In light of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, ECCIL EuroCham Laos will be disseminating the announcemens of the Governement of Lao PDR, in order to update you in the most efficient way possible.
The English translations are provided by ECCIL EuroCham team and might be subject to corrections by relevant authorities.
Report 0343/MOIC, dated 7th May 2021
Several proposals were proposed in the report including:
Facilitation of import-export and the movement of goods within the country
- Solve issues at the checkpoints as the implementation on the fields from authorities differ from the Notice of the MPWT; some requirements are also not aligned with the Notice;
- Allow Businesses and international drivers to deliver any kind of goods to the final destination, as long as the requirements included in Notice 0242/MPWT are met;
- COVID-19 test issued by private medical centers should also be considered valid as the ones issued by the public hospitals;
- Propose to setup a hotline call for business sectors to report and consult with relevant sectors to solve issues better and faster.
Commerce sector
- Keep coordinating with companies provide consumer goods in order to guarantee the sufficiency of consumer goods.
Manufacturing and handicraft industry
- Support and monitor factories that ceased operations and encourage those factories to open soon by following safety measures strictly;
- Help business sectors as much as possible by issuing verification letter to those who could not provide products to customers on time in order to help avoid penalties as it falls under force majeure case.
Proposal of measures and policies
- Issue notices and keep monitoring factories to guarantee the implementation of safety measures of factories and disseminate information regarding to COVID-19 to those factories; Encourage employees of those factories to go for vaccination;
- Measures such as extension of tax/VAT payment to manufacturing and handicraft factories, reduce costs of commodity bills, extension of payment provide credit to manufacturing and handicraft factories;
- Allow business operators and employees to enter Laos but undergo the 14-days quarantine requested by the Task Force;
- Propose the PMO, MPWT and MOIC to setup special official website or Facebook page during the COVID-19 outbreak as a resource hub.
Referring to the Agreement 0238/BOL, dated on the 26 March 2020, the Bank of Lao PDR (BOL) has issued an additional Agreement, with the purpose to have further policies credits.
The policies particularly target banks and financial institutions loan consumers, who needed to stop operating businesses, including freelances, affected even partially, in earning income and are unable to repay to the banks or financial institutions.
Among the policies outlined, a 3 months extension of repay to banks, credit and leasing companies from May to July 2021.
We would like to thank all the members for their feedback related to the difficulties in transporting goods across the country. After collection of information, ECCIL EuroCham Laos has submitted to the Department of Transports, Ministry of Public Works and Transports, a Clarification letter.
At date, the issues stipulated in the letter were acknowledged by the MPWT, the MOIC, the Task Force and the LNCCI, as stated at yesterday’s daily press conference from the Task Force.