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Headlines:
Slave Colony Puts on a Corporate Mask
China Wires Northern Laos with $92M Power Line
PM Vows to Tax His Way to Self-Reliance
ADB Opens Wallet, Wags Finger
Mekong Hatcheries Crack the Fingerling Code
Vientiane Picks Hanoi First
Tourism Plan Doubles Down and Wins
Double Checking the First Digital Head Count
An Ethics Manual for the Robot Age
Thirteen's the Charm
Slave Colony Puts on a Corporate Mask
A whistleblower trapped inside a pig butchering compound in Laos's Golden Triangle special economic zone leaked 4,200 pages of internal WhatsApp chats to WIRED, showing the internal mechanics of how forced laborers run cryptocurrency romance scams. The documents, mostly screen recordings turned in to screenshots over three months, show workers on 15-hour night shifts inside a high-rise called the Boshang compound, getting motivational messages from managers while grinding through scam quotas. Mohammad Muzahir, an Indian national held in debt bondage without his passport, made contact with reporters last June while still captive and spent weeks feeding them internal training scripts, operational flowcharts, photos, videos, and the chat logs themselves. The leaks show what one anti-scam prosecutor calls "a slave colony that's trying to pretend it's a company," complete with corporate-speak pep talks and punishment systems where workers face fines for missing revenue targets, beatings for rule breaking, and worse for attempts to escape.
Read more: Wired
China Wires Northern Laos with $92M Power Line
Laos broke ground January 30 on a 186-kilometer, 230-kilovolt power line connecting Luang Prabang and Xieng Khouang provinces in another chunk of grid infrastructure bankrolled by China Development Bank. The $91.57 million project, developed with China Electric Power Equipment and Technology, will string two circuits through nine districts by late 2027. Electricité du Laos says the line will push hydropower from northern dams south toward Vientiane, part of the government's 2024-2030 energy plan to shore up domestic supply. The loan adds to Laos' already hefty tab with Beijing, now estimated to be north of $10 billion for roads, rails, and power projects. That’s resulting in the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in ASEAN (about half national GDP). Vientiane keeps talking up its ambitions as the "battery of Southeast Asia," as of now, most of that juice still heads to Thailand's grid under long-term purchase agreements.
Read more: Laotian Times
PM Vows to Tax His Way to Self-Reliance
Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told a national finance meeting Friday that Laos will bring revenue collection into the 21st century by way of a new FinPass system at border crossings and mandatory electronic invoicing for all businesses. He is targeting revenue of 20% of GDP in 2026, a number that’s well up from what's currently one of the region's lowest tax-to-GDP ratios at around 13%. The push to rake in more money includes the centralization of management of large state enterprises under the finance ministry and interconnecting revenue platforms between sectors for better oversight. Finance Minister Santiphab Phomvihane said the reforms would help to decide is Laos will be able to hit its 2035 goal of upper-middle-income status, with per capita income rising to $4,600-$5,000 yearly. The 2026 plan also calls for 5.5% GDP growth and an extra one percentage point of GDP from state-owned enterprises.
Read more: The Star
ADB Opens Wallet, Wags Finger
The Asian Development Bank approved $149 million for four projects in Laos for agrifood systems, primary care, skills training, and forestry, but Country Director Shanny Campbell isn't popping the champagne just yet. She is putting the heat on Minister of Public Works and Transport Leklai Sivilay to try and get things moving more quickly across the board. The prodding comes as Vientiane's Bus Rapid Transit system remains idle after a December suspension over safety issues, with no restart date despite a “launch” as a free trial during November's That Luang Festival. The PM is willing to admit that future donor funding is still up in the air even as the government pays contractors for finished work. Campbell also met Vice Minister of Industry and Commerce Manothong Vongxay on January 27 to talk about the energy transition and cross-border power trade markets, pushing ADB's delivery concerns beyond transport to the country's larger infrastructure agenda.
Read more: The Star (ADB partnership), Laotian Times (push for speed)
Mekong Hatcheries Crack the Fingerling Code
A three-year-old Lao startup called Aquaculture of Lao has pushed fingerling survival rates from 5% to as high as 60% at pilot hatcheries on the Mekong by using cheap sensor systems that keep track of temperatures, oxygen, pH, and turbidity. The sensors send the data into a digital interface that lets farmers adjust conditions before an overnight die-off destroys a cycle, an apparently common problem. The company, one of 60 winners in the ASEAN Blue Innovation Challenge backed by UNDP and Japanese funding, is now supporting the production of two to three million fingerlings yearly and expects to get that number up to 15 million as they scale. Twenty-four hatchery owners got hands-on training in data-driven management, and early estimates peg net economic value at $267,000 over four years, with most of the income staying local.
Read more: En Vietnamplus
Vientiane Picks Hanoi First
Lao Party General Secretary Thongloun Sisoulith chose Vietnam for his first state visit in his new role in a bit of diplomatic choreography that Hanoi both noticed and appreciated. The two sides set a $10 billion bilateral trade target during discussions in late January and agreed to keep what they're calling "strategic political alignment" as the basis for future cooperation. Both also committed to improved education and training, but details on how that might be implementated remain thin. The visit is a sign of who Vientiane sees its most reliable partner as it charts a course between Hanoi and Beijing.
Read more: En Vietnamplus
Tourism Plan Doubles Down and Wins
Vientiane pulled in 2.2 million visitors in 2025, handily topping its target of 2 million, and raking in $621 million windfall. The good numbers are a welcome turnaround for a capital that's spent years in the shadow of Bangkok and Hanoi. The draws remain what they've always been: Pha Thatluang's gold stupa, Wat Sisaket's Buddha collection, and the Ho Phrakeo Museum. International arrivals were responsible for most of the growth, though the government's numbers don't break out where exactly those tourists came from or how long they stayed.
Read more: Travelandtourworld
Double Checking the First Digital Head Count
The Lao Statistics Bureau is training 277 enumerators for a Post-Enumeration Survey starting this month as they run a quality check on the country's first-ever digital census. That project wrapped field collection in November after four years of preparation, but it seems like there’s still plenty to be done. The survey will verify data from 184 enumeration areas that covered about 55,000 households. Final results are expected in the middle of the year.
Read more: The Star
An Ethics Manual for the Robot Age
Laos has published a national AI strategy informed by UNESCO's ethics framework, joining 77 countries using the UN agency's policy tools to try and figure out digital governance. The plan puts education reform, R&D investment, and "homegrown AI solutions that respect culture," at the forefront, but the assessment is up front about gaps that remain in access, skills, and capacity. The strategy is being woven into Laos' 10th development plan.
Read more: Dig Watch
Thirteen's the Charm
Laos and Thailand held their 13th border coordination meeting on January 28 at the First Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge, rotating leadership of joint patrols and talking a big game about future cooperation against drug trafficking, human smuggling, and crime. The two militaries take turns hosting these sessions before each rotation in a dance that's kept border operations running cooperatively for years now. The priorities this round are on labor trafficking, smuggling, and cybercrime. Interesting to reflect on how the border situation on this frontier compares with that of Thailand and Cambodia.
Read more: En Vietnamplus
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Incredible reporting here. The detail on the Boshang compound really shows how these operations blend corporate structure with forced labor in ways most people don't realize. I worked with anti-trafficking orgs for a bit and the WhatsApp chat logs showing "motivational messages" alongside punishment systems is exactly what makes these cases so hard to prosecute intenationally.