On Tuesday the 1^st of December 2020 at LNCCI Building, Department of Agriculture, together with LNCCI  organized a Public-Private Consultative Meeting under the process of Lao Business Forum (LBF)

to address issues related to agri-business. The objective of the meeting is to demonstrate and clarify the procedures and conditions of applying for clean agriculture certifications , and access to the information on productions, imports and exports of agriculture products in Lao PDR. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Chantha Thippavongphanh, Director General of Agriculture Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and was co-chaired by Ms. Valy Vedsaphong, Vice President of LNCCI. The participants from the public sectors include: Department of Standard, Plant Protection Center and Clean Agriculture Standard Center from Department of Agriculture, Department of Standards and Metrology-Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Food and Drug- Ministry of Health, and Department of Enterprise Registration and Management and Department of Import and Export- Ministry of Industry and Commerce. In addition, there were also both local and foreign business owners in the agriculture sectors participated in the meeting.

During the meeting there was a presentation from Agricultural Department on procedures and conditions for applying for a clean agricultural certification (Lao Organic certification, GAP certification, etc.) by the representative from Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Guidelines on the procedure and the conditions were also distributed to the private sectors who participated in the meeting.  Since many business owners in this sector find it difficult to have access to this information, Lao National Chamber of Commerce (LNCCI), had requested the permission to post this information on LNCCI’s website for future references. In the second session of the meeting, the participants discussed the difficulties of accessing to annual data on agriculture productions, imports and export of agriculture products in Lao PDR. The Department of Agriculture pointed out that, currently, such information is publicly available and can be acquired from The Department of Agriculture, although it has not yet been made available via the ministry’s website.

In addition to the agendas, there was a discussion on why there is such a high price in clean agriculture and organic products in the markets. Another interesting point that Ms. Valy has mentioned in the meeting was the possibility of bringing these clean organic products into every district and village markets by making it mandatory to provide certain areas of each market available for these “green” products, instead of just making it available in one location (ITECC). Nonetheless, both the public and private sector gave real business scenarios on these issues and are willing to work together to find solution and it could be interesting to see how the agribusiness in Lao would turn out in the future.