Laos to launch stock market

Laos' central bank governor Phouphet Khamphounvong said a stock market was necessary for the long-term investment climate of the country, said Radio Vientiane in a broadcast monitored in Bangkok.

The Lao bourse will initially be under central bank management before becoming fully independent in 2010.

Laos, a land-locked country half the size of France, has been under communist rule since December 1976.

A former member of the Soviet bloc, the South-East Asian nation with a population of less than 6 million was forced to open up to foreign investment and liberalize trade in the late 1980s after the Soviet Union's collapse.

There are few large-scale private enterprises in Laos, other than foreign investments in mining and hydro-electriticy projects.

//(Deutsche Presse-Agentur)