US Ambassador visits Thanaleng Dry Port and Vientiane Logistics Park, learns about their incentives

Thanaleng Dry Port (TDP) and Vientiane Logistics Park (VLP) offers better logistics costs and trade, investment and tax incentives, while simultaneously streamlining customs and administrative procedures, the project’s developer has told the US ambassador to Laos.
Ambassador Peter M. Haymond and his delegation visited the project in Vientiane on Tuesday to collect information and promote the potential for US investments in VLP.
The ambassador was warmly hosted by the former Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office and current President of the Executive Board of Strategy and Planning in PTL Holding Company Limited, Mr Alounkeo Kittikhoun, and the Vice President of VLP Co Ltd, Mr Viengkhone Sitthixay, and representatives of Sitthi Logistics Lao Company Limited.

Ambassador Peter M. Haymond (second right) inquiries about the project. --Photo courtesy to US Embassy

Reporting on the progress in implementing the TDP project, the Managing Director of TDP, Mr Sakhone Philangam, said TDP and VLP aim to realise the Lao government’s policy of making the country a multimodal transport hub for the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) and beyond.
The main purpose of the TDP project is to reduce cross-border transport costs, especially by cutting 40 percent of the current costs at the 1st Lao-Thai Friendship border checkpoint at Vientiane-Nongkhai by 2025, and by making Laos a preferred transit location and an internationally connected commercial centre.
The Business Development Director of PTL Holding Company Limited, Mr Pariya Nuanthasing, told the delegation that the VLP project is one of the priority actions plans formulated by the Lao government under the Logistics Development Strategy for 2016-20. This flagship project will dramatically turn Laos into a land-linked country of GMS and lead to international integration.
The TDP and VLP are located at a prime location with an extensive area of 382 hectares near the 1st Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge, with dedicated international checkpoint linking Vientiane with Nong Khai province in Thailand through the newly developed bonded access road and Lao-Thai railway. The project, which has been granted the exclusive privileges by the Lao government, will also connect to the Laos-China railway project.
The VLP is one of the most attractive destinations for investment, and convenient in terms of infrastructure, transportation system connected through major trunk of roads and railways.
The TDP and VLP projects make up the only integrated logistics park project in Vientiane, combining key components at a single location to maximise the benefits of regional economic integration and logistics connectivity, namely:
1. Tank Farm: The Tank Farm will store liquid bulk cargoes, including importing and storing fuel from Thailand, and will serve as a fuel distribution centre for Laos. Diesel and petroleum products will arrive at the tank from the dedicated truck, train or pipeline.
2. Logistics Park: The main service offered by the Logistics Park is the warehousing and distribution centre that provides various facilities, including storage, consolidation, distribution, inventory management, and warehouse management.
3. Free Trade Zone (FTZ): The main business activities in the FTZ include Halal Hub and Agriculture Production Park, Technology Park, Office Zone, SME Building Area, Commercial Zone and Landmark (VLP Co Ltd office).
4. Thanaleng Dry Port (TDP): The TDP functions as the centre of international trading for imports and exports, with all categories of customs systems. Importantly, quality equipment, vehicles and warehousing system will be professionally installed at the TDP to provide convenience in serving a large numbers of containers. By using the Terminal Operation System (TOS), it will guarantee the best service in terms of speed, security and reliability.
5. Export Processing Zone (EPZ): The new destination of the modern and most dynamic EPZ in the region, which will offer a better competitive business environment and gear up to be the manufacturing export hub for the Asean and global consumer markets.
The EPZ at the VLP will be an exclusive destination for regional exporting companies that wish to move their production to a strategic location that will not only reduce logistics costs and time-to-market, but also generously offer trade and investment incentives, such as trade privileges, streamlined customs and administrative procedures, tax exemption, and flexible labour market regulations.
In addition, the VLP will provide standardised and high-quality utility infrastructure to meet the needs of businesses sufficiently and to ensure that all activities, works and business operations in the VLP can run with ease.
After being briefed on the project, Ambassador Haymond and his delegation visited the construction site of VLP and TDP.  The TDP is a dry port of international importance, approved by the UNESCAP through resolution No 69/7 on the Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports, which was adopted in Bangkok on May 1, 2013.
The TDP tops the list of development priorities in the Lao National Logistics Strategy for 2016-20, which was adopted by the PM’s decree No 158/GOL dated May 27, 2015. This is an action plan that will drastically transform Laos from a landlocked to a land-linked country.

By Advertorial Desk
(Latest Update 5 April, 2021)