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Floods Swamp Boten Border Crossing
Flash floods swamped the Boten Special Economic Zone and the China border checkpoint area, sending water into homes, offices and farmland in 34 villages before the provincial committee declared it a disaster zone. National Route 13 North between the Oudomxay border and the Boten-China crossing has been closed because of landslides and washouts, and Lao Airlines has stopped Vientiane-Luang Namtha flights (no date for resuming the flight’s been shared yet). In Oudomxay, 74 villages and more than 3,800 households are still without power as blocked roads have hampered repair crews.
Read more: Laotian Times (flights), Laotian Times (power outages), Asian News Network (evacuations)
Central Bank Leashes Foreign Loans
Bank of Laos Decision No. 707 requires anyone outside the regulated banking sector, from shareholders extending intercompany loans to companies issuing offshore bonds, to get sign-off from the Foreign Exchange Management Department before moving any money. Commercial banks will not be able to credit an incoming loan or process an outward repayment without the approval either. Companies that earn cash mostly in foreign currency are able to borrow up to three-quarters of registered capital, kip-earners can get half. Public debt was around 85 percent of GDP in May, according to the Asian Development Bank, and the IMF expects it to ease toward three-quarters by the end of 2026.
Read more: VDB Loi (loan rules), Laotian Times (debt target)
Electricity Pushes Inflation to 7.7%
Consumer prices were up 7.7 percent in August, slightly above the 7.6 percent reported for July, as housing, water, electricity and cooking fuel climbed more than 30 percent year on year. That comes after July's almost comical 91.5 percent year-on-year increase in power prices. The eight-month average is 7.9 percent, uncomfortably well above the government's target and edging toward the Asian Development Bank's 9.8 percent forecast for the year. Vientiane is still looking for six percent growth this year, but these numbers will continue to make that a challenge - the ADB expects four percent, and the World Bank says 3.8 percent.
Read more: Laotian Times
China Got to Rare Earth Offtake First
Satellite mapping by the Stimson Center has found dozens of new rare earth mining sites have opened since 2022 in Xieng Khouang and Houaphanh. Geologists think the ground there can offer up about 600,000 tonnes of rare earth oxides. The valuable bits are mostly heavy elements, dysprosium, terbium and yttrium, that are used to make magnets needed in EV motors and wind turbines. China hasn’t purchased the deposits outright, rather it locked up offtake with provincial concession holders instead, using the same strategy it used in Myanmar's Kachin State (which has supplied more than half the value of China's heavy rare earth imports in several recent years).
Read more: Deccan Chronicle
Scam Sweep Gets 6,200 Arrests
Police held 139 more suspects at the end of August, raiding the Manggrove Hotel and Glory Residents in Xaysettha district and capping a month with almost 900 arrests in at least 12 spots. That brings the year's running total past 6,200, on top of the 589 hauled out of the ST Vegas building and the 261 picked up at Thatluang Lake Special Economic Zone. Chinese nationals made up the largest group in nearly every raid this month, though suspects came from at least seven countries. Investigators say they are still trying to figure out who the masterminds behind the networks are as none have yet been named.
Read more: Laotian Times
Thongloun Works SCO Sidelines in Bishkek
Thongloun Sisoulith became the SCO's newest Dialogue Partner, then worked the sidelines in a run of bilateral meetings. Belarus's Aleksandr Lukashenko offered machinery, joint ventures and technical training, and got a counter-pitch on gold, with Laos floating the idea of a second processing plant to go with the one already running. Narendra Modi and Kyrgyzstan's Sadyr Japarov also held pull-asides, though neither meeting produced anything substantive. Dialogue Partner status gets Vientiane in the room with China, Russia, India and the other SCO members for trade, transport and “digital connectivity.” Thongloun is next heading to Kazakhstan for another official visit.
Read more: SCO (security), Laotian Times (logistics), Economic Times (India meeting), Trend (Kyrgyzstan meeting), SB (Belarus meeting)
Finance Chiefs Line Up Three VN Megaprojects
Two-way trade with Vietnam was $1.47 billion through the first seven months of this year on exports of ~$1 billion and imports of ~$420 million back. Finance chiefs Santiphab Phomvihane and Ngo Van Tuan agreed at a meeting in Danang to continue work on the Vientiane-Hanoi Expressway, the Vientiane-Vung Ang Railway and a new 500kV cross-border power line, adding them into the 2026-2030 cooperation plan. No construction timeline or financing breakdown was given for any of the three, and the transmission line is still under review. Officials said this year's targets had "basically been met."
Read more: Asian News Network
Ministries Move to Unify Border Toll Patchwork
The Finance and Public Works ministries are trying to sort out a patchwork of cargo and toll fees between Thanaleng Dry Port, the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge and five Mekong River crossings. Thanaleng handles about 2,000 vehicles a day and added a new Cambodia-to-China produce route that has reduced transit times from almost 20 days to about a week. The ministries have also opened bids for a LAK 3.23 trillion ($148.7 million) project on National Road 9 in Savannakhet, bundling highway rehabilitation with electronic tolling for trucks of 12 tons or more on the corridor connecting Thailand to Vietnam. No winning bidder or rollout date was shared.
Read more: Laotian Times
Water Utility Posts Profit, Taps Still Short
Vientiane Water Enterprise showed a first-half profit of LAK 91.6 billion ($4.2 million), raking in more than half its annual revenue target even though the capital's taps are still running short of what’s demanded. Daily use has reached 504,000 cubic meters versus 400,000 produced. The utility supplies 378 of 481 villages (~four-fifths of the capital). Three new plants are expected to add 80,000 cubic meters of capacity by the end of 2028.
Read more: Laotian Times
Tourism Ministry Audits Zero-Dollar Tour Racket
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism is auditing operators in Luang Prabang and Vientiane because of alleged "zero-dollar" packages. These are cut-rate tours that make their money by steering foreigners into commission-heavy shops and restaurants instead of (non-profit producing) temples and parks. Inspectors are checking whether advertised prices match what tourists end up paying.
Read more: Nomad Lawyer
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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