The Opportunity And Challenges For Lao PDR In WTO Accession

One of the most important factors consist to the economic field which is a part of country development and concerned to politics of the least developed countries in order to integrate to international community as well as international organization. Lao PDR is one of the least developed countries and also a land-locked country made slowed Laos development. Laos declared independence from France in1975, and joined Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) then transform country’s regime to Market Economic Mechanism (NEM) in1986. Since then Lao PDR has became a member of ASEAN in1997, and AFTA in1998.The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a major organization to protect international trade’s interest, settling dispute and equally provide benefits for member countries. Lao PDR has applied for WTO membership since1997, and now Laos is almost achieves to the last process of WTO accession process. Lao PDR is a one-single Party state, and started to transform a regime of market economic in1986, therefore to adjust the obligations, other regulations which related to WTO requirement would be slower than other developed country. However, Lao PDR could gain some good lessons from Vietnam and China which share the same political ideology path those have already successful in WTO membership.In this paper, the difficulties and challenges for Lao PDR in WTO accession will be surveyed. The ultimate goal of this research is to highlight the opportunities and challenges facing Lao PDR. To assess to which policies have been implemented since1998for preparing to be a member of WTO, and the difficulties on accession process, also the benefit gain for becoming a WTO’s member. It also intends to demonstrate whether the government policies are practical and sound, particular on curtain key factor as domestic and international respect in order to find out and answer these questions:(1) Why Lao PDR needs to join WTO?(2) What law, decree, and agreement changes are needed for Lao government in WTO accession? And (3) what is challenges for Lao PDR in current progress to access to WTO. This study will provide a great contribution to the pool of knowledge in this area. The results of this study will also deepen our understanding on efforts to improve economic factors in various government institutions. It can also help raise economic awareness of the reform policies implementation. Moreover, the results of the study can be utilized by government and international organizations and donor countries for their future reform program development and implementation. It can also serve as a basis for future studies in regard to policies reform in Lao PDR.This thesis has divided to four main chapters:chapter one is the introduction part, described about the background and all basic of thesis including the review of literature and related research. Chapter two focused on the background and detail of WTO and the Lao PDR. Chapter three is a main part of this thesis; it is the findings and discussion part, described about the overall result of the thesis questions. And the last part is the conclusion and recommendations.Lao PDR is still facing a lot of policy adjusting and improvement which concerned to the internal and external aspects. To reform the law and obligations needs the balance of two aspects which are:(1) Must maintain the stable of political regime and protect the national interest (2) Can participate in global activities.