By Mr. Thongsavanh Phyathep,

Minister counselor of the Laos Embassy in Beijing

I highly value the cooperation between Mekong Countries and China under the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation mechanism over the past five years, especially water resource cooperation. The First Ministerial Meeting of Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation was held in 17 December 2019 reflected the significant importance of this cooperation in water resources. This effort of LMC both benefit to LMC countries’ social economic development as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 such as: Poverty Reduction, No Hunger, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities and community, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water and life for land.

In addition, over the past 5 years, the LMC had paid the utmost effort on the cooperation within three pillars and five priorities areas comprise with over 500 projects, including water resources. The year 2020, over 150 project was adopted by the leaders that supported by the LMC special fund. Among those, 12 projects from Lao PDR was included including four water related project namely: 1) integrated water resources management in Nam OU watershed, 2) supporting data and information management in water resources planning in the Mekong basin, 3) dam safety information management pilot project for LMC, 3) research and demonstration of rural water supply safety technology in southern part of Lao PDR. I strongly believe that in next batch of project, the water related projects will be increased productively.

Domestically, Lao PDR attach the importance to the water resources development by implementing the vision 2030 and 10-year National Strategy on Natural Resources and Environment (2016-2025) to administrate, manage, prevent and conserve the natural resources with sustainability together with social-economic development including the water resources. I do believe that China and other LMC countries will continue to support our vision and strategy.

In this regard, I would like to share with you that Lao PDR have 13 main rivers connect to Mekong river, which flow along Lao territory with amounted of 1,898 km long. Therefore, the government underscore the comprehensive water resources management with sustainability in order to ensure the water usage in social-economic development, livelihood and ecology conservation.

In term of legal instrument, there are several legal document that had been implementing, please allow me to highlight some: National Policy and Strategy on Water and Water Resources, Law on Water and Water Resources, establish the regulation on inclusive water resources management and so on.

Beside the LMC cooperation, Lao PDR has other commitments and obligations with other international framework such as United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mekong Agreement, ASEAN-China Strategy on Environment Cooperation and others.

In this connection, Lao PDR stands ready to work with China and other Mekong Countries to realize the LMC water resources cooperation as a one of five priority areas. The Embassy stands ready in this regard. Thank you.