Lao’s Country Statement

China-ASEAN Free Trade Area

Excellencies,

Distinguished Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to have an opportunity to be at High – Level Regional Workshop

on China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) with the concern foreign ministers, senior
officials and a number of international agencies, in Jakarta the beautiful capital city of
Republic of Indonesia.

As you may know, We come to attend this High-Level Regional Workshop are the realization
of a request made by ASEAN representatives to the Laos Government.

We are representatives of Laos. We are in charge of representing our country which is Lao
PDR in this High Level Regional Workshop. We would like to take this opportunity to
provide statement responding to the formation of CAFTA. Laos supports CAFTA to
generate economies of its member states, but we decided to ratify CAFTA in 2015. One
factor that made us decide to join the CAFTA year 2015 is our internal economic factors are
not stable, therefore we decided to improve our national economic system in advance coupled
with activities to prepare to jump in the free market. But we still participate in meetings
related to existing and CAFTA to support the realization of the free market will have a
positive impact to the economy of Southeast Asia.

In this remarkable occasion, I would like to express my highest appreciation to the

Government of Republic of Indonesia for hosting and providing an excellent arrangement
made for this important workshop.