An Analysis Of The Structure Of Foreign Trade In Laos

After years of war in Laos in the founding of a weak economic foundation, and each year the foreign trade deficit is, the structure of import and export trade imbalance. But the moment Laos real problem is how to reduce the foreign trade deficit after joining the WTO, and how the resources and improve the level of their economies together, achieve their development goals over the next decade. Currently, Laos how to optimize the structure of export commodities, reducing the trade deficit, promote economic development, is a question worth pondering. This paper explores the commodity structure of foreign trade in Laos, and a comparative analysis of nearly a decade of change in their (2003-2012). First, the theoretical basis of this paper is the theory of comparative advantage and factor endowments theory, the first part introduces the theory of trade structure and foreign trade commodity structure involves a number of related concepts and research status. Secondly, the current situation in Laos foreign trade commodity structure were analyzed. After the reform and opening up policy implementation in Laos, Laos has been the development of foreign trade, import and export commodity structure continuously expanded and optimized. The main trade partners of Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, the European Union, the United States and Canada, but in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and China’s trade with Laos foreign trade accounted for more than two-thirds, and is in all aspects of Laos has a lot of influence in the country. So paper selected three countries as the main analysis object, use the import and export of goods data analyzed nearly a decade of foreign trade commodity structure Laos. Although Laos after the reform and opening, especially in the last ten years, its import and export trade made a breakthrough development, but the overall look, there are still a large foreign trade issues, imports more than exports perennial, has long been is the trade deficit. In the commodity structure of foreign trade, due to the low starting point of the Lao economy, industry, mostly low-tech light industry, the lack of a complete industrial system. So much for imported goods, including heavy industrial products and precision instruments and other high-tech products, including industrial products, exports are mostly agricultural products, light industrial products and industrial raw materials and other primary products, import and export trade structure is extremely unreasonable. Third, we use Hefenyinde index, Lawrence index and structural optimization of these three in dices to measure changes in the trade structure of index changes Laos conduct foreign trade commodity structure measure, explore Laos import and export trade of goods between the structure in 2003-2012 The changes, and then summarize the results measure and explore its causes. Finally, the adjustment of the Lao Foreign Trade Commodity Structure of countermeasures.