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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
There is a paucity of any real industry in Laos outside
of
timber harvesting and electricity generation. Nonetheless,
"manufacturing" represents about half of all industrial
activity.
Other manufacturing activities include the production of
agricultural tools, animal feed, bricks, cigarettes,
detergents,
handicrafts, insecticides, matches, oxygen, plastics,
rubber
footwear, salt, soft drinks and beer, textiles and
clothing, and
veterinary products. Manufacturing employed only
approximately 2
percent of the labor force in 1991. A few factories in the
Vientiane area have been rehabilitated since the
mid-1980s. As of
1994, the garment industry was "booming" with investment
from
China, France, Taiwan, and Thailand; there were more than
forty
garment factories in the Vientiane area.
The manufacturing subsector was composed of over 600
factories
and plants, of which one-third were state-owned in 1991.
Most
manufacturing is for domestic consumption and is centered
in the
Vientiane area. As of mid-1994, there was little
manufacturing in
or near Laotian towns. In 1989 and 1990, there was a rapid
increase
in cottage industries such as cotton spinning and weaving,
traditional village crafts, basket-weaving, and the
production of
alcoholic beverages. As part of the informal business
sector,
however, cottage industries are not covered by national
statistics.
Between 1980 and 1990, over 80 percent of manufacturing
was in
the production of clothing, food and beverages, metal
products,
tobacco products, and wood products (see
table 6,
Appendix).
Industrial roundwood production increased 71 percent
between 1975-
77 and 1985-87 to an annual average of 330,000 cubic
meters and
then declined to 309,400 cubic meters in 1990. Sources
differ over
the growth trend for lumber production; the UN reported a
decrease
in production of 61 percent between 1980 and 1988, and the
Asian
Development Bank showed an increase of nearly 400 percent
in the
same period. Cigarette production rose from 1.10 billion
units per
year from 1981-84; to 1.12 billion units in 1985 and an
estimated
1.20 billion units per year for 1986-90. Statistics over a
lengthy
period of time for the production of other major goods are
not
readily available; however, the Asian Development Bank
estimated
that the value of metal products, food and beverages, and
clothing
(at 1991 prices) had increased greatly between 1980 and
1990, by 55
percent, 195 percent, and 196 percent, respectively (see
table 7,
Appendix). A general upward trend in the growth of
production is
borne out by official LPDR statistics from the first half
of the
decade. The World Bank reported that the manufacturing
subsector
grew by 35 percent in 1989, slowing to about 4 percent the
following year.
Data as of July 1994
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