Laos economy

The country's travails could deepen China's influence and destabilize the longstanding alliance between Hanoi and Vientiane.

Ordinary people are struggling to keep pace with precipitous increases in the price of petrol, cooking oil, and other basic necessities.

Debt, wealth inequality, and corruption will keep the country poor.

Since he took the reins last year, the country's economy has entered a downward economic spiral with no clear end in sight.

A candid report in a sedate state-run newspaper hints at the seriousness of the country’s economic problems.

Mounting foreign liabilities and thin foreign exchange reserves have left the nation of 7 million acutely vulnerable to global financial shocks.

A plummeting currency, dwindling foreign reserves, and a spike in global oil prices have led to shortages across the country.

But little good will come from authorizing the mining and trading of the volatile digital currencies.

The outbreak comes after a year in which the Southeast Asian nation mostly evaded the coronavirus.

The businessman Zhao Wei has established close relationships to Laos's communist elite.

Ballooning external debt and growing fiscal deficits augur political storm clouds for the ruling LPRP.