Laos is an inland country located in the southern part of the Asian continent.

The Lao people had been developing their unique culture since ancient times. However, in the latter half of the 19th century, the imperialists stretched out their tentacles of aggression to Laos, occupied the country and imposed a cruel colonial rule for a long period.

Through an arduous and bloody struggle, the Lao people put an end to the imperialists’ colonial rule and feudal monarchy and established a people’s democratic republic in December 1975. After that the Laotians embarked on the road of building a new prosperous society as masters of their destiny.

The Lao people, who have struggled dynamically for social progress and change, have made a steady advance to implement the decisions of the 11th Congress of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and the five-year plan for socio-economic development in recent years.

Laos aims to increase agricultural production by 4.3 percent this year. Last February, the government announced that the agricultural sector would take 22.4 percent in the country’s gross domestic production and, to this end, it will increase rice production and turn 4.5 million hectares into agricultural land.

It is also promoting the export of cassava. The country’s cassava cultivation area is 295 000 hectares and the yield reached 7.4 million tons last year.

Thanks to the government’s efforts for alleviating poverty, eight districts across the country became poverty-free zones and more than 31 230 families were lifted out of poverty last year.

While putting effort into training more skilled workers, it is building a database of the labour sector and intensifying laws and regulations for job creation and social advance. Last year alone, they trained over 34 000 skilled workers including 15 015 women and provided jobs to more than 124 500 people.

Efforts are also being channelled into developing the energy and mining sector. The Lao prime minister at a recent meeting to review the work in this field said that the energy and mining industry should achieve an annual growth of 10-12 percent and increase their share in gross domestic production to 25 percent, and stressed the need to sustainably promote energy development and direct efforts to protecting resources and expanding electricity transmission networks.

In late March, the local mass media outlets reported that the export volumes increased by 42.3 percent in February as compared to the previous month, whereas the import volumes decreased to record a black figure in trade.

Laos is sustainably developing the tourist industry which is making a great contribution to the socio-economic development of the country.

The government aspires to independent development and building of a new society by achieving national unity internally and maintains the principle of peace, independence, friendship and cooperation based on sovereignty, noninterference, equality and mutual benefit externally.

The DPRK established diplomatic relations with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic on June 24 1974.