villagers have been trapped inside a flooded cave in Xaisomboun province since May 19 after flash flooding blocked the exit while they were searching for gold. There has been no contact with them since. An eighth member of the group managed to swim out through rising water and raised the alarm. Rescuers, including Thai cave diver Kengkard Bongkawong and Finnish specialist Mikko Paasi, both veterans of the 2018 Tham Luang operation, have pushed about a hundred meters into the flooded passages and believe the seven are sheltering on an elevated ledge about 30 meters further in, where airflow is continuous. The last physical obstacle is a gap 50 centimeters wide that’s been clogged with sediment. "The route is not complicated but the problem is the space," Kengkard told reporters. Four surface shafts above the cave system are also being look into as a backup route. Authorities had repeatedly warned villagers that the cave was unsafe.

Read more: CNA (air shafts), Straits Times (gold and hunting), The National (meters remaining), Sydney Morning Herald (rescue volunteer leader)

Battle-Tested in Ukraine, Teaching in Vientiane

Russia's Eastern Military District has arrived in Laos to run special units of the Lao People's Army through the Typhoon-2026 training course, with the joint Laros-2026 exercises to follow. The Russian Defense Ministry said the welcoming ceremony unfolded "in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual respect." Lao troops also got a look at some of the latest Russian hardware that the ministry said has been "tested in real combat conditions" in Ukraine.

Read more: Anadolu Agency

Phu My Plants Its Flag on the Bolaven

PVFCCo, Vietnam's state fertilizer giant, spent a few days last week running technical workshops in Attapeu and Sekong's Bolaven Plateau, tying together fertilizer sales with soil evaluations, cultivation seminars, and demonstration plots. Sugarcane fields at TTC Attapeu's Station No. 1 using the full PVFCCo package were able to muster 75 tons of output per hectare last year, and that’s the highest average yield in the region, according to the company. The fields currently in production will stay on PVFCCo's nutrition program through this year. It’s another foothold for Vietnamese agribusiness on a plateau that’s increasingly being farmed by Lao neighbors.

Read more: The Investor

Princess Aiko Returns to Laos in Tokyo

Laos Festival 2026, in its 14th edition, ran May 23 and 24 in Tokyo, bringing thousands of celebrants to two days of traditional dance, food, and handicrafts. The headliner was Princess Aiko, however, who attended for the first time since her November 2025 trip to Vientiane, which was itself her first official overseas visit as an adult imperial. The gesture is an indication of how seriously Tokyo is about investing in Laos as a soft-power foothold. Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane went to Tokyo from Vientiane for the opening, meeting on the sidelines with Shinako Tsuchiya of the Japan-Laos Parliamentary Friendship Association and Susumu Takahashi of the Saitama-Laos Friendship Association.

Read more: The Star, Travel and Tour World

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Dysprosium Doesn't Stop at the Border

Satellite mapping published in December 2025 picked out 517 sites that are suspected to be involved with rare earth mining along Lao rivers. That figure is up from 27 mines counted in a previous effort by the Stimson Center. Civil conflict in Myanmar's Kachin and Shan states has disrupted the feedstock corridors that Chinese refiners spent years depending on, and the China-Laos Railway now offers an alternative route north. The geology is also helping as ion-adsorption clay deposits in Xieng Khouang and Houaphanh provinces carry rare earth concentrations of 400 to 700 parts per million. That’s a very similar environmental formation to that which has made southern China's highlands worth fighting over. Chinese-connected operators have moved into the space quickly, partly because there is no institutional force pushing back. Vientiane's debt position toward Beijing is well documented, and enforcement capacity (to say nothing of appetite) in the northern provinces is thin. Dysprosium and terbium have no meaningful separation or refining infrastructure outside China, which still controls the downstream chemistry that turns clay into magnets.

Read more: Eurasia Review (Laos debt figure), Rare Earth Exchanges (Myanmar disruption)

Swapping Notes on Scam Compounds

Security ministers from Laos and Cambodia convened in Phnom Penh to sign a cooperation deal in which they agree to share intelligence across their shared border. The meetup follows crackdowns in Bokeo and Savannakhet that resulted in 1,347 arrests during April and May. The new pact will work toward closer coordination between border provinces and investment in checkpoints and crossing infrastructure. Cambodia's interior minister Sar Sokha also briefed his Lao counterpart on the Thailand border situation and thanked Vientiane for supporting the Asean Observer Team that’s monitoring the dispute.

Read more: The Star

Vientiane Trades Landlocked for Land-Linked

Laos and Thailand signed an MOU in Bangkok standardizing Mekong navigation safety and pollution rules. The two waterway departments agreed on five regulations for traffic management, inspections, emergency response, search-and-rescue, and crew certification. A Bilateral Steering Committee will be given half a year to stand up, and eight more regulations will come into force by 2035. The deal is coming as a follow-on to the 1995 Mekong Agreement, and officials were careful to flag freedom of navigation alongside the safety rules. The Lao delegation also took a tour of Thai port infrastructure, traffic control centers, and maritime training facilities.

Read more: Nation Thailand (crew competency certifications), The Star (signing officials)

Vientiane Bets on Hainan as Saltwater Workaround

Viengsavang Thipphavong, at the Lao Institute for Industry, told China Daily that Hainan's seaports could give landlocked Laos a maritime gateway under RCEP. Agricultural products like bananas, cassava, and rubber are front-of-mind. The pitch is that good will be able to move north by rail through Boten to Chinese ports, then out from there to third-country markets. The Laos-China Railway already handles the first bit, and it’s expected that Hainan's Free Trade Port, with its simplified customs and expanded trade access, would cover the ocean leg.

Read more: The Star

Vientiane Bets on Wrenches Over Diplomas

A nationwide vocational education campaign was launched at Vientiane Secondary School, sending educators and successful alumni into school assemblies to make the case that tourism, agriculture, and hospitality jobs remain unfilled even as graduates chase academic credentials that the labor market doesn't want. The Ministry of Education and Sports hopes to reach 150,000 people in at least nine provinces through 2026 and 2027.

Read more: The Star (COVID enrollment decline), The Star (deputy minister quotes)

Three Countries With One Brochure

Laos and Vietnam signed a five-year culture and tourism cooperation plan in Vientiane on May 12 to try and keep Vietnam among its top inbound markets. Inked by ministers Suanesavanh Vignaket and Lam Thi Phuong Thanh, the deal sets up a coordination committee for the newly-listed transboundary World Heritage Site that covers both of Laos's Hin Nam No and Vietnam's Phong Nha-Ke Bang national parks, and will run technical cooperation in film, publishing, and libraries through 2030. Both sides also agreed to push the "three countries, one destination" pitch along with Cambodia. Hanoi is hosting a trilateral tourism ministers' meeting at the Ho Chi Minh City International Tourism Expo.

Read more: Asian News Network

Plain of Jars Gives Up Its Tenants

A stone jug a little over two meters across at Site 75 on the Xieng Khouang Plateau has settled a century-old argument. The Plain of Jars was, in fact, a burial complex. The jar held the remains of at least 37 people, placed there at intervals between 890 and 1160, along with multicolored glass beads that were made in India. Skulls were arranged along the edges; arm and leg bones bunched together, suggesting that the jar was a final stop rather than the first one, with bodies likely "distilled" in smaller jars nearby before the bones were moved in.

Read more: Sciencenews (ancestor worship), Livescience (researcher attribution)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Moscow Tops Up Vientiane's Tank

Russian Deputy PM Alexander Novak told Izvestia on May 9 that Moscow is preparing its first oil product shipment to Laos, days after President Thongloun Sisoulith met with Putin at the Kremlin during Victory Day celebrations. It was Thongloun's second trip to Moscow for the occasion, and the Russian side brought a heavy roster, with Lavrov and Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev among those at the table. That’s a lot of firepower for a bilateral trade relationship Putin previously called "relatively modest." Trade between the two countries did double last year, but that was from a low base. The fuel angle is the news, as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka have all been buying Russian oil as the Iran conflict continues to choke Middle East supply, and landlocked, fuel-import-dependent Laos is now on that list. Logistics are still being worked out.

Read more: The Star (Iran supply disruption), Kremlin (Kremlin meeting), Voice of Emirates (Novak announcement)

Beijing Paves the Road to Hanoi

Henan ZhongGong Design and Research Group, a 62-year-old Chinese state-owned firm, will survey a 200ish-kilometer expressway that would connect Vientiane to Laos's northeastern border with Vietnam, with the route designed to eventually chain north to China. The highway would stitch together what planners call a land-linked corridor running from Yunnan through the Mekong to the Vietnamese coast, giving southern China an overland trade artery that would skirt maritime chokepoints at a moment when Beijing's sea lanes are under American scrutiny.

Read more: SCMP

Pre-Paid Storm Insurance

SEADRIF and the UN World Food Program activated a $1.1 million parametric insurance policy on May 1, covering more than 31,000 people through cash transfers connected to Laos's national social protection systems. The trigger is people-based, not damage-modeled. Payouts will kick in when official government data shows at least 200,000 people have been impacted, then scale up from there. The design has been used before, for example, after Tropical Cyclones Wutip and Wipha led to flooding in 2025, a companion sovereign policy delivered $2 million to the Lao government within days.

Read more: Reinsurance News (hazard types covered), Funds for NGOs (people-based trigger), Artemis (official quotes)

Fewer Laotians and Later Weddings

The 2025 National Population and Housing Census puts Laos at 6.74 million people, with yearly growth at 0.8 percent, down from 1.4 percent the previous decade and 2.1 percent the decade before that. The culprits, per the census, are later marriages and an inclination toward smaller families. Working-age Laotians (15 to 64) make up almost two-thirds of the population today, under-15s make up nearly a quarter and those over 65 less than 6 percent. This was the fifth census since the system began, and the first one that used digital data collection.

Read more: The Star

Mechanics Swap Wrenches for Voltmeters

A two-day workshop in Vientiane on May 5-6, run in collaboration with Chiang Mai University, brought together more than 50 mechanics and energy technicians for hands-on training in battery EV maintenance. It was the first program of this kind organized by the National University of Laos. The government has sweetened the deal on EVs with a zero percent import tax, a 3 percent consumption tax, and no quota limits, as it tries to get EVs to make up at least 30 percent of the national fleet by 2030. It’s inspiring work, but the biggest challenge may be in making sure that the grid can keep up.

Read more: Asian News Network (lead instructor), Travel and Tour World

Cebu Breakfast Features a Familiar Menu

Sonexay Siphandone worked overtime at the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu on May 8, holding a Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam trilateral breakfast with Hun Manet and Vietnam's Pham Minh Chinh before staying at the table for a separate talk with Hanoi. The bilateral was the first between the two leaders since they each took office, and they agreed to start getting ready for "Laos-Vietnam Solidarity and Friendship Year 2027," which would celebrate 65 years of diplomatic ties and 50 years since their Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The talking points were the usual, with transport connectivity, energy, trade, and defense topping the list. Sonexay invited Pham and his wife to Vientiane; Pham invited Sonexay to Hanoi and to the ASEAN Future Forum 2026. Both accepted.

Read more: The Star (invitation exchange), Asian News Network (CLV trilateral)

Six Dead, Distillery in Frame

A UK pre-inquest hearing into the November 2024 Vang Vieng tourist methanol poisonings has cleared Nana Backpacker Hostel staff of contaminating the drinks, with Australian Federal Police telling South London Coroners' Court there is "no evidence" of their involvement. Investigators are now eyeing the distillery that supplied the alcohol. Six people died after drinks served at the hostel, including a traveler from Kent, two Australian teenagers, an American, and two Danes.

Read more: MSN

Vientiane Promises Quicker Chops

Laos set up a new committee to fix its investment approval bottleneck, and it’s finally held its first meeting. The Investment Promotion and Management Committee met at the Prime Minister's Office on May 8, chaired by Standing Deputy PM Saleumxay Kommasith, following PM Decision No. 30 that came out on April 20. Saleumxay reiterated the need for an integrated investment database that brings together data into a unified platform for use by both the ministries and provincial administrators. He said that provincial officials needed to be more active in monitoring approved projects. The amount of time that approvals currently require went unmentioned.

Read more: The Star

Vientiane's Dance Card Fills Up

Japan's Parliamentary Vice-Foreign Minister Shimada Tomoaki stopped by the Lao Embassy in Tokyo on May 11 to keep the Complete Strategic Partnership warm, while in Minsk the same day, Belarusian FM Maxim Ryzhenkov was confirming readiness to host President Thongloun Sisoulith for an official visit at Lukashenko's invitation. Ryzhenkov's counterpart in the room was Deputy FM Maithong Thammavongsa, who was there for inter-ministerial consultations.

Read more: Japan MOFA (Shimada visit), Belarus Today (Thongsavanh invite)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Laos Sells Power Direct

Lao solar generators can now sell power directly into China's Southern Regional Power Market, bypassing the intergovernmental price negotiations that previously governed the cost of every kilowatt-hour. One the first day’s operation of the new 500-kV line that strings together Yunnan, Oudomxay, and Luang Namtha, 4.81 million kWh from a northern solar project were sent over the border by way of a market transaction. China is expected to sell power back during the dry season, when Lao hydropower output is reduced. Running the project is EDL-T, a joint venture between Electricité du Laos and China Southern Power Grid that has a 25-year concession on the country's transmission assets. The deal was formalized in 2021.

Read more: Dialogue Earth

Inflation's Encore in Vientiane

Laos brought inflation down from a vertiginous 30 percent in 2023 to about 7.7 percent in 2025, a remarkable achievement. But the climb seems to have started again, as prices in February and March started edging up before getting to 10.2 percent in April, whipsawed by energy costs the economy hasn’t yet found a way to insulate itself from. The harder numbers are on the fiscal side. Social protection spending is roughly 1.6 percent of GDP, public health now is about 2 percent, and interest payments and capital outlays keep eating the rest before education or healthcare get their turn at the trough. The Ministry of Finance is desperate to increase revenue to 20ish percent of GDP by improving collection and trimming the discretionary exemptions that have been eroding the tax base.

Read more: The Star (AMRO regional outlook), East Asia Forum (labor migration)

Jakarta Wants In on the Potash

PT Pupuk Indonesia gets almost all of its potassium from Laos, and Jakarta has decided that it’s time to stop being a passive customer. At a Tuesday meeting between Deputy PM Phomvihane and VP Gibran at the Jakarta Vice Presidential Palace, Indonesia said it wanted Pupuk Indonesia and its sovereign wealth fund Danantara to make a fertilizer investment in order to change a supply relationship into an equity play. Indonesia-Lao trade is $83.3 million yearly, with Jakarta having a $57 million deficit, almost entirely from potash. It was Phomvihane's first trip to a Southeast Asian capital since the new Lao government formed in March.

Read more: Antara News (delegation members), Antara News (trade deficit), Antara News (JCBC reactivation)

Comrades Mark 65 Years, Renew their Vows

Wang Yi met Thongsavanh Phomvihane in Beijing on Thursday, and China's foreign minister again sang refrains about Beijing’s readiness to “deepen cooperation”. The usual topics of late were high on the agenda: the railway, minerals, trade, and human resources. The visit comes during the 65th anniversary of diplomatic ties. Vientiane also re-affirmed the one-China principle and committed to putting the 2024-2028 action plan to work in order to support a shared-future community. Tens of thousands of Lao students currently study in China.

Read more: MITV (Wang-Thongsavanh meeting), Xinhua (Li Hongzhong reception), Socialist China (Xi-Thongloun exchange)

Too Big to Solo

The Bank of the Lao PDR's Decision No. 310, issued April 9, 2026, puts a lid on how much a single commercial bank is allowed to carry alone. Any loan request that pushes past the Tier 1 Capital levels that were set in November 2025 (that’s 25% for a single borrower, 50% for related parties, 500% for major borrowers in aggregate) now requires a formal syndicate, with a lead bank, an agent bank, and a security agent, all bound under one loan agreement. Banks are still allowed to syndicate voluntarily below those limits, so the structure isn't punitive, but it is now mandatory at scale.

Read more: VDB Loi

Two Capitals Under a Cloud of Smoke

PM2.5 concentrations topped 100 micrograms per cubic meter across Laos earlier this month (double the commonly accepted safe level), and Thailand also reported unsafe air in its north, northeast, east and center. The shared misery brought Lao Agriculture and Environment Minister Linkham Douangsavanh and Thai Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suchart Chomklin together this week to review the Clear Sky Strategy, a five-point plan that includes fire suppression, air monitoring, long-term farming practices, law enforcement, and (most importantly?) implementation. Laos, Thailand and Myanmar formally agreed to the strategy in 2024, with a 2030 target. Nobody is holding their breath, but everyone’s kind of holding their breath on this one.

Read more: VnExpress

Vientiane Counts the Cost of Child Brides

Lao set up a National Advisory Group on child, early and forced marriage in Vientiane this week as part of an Australian-funded push that doesn't officially start until June 2026 and which runs through June 2028. UNICEF and the Lao Academy of Social and Economic Sciences says the yearly economic hit from early marriage is about US$40 million, much of it the result of lost productivity due to young girls dropping out of school. The new group, chaired by the National Commission for the Advancement of Women, Mothers and Children, is expected to coordinate government, UN agencies and partners working under Canberra's TUSIP program.

Read more: UNICEF

Tidying the Books Before the World Bank Arrives

The Ministry of Education and Sports is hustling to tidy up its books before a World Bank Implementation Support Mission arrives in early June. Last week's progress review for the GPE III: LEAP project, co-chaired by World Bank Senior Economist Michael Drabble, came with instructions for project units to clear outstanding budget items from both 2025 and 2026 in advance of the visit. On the assessment side, a Grade 3 literacy and numeracy test is rolling out across 40 districts and is going to serve as the headline scorecard for the program.

Read more: The Star

Another Road From Yunnan

A cross-border bus service connecting Yunnan to Luang Namtha began this week, adding road-level traffic to a corridor that already carries the railway and the power grid (and most of the debt). Luang Namtha, tucked against the Chinese border in the far north, now has a direct link for traders and tourists who previously had to patch together their own arrangements.

Read more: Travel and Tour World

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Horton International is your premier partner for executive search in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a small startup or a global corporation, our reliable and effective recruiting solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs. With extensive experience and offices across the region, we excel at overcoming recruitment challenges and securing top talent for your organization.

Click here to learn how Horton can make your life easier.

The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Headlines:

Washington Runs the Same Play, One Country Over

Diesel Doubles, Cabinet Convenes

Sixty-Five Years and Counting the Receipts

Laos Keeps the Lights On in Hanoi

Tourist Count Climbs Toward Six Million

Rain Does What Policy Couldn't

Vientiane Talks Insurance with the Hub Builders

Washington Runs the Same Play, One Country Over

The US Commerce Department has announced their preliminary antidumping duty of 22.46% that will be added to countervailing duties imposed in February, bringing total preliminary tariff exposure for Lao solar exporters to roughly 103%. The Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, whose members include First Solar and Hanwha Qcells, filed the petition last July. The complaint alleges that Chinese-owned factories shifted production to Laos and Indonesia to sidestep duties that had previously been put on Chinese goods. The same alliance has run this exact play before against Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam last April, and some of the rates are as high as 3,400%. Laos, India, and Indonesia together sent $4.5 billion in solar imports to the U.S. in 2025, about two-thirds of the total. Lao duties aren't going to be locked in until Commerce finalizes the deal and the International Trade Commission releases its injury determination on October 19. At that point, collected deposits will either become permanent or be refunded.

Read more: NDTV Profit (India, Indonesia rates), PV Magazine USA (total stacked duties), Laotian Times (Laos local impact)

Diesel Doubles, Cabinet Convenes

Inflation rose above 10% in April, up from 6.2% in February, diesel was responsible for most of the damage. A liter that cost roughly $0.93 in February was priced at more than $2 by April, and that’s dragged transport costs 23.7% higher year-on-year as well as pushed housing and utilities up 19.4%. Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone chaired a two-day cabinet meeting starting April 28 to work through inflation, exchange rate management, and a draft 10-year capital market strategy through to 2035. The government is also reviewing a minimum wage increase - proposals there range from LAK 2.7 million to LAK 4.1 million ($125 to $190) monthly, up from the current LAK 2.5 million ($116), pending confirmation from the Prime Minister's Office. April's print is still below the 11 to 15% levels we saw during the same period last year.

Read more: The Star (cabinet agenda), Laotian Times

Sixty-Five Years and Counting the Receipts

Bilateral Chinese trade was $9.817 billion in 2025, up 19.3 percent year-on-year, and China's cumulative investment in Laos is now in excess of $18 billion. Xi Jinping and President Thongloun Sisoulith swapped formal congratulations on April 25, the anniversary date of 65 years of diplomatic relations, and Xi said Laos is "a priority in China's neighborhood diplomacy." The railway, which gets no end of mention in this newsletter, and which has moved more than 80 million cumulative tons of cargo, is getting most of the credit for the rising trade figures. More than 80 percent of Lao agricultural exports, including rubber, durian, and high-quality rice, get to Chinese consumers directly on that line.

Read more: The Star (event timeline), Asian News Network (tourist arrivals), Xinhua (action plan), Laotian Times (language enrollment), CGTN (Xi)

Laos Keeps the Lights On in Hanoi

Laos sent 2.92 billion kWh across the border to Vietnam in Q1 2026, nearly 120 percent more than they did in the same quarter last year. That figure is 3.8 percent of Vietnam's total use. The increase came on the back of a few projects that came online through 2025, including the 600 MW Monsoon Wind farm and the 81-kilometer Tuong Duong to Do Luong 220kV line that opened in November. Vietnam's approved import pipeline is now involving 47 Lao projects totaling 8,260 MW, of which 2,379 MW is already delivering power, up from 1,700 MW in 2024. The 2030 target is 5,000 MW, going up to 11,000 MW by 2050.

Read more: The Star (Oudomxay solar, China line), Laotian Times (Monsoon Wind timeline)

Tourist Count Climbs Toward Six Million

Q1 brought 1.36 million visitors to Laos, up 8% year-on-year, making the government's 2026 target of 5 to 6 million look like it will be less of a stretch than it did in January. Thailand still sends about a third of all arrivals, but the interesting bit is happening on the margins. US arrivals were up 38.8%, Europe as a whole rose 52%, and the UAE posted 215% growth off a low base. Brazil and Greece each came in around 152%. Chinese visitors are expected to reach 2 million this year, continuing to be helped along by the Laos-China Railway and the 65th anniversary of bilateral ties. Interestingly, for the Lao New year period, Luang Prabang specifically saw a big change in demographics this year. The celebrations pulled in just 68,126 visitors this April, down from 126,846 a year earlier, and festival revenue was cut almost in half ($52.2 million from $97.5 million). Chinese arrivals more than doubled to 2,102 while Thai visitors collapsed 75 percent to 1,207, a reversal that would have seemed far-fetched two years ago. Vietnam rose 142 percent to round out the top three. Domestic tourists fell hardest in volume, off 48 percent. The international visitors who did show up stayed an average of five days and spent about $300 per person per day.

Read more: Laotian Times ($13B revenue target), Travel and Tour World (2025 target exceeded), Laotian Times (Luang Prabang New Year)

Rain Does What Policy Couldn't

Three days of light rain after the Lao new year dropped Vientiane's AQI from more than 200 (unhealthy) to between 26 and 37 (good). The dry season had thrown up more than 16,000 fire hotspots nationwide in the first quarter, daily counts went above 2,200 in mid-April. Phou Phanang National Protected Area has lost more than 1,400 hectares to the flames this year as holiday temperatures got as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109.4F).

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane Talks Insurance with the Hub Builders

Officials from Lao ministries, insurers DBV, Willis Towers Watson, and QBE came together in Vientiane on April 24 to talk through insurance and risk management for the energy and mining sectors. Vietnam's Ambassador Nguyen Minh Tam also made an appearance. The agenda covered cybersecurity, third-party liability, price volatility, and climate risk, a fairly complete checklist of things that have gone unmanaged as the country has built itself into a would-be regional energy hub. Vietnam, is Laos' second-largest investor, and has been the chief financier of the hydropower projects and cross-border power lines that make the question of who pays when something breaks a more pressing issue than it once was.

Read more: VietnamPlus

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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If you value the Mekong Memo, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

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The Mekong Memo is proudly presented by:

Horton International is your premier partner for executive search in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a small startup or a global corporation, our reliable and effective recruiting solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs. With extensive experience and offices across the region, we excel at overcoming recruitment challenges and securing top talent for your organization.

Click here to learn how Horton can make your life easier.

The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Headlines:

Laos Plugs Sunshine Into Yunna, Wind to VN

Vientiane Bets the Gold

Gold Glitters, Diesel Drags

Vietnamese Wind Beats the Clock in Savannakhet

Vientiane Envoy Gets the Full Beijing Treatment

Yunnan to Luang Namtha, Hold the Transfers

Ten Percent by 2040, On Paper

Four Boxes for Every Scalpel and Sensor

Laos Plugs Sunshine Into Yunnan, Wind to VN

China's Southern Power Grid switched on its first 500-kV cross-border AC transmission line on Monday. The line is a 177.5-km connection running from northern Laos into Yunnan that triples two-way capacity from 50,000 kW to 1.5 million kW. About 4.81 million kWh of solar power from a large mountain PV project in Oudomxay and Luang Namtha provinces crossed the border the same day, the first time an overseas new-energy project has traded into China's electricity market. The solar facility has an average yearly capacity of 1.65 billion kWh and is expected to send 1.1 billion kWh north throughout this year. The full line is rated for 3 billion kWh of clean electricity yearly, which is about 30 times what the previous connection could support. In a separate story, T&T Group’s 495 MW Savan 1 wind project in Savannakhet province was able to get commercial operations running within an unusually short 16 months. The 300 MW first phase is already running 48 turbines that feed into Vietnam’s grid. The timeline is the story because instead of building the plant and then waiting on transmission approvals, T&T ran construction and the grid link in parallel, shortening a process that usually drags on for years.

Read more: The Star (capacity multiplier figures), China Daily (trading normalization plans), Xinhua (minister quotes), News Laodong (Wind to VN)

Vientiane Bets the Gold

On April 2, the Ministry of Finance and Lao Bullion Bank signed an MOU at Vientiane's Suphattra Hotel to study a national sovereign wealth fund, to be called the Lao Investment Authority, with gold reserves, gold ore, and bullion to be used as the fund’s asset base. The pitch, made by debt management chief Vileth Kinnavong, name-checked Singapore's Temasek and Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional as models, a heady comparison for a country that has one of Southeast Asia's heaviest debt loads. The architects are planning two arms, a Strategic Development Fund to manage state assets for returns, and a Strategic Stabilization Fund to prop up the kip and support government liquidity. Using gold as a guarantee for bond issuance is explicitly on the table as a way to reduce debt servicing pressure. The preparatory phase, which will involve coming up with legal frameworks, institutional structures, and regulatory systems, is expected to take eight to twelve months. Lao Bullion Bank CEO Chanthone Sitthixay says the fund will allow for turning national assets into productive capital.

Read more: The Star

Gold Glitters, Diesel Drags

Q1 exports totaled $2.77 billion, with gold by itself bringing in more than $480 million, almost all of it absorbed by Chinese buyers. Potash added $299 million, cassava shipments to Thailand cleared $162 million, and the quarter closed out with a $310 million trade surplus. March, however, was on the uncomfortable side. Diesel imports ran $183 million for the month, double January and February’s numbers combined, and the trade balance briefly slipped into deficit. For the full Q1, diesel accounted for $375 million of the $2.46 billion import bill, more than 15 percent of everything Laos bought in from abroad. The surplus is real, just thinner than it was a year ago, when the same period resulting in $414 million in the black.

Read more: Laotian Times

Vientiane Envoy Gets the Full Beijing Treatment

Xi Jinping met Lao special envoy Saleumxay Kommasith in Beijing on Tuesday, accepting a personal letter from President Thongloun Sisoulith and a readout of January's LPRP congress. Wang Yi followed the same day, celebrating wins in railway connectivity, minerals and electricity cooperation, as well as a new five-year action plan for the "community with a shared future." Plenty of this and much more to come during next year's 65th anniversary of diplomatic ties and the Year of China-Laos Friendship.

Read more: Bastillepost (Wang Yi quotes), Bastillepost (Xi meeting details)

Yunnan to Luang Namtha, Hold the Transfers

Laos and China opened a second cross-border bus route on April 11, with vehicles running daily between Jinghong in Yunnan and Xiang Kok in Luang Namtha through a 280-kilometer western corridor that was formerly bereft of direct public transport. One-way tickets about $22, and the journey is a seven-to-eight-hour ride through the Mengman Chahe border crossing. Unlike the existing Mohan-Boten shuttle, a 16-kilometer hop built mainly to feed the Laos-China Railway, this route is a standalone intercity service into territory previously left to traders and locals. Trial runs started in December 2025 after talks in Kunming the previous May.

Read more: The Star

Ten Percent by 2040, On Paper

Laos wants its digital economy to grow from 3% of GDP to 10% by 2040. That’s… ambitious… for a country that’s listed as 131st of 190 economies (ranked by GDP). Vannapha Phommathansy, Deputy Director General of the Digital Government Center, has been promoting a system where "digital networks, data flows, and digital services" are accessible and affordable to everyone. The ten-year Digital Economy Strategy (2021-2030) is the roadmap. The five-year Digital Economy Development Plan wrapped last year with the government publishing a Draft Decree on Digital Transformation, a paper that was built around the three pillars of digital government, economy, and society. Current constraints are poor legal clarity, limited enforcement, and a thin digital skills base.

Read more: Trade Finance Global

Four Boxes for Every Scalpel and Sensor

Decision No. 1470/MOH, quietly posted to the Lao Official Gazette earlier this year, sorts medical devices into four risk classes. Three of them need full registration with the Food and Drug Department under the Ministry of Health. Class A devices and locally made export-only products get off the hook a bit more lightly, as they need only a basic notification. Emergency and humanitarian imports have a fast-track lane, as do devices that have already been cleared in countries with well-established regulators.

Read more: VDB Loi

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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