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ADB and WB Cut Growth Forecasts
The Asian Development Bank expects Lao growth to slow to four percent in 2026 (vs 4.4% last year). The World Bank has a gloomier outlook with a 3.8% expectation. Vientiane is taking the figures in stride while talking a bigger game. Officials said growth was five percent in the first half and are sticking with their 5.5% target for the year. ADB thinks will be 9.8% though 2026 and will slow to a more palatable (but still high) 6.7% next year. Bank of the Lao PDR Governor Bounkham Vorachit told the National Assembly that he wants the full-year average under seven percent, which is a lovely target but will still be a stretch after price increases averaged almost eight percent through the first half of the year.
Read more: The Star
Chinese Buy Pangolin Scales on Railway
Guardian reporters working undercover found shops along the Laos-China railway selling pangolin scales by the bowl, as well as bear bile, tiger bone and ivory chopsticks. Some of the shops were disguised as tea shops or cultural centers that for “some reason” needed CCTV and electric gates. A Chinese-owned restaurant in Vientiane's Xaysettha district has been serving wildlife dishes to foreign tour groups as "special" menu items "that cannot legally be served in neighboring countries." Officers were able to take some of the illicit product, including pangolin carcasses and bear paws, as they arrested a Chinese citizen.
Read more: The Guardian (wildlife trade), The Guardian (undercover video), Laotian Times (restaurant raid)
Sweep Nets Scammers in Vientiane Homes
Police raided seven rented houses in Vientiane's Sisattanak district and arrested 122 foreigners from China, Malaysia, Brazil, Myanmar, Uruguay and Pakistan. All seven properties, in Buengkhayong village, belonged to CAMCE Investment (Lao) Co., Ltd. One house was stuffed with 34 Chinese; another held 31 people, including 26 Brazilians; a third yielded 19 Malaysians and a small stash of drugs. A Chinese citizen who came on the scene to try and arrange bail was also arrested. The sweep is perhaps the crescendo event in a month that has now produced more than 170 arrests in four other raids. More than 4,400 people have been arrested for cybercrime, online scams and illegal gambling in the first half of 2026, including almost 1,000 in June.
Read more: Laotian Times
Corporate Tax Rulebook Gets Rewrite
Laos has replaced its 2019 Income Tax Law with a new one that took effect on the first of July. The new rules introduce formal transfer pricing rules and set a 15 percent minimum corporate tax for multinationals for the first time. Permanent establishments of multinationals will now have to compute taxable profits as if they were standalone businesses, and the tax authority is allowed to adjust or disregard related-party transactions that they think don’t have an arm's-length rationale. The law also limits deductible net interest to 20 percent of EBITDA, disallows depreciation on administrative vehicles of more than LAK 1 billion each, and excludes already-taxed dividends from taxable revenue. Law No. 88/NA will apply to tax years beginning on or after July 1.
Read more: VDB Loi
4k+ Drug Arrests in Six Months
Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told the National Assembly that police opened 1,786 drug cases and arrested 4,025 suspects nationwide in the first half of 2026. The hauls are still piling up. Police found 1.2 million meth tablets abandoned in a pickup truck during a Bolikhamxay chase and intercepted 1.5 metric tons of meth tablets plus 500 kilograms of crystal meth on a Vientiane Province highway earlier this year. Bokeo police destroyed more than 17.3 metric tons of old evidence. Interestingly, Lao rehab centers reportedly took in 7,046 people; 2,769 have finished treatment and gone home. Seems like big business.
Read more: Laotian Times
Savannakhet Sinkholes From Erosion, Not Mining
Eight sinkholes, each 2 to 4 meters wide, have formed in Nongkadang village near irrigation canals and rice paddies in Vilabouly district. The area is Laos' main gold belt and not far from Lane Xang Minerals' Sepone operation. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce has now pinned the blame on limestone erosion and heavy rain, not mining, saying a nearly identical cluster opened in the same spot four or five years ago and another appeared in Khammouane's Thongkhanoy village in May. A January sinkhole that was connected to potash extraction in Xaythany district resulted in four people missing and required 38 homes to evacuate. A provincial technical team is reportedly now on site with Lane Xang Minerals to continue investigations.
Read more: Laotian Times
Typhoon Displaces 21,000
Typhoon Maysak's rains have displaced 3,822 households, or about 21,000 people, in Luang Namtha, Bokeo, Phongsali, Vientiane, Bolikhamxai, Khammouane and Savannakhet. Khammouane took the worst of it. In Koun Kham, 14 households were moved to temporary shelters, and authorities put up stranded travelers after roads were cut. The Lao Red Cross has installed an AP700 water treatment unit in Na Hang village to keep drinking water available as damage assessments continue. So far there have been no requests for any international assistance.
Read more: ReliefWeb
Wolbachia Mosquitoes Arrive in Five Provinces
The Wolbachia release program is now in effect for Vientiane, Oudomxay, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet and Champasak, after 336 village health volunteers in 197 villages spent April to June explaining bacteria-carrying mosquitoes door to door. Acceptance is reportedly at almost nine in ten households. The pitch is that the mosquitos are good for locals since a previous trial in India reduced dengue cases by more than three-quarters, and North Queensland has reportedly more-or-less eliminated local transmission. Laos reported 1,494 cases of dengue between 2025 and mid-2026.
Read more: The Star
Sign On as SCO Dialogue Partner
Ten months after a Tianjin summit resulted in the go-ahead, Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane put his pen to the paperwork in Beijing to bring Laos in to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a Dialogue Partner. The status is short of full membership but opens the door to SCO meetings on trade, transport, digital transformation and tourism. Transport is the obvious bit, given the China-Laos Railway which has become a pillar of the Belt and Road and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnerships. With this move, Laos joins 14 other Dialogue Partners who are working together on access to Central Asian, South Asian and Eurasian markets through a bloc of 10 members built around Beijing and Moscow. No new financing was announced.
Read more: Laotian Times (SCO status), CGTN (bloc lineup)
Assembly Debates Infrastructure, Civil Service
The 10th National Assembly's first session moved from poverty hearings to specifics. Champasak lawmaker Alounxay Sounnalath pushed for extending the railway to southern Laos, arguing it would support trade and regional growth. Public Works Minister Leklai Sivilay said road and water projects will put signed contracts and already-funded deals first, with the rest drawing on road maintenance funds, state investment, ODA and public-private partnerships. The PM confirmed that a “6+3+3” education overhaul will start with Grade 6 in the 2028-2029 academic year. The plan will lengthen primary schooling from five years to six and reduce lower secondary school (middle school) from four to three year. Also being considered are a new national teacher training university, Lao-Vietnam and Lao-Russia schools, and 2,500 new civil service posts, mostly for workers in healthcare and education.
Read more: Laotian Times
Lao Telecom Gets Flood Warnings on Speed Dial
Lao Telecommunications and People in Need Laos have agreee to send flood warnings by SMS and interactive voice response systems to the Lao public. The deal is aligned with the UN's Early Warning for All Roadmap 2024-2027 and was overseen by Director General Alounnadeth Barnchit and PIN Head of Programs Tomas Durana, along with officials from the Ministry of Technology and Communications, the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, and other UN agencies.
Read more: Asia Insurance Review
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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