1st Project Review Committee Meeting for USAID Lao Business Environment Project

Vientiane, December 08th, 2020. Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MoIC) organized the first Project Review Committee (PRC) meeting for the USAID Laos Business Environment (LBE) Project. The objective of this meeting is to review, assess and evaluate the progress of the project and the activities during its first year of implementation starting from July 2020 until December 2020.
The meeting was chaired by Mr. Somchith Inthamith, Deputy Minister, MoIC and co-chaired by Mr. Michael Ronning, USAID Country Representative to Laos. Attendance of the meeting included representatives from various departments of MoIC, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Information Culture and Tourism, Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, development partners and the project team.

Mr. Somchith expressed during his open remark that “Laos and US, particularly MoIC and USAID have a long history of cooperation particular on trade development since 2008 through strong support and collaboration under LUNA project phase I, LUNA II, and current support through the World Bank administered multi-donor trust fund for the Lao Competitiveness and Trade (LCT) project. The USAID Laos Business Environment project is the latest partnership between the two countries, aimed at improving business environment with focus on enhancing SMEs competitiveness in targeted sectors and increasing their access to both domestic and international markets”.

Despite the impact COVID-19, the USAID Lao Business Environment project was able to continue to implement its program while adapting several measures to address the obstacles. This was only possible because of government backing in particular by MOIC and the other project counterparts for their cooperation and commitment, added Mr. Michael Ronning.

Not only did the meeting highlighted the outputs and outcomes achieved by project, it outlined some key challenges and obstacles the project faced. During the meeting, the project’s Chief of Party, Mr. Melvin Spence, also gave an overview of the project’s year 2 activities plan and depicted how it would contribute to the overall objective of the project in improving Lao PDR’s business environment.

The meeting was ended with an opened discussion and Q&A regarding the project activities and its implementation plan.

The LBE was funded by USAID. The project provides capacity building and advisory services aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of Lao Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) while improving implementation of trade-related laws, policies and regulation. The project also targets the industry and service sectors with the highest growth and job creation potential.