Laos

E

Theater

Lao theater also reflects influence from India and Cambodia. Ballet for the court accompanied by an orchestra developed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Dancers wearing elaborate costumes and headdresses with masks portrayed scenes from the myths and tales of the Phra Lak Phra Lam. Lao folk theater with narrative, singing, and music is popular at temple fairs.

F

Museums and Libraries

The former Royal Palace in Louangphrabang has been turned into a museum. It contains a collection of Buddha images from the 15th to the 17th centuries as well as personal possessions of the last Lao monarch. Ho Phakeo in Vientiane is the national museum and houses a collection representing the variety and originality of Lao culture from the 6th to the 20th centuries. Wat Sisaket in Vientiane also contains a collection of Lao art. The National Library in Vientiane is poorly stocked, although it does house a collection of palm-leaf manuscripts.

VI

Economy

The traditional Lao economy was based on agriculture, handicraft production, and trade. Indeed, for centuries before Europeans arrived, flourishing local and long-distance trade networks had linked Southeast Asia with East and South Asia. It was the prospect of controlling the lucrative Asian trade in spices and other luxury goods that initially lured the French and other Europeans to Southeast Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries. Later they also hoped to exploit the region’s natural resources. However, French efforts to develop Laos economically in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to little, as they quickly concluded that Laos’s terrain made commercial agriculture and mining difficult. The civil war that followed independence in 1953 further impeded economic development. Even today, a large majority of Lao still engage in subsistence agriculture. Industry is limited to small-scale manufacturing of consumer products, though clothing and textile products have become a significant export. Government revenue is insufficient to cover expenditure and investment in infrastructure development, leaving the deficit to be met by foreign aid. The principal aid donors are Japan, France, Sweden, and Australia. In the late 1980s the government opened the economy to foreign investment. As a result, the average growth rate between and was percent, and by 2007 Laos’s gross domestic product (GDP) had climbed to $4.1 billion. Average GDP per capita rose to $701, compared to $806.10 in Vietnam and $578 in Cambodia. Like the economies of other countries in the region, the Lao economy suffered badly when the value of several Asian currencies fell sharply in the late 1990s.

A

Labor

Laos has a total labor force of 2.9 million, of whom 85 percent are in agriculture, 4 percent are in industry, and 11 percent are in the service sector. Rural underemployment and urban unemployment remain high, though statistics are not available. There is an official Federation of Trade Unions, but independent unions are banned.

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B

Agriculture

Agriculture is the principal economic activity in Laos, contributing 42 percent of GDP. Only 4 percent of Laos’s total land area is cultivated, but 80 percent of the cultivated land is planted in rice (both glutinous and white). Other crops include corn, coffee (the only substantial export crop), soybeans, sugarcane, and sweet potatoes. Cotton, tobacco, and cardamom are also grown. The government encourages animal husbandry, and livestock numbers have steadily increased since the late 1970s. Lao farmers raise water buffalo, cattle, pigs, horses, goats, and poultry.

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