CDP Monitoring Reports 2022 - Lao PDR

Lao PDR had robust economic growth, averaging over 6% per annum over 2015-2019, but the growth slowed down significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The negative impacts of the COVID-19 added additional difficulties for the country to maintain macroeconomic stability and manage the national debt – around 70% of GDP, owing to high volume of loans contracted for large scale infrastructure projects. The country has limited fiscal space to maintain macroeconomic stability, and to achieve recovery from the COVID-19 at the same time. The Government of Lao PDR presented a strong commitment on graduation and has established the consultative mechanism with trading and development partners, while drafting the STS. The CDP suggests Lao PDR to include concrete plans and activities in the STS to reduce macroeconomic instability and achieve long term growth towards the SDGs. The CDP also recommends ECOSOC to call for international community to continue providing technical and financial assistance to Lao PDR, particularly, on debt sustainability, to enable the country securing resources to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.