Economic Development in Laos and Vietnam: Growth, Reform, and the WTO

Wednesday, February 6, 2013
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
(Pacific)
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, Doll Conference Room (#320)
Speaker: 
  • Steve Parker

The fastest growing economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the Lao People's Democratic Republic. For a decade Steve Parker has been intensively involved on behalf of USAID as a resident adviser on economic and related legal reforms, first in Vietnam and for the last three years in Laos. In each country he has focused on helping the government fulfill the requirements of membership in the WTO. Vietnam joined the WTO in 2007 and Laos followed suit on 2 February 2013. He is also advising the Lao government on meeting its obligations under the ASEAN Economic Community that is scheduled for inauguration in 2015, and on implementing the 2005 U.S.-Lao PDR Bilateral Trade Agreement.  

Parker will open this roundtable with some remarks on economic development and reform in the two ASEAN countries, including an assessment of the impact of WTO membership on economic development and reform—retrospectively in Vietnam, prospectively in Laos. An open discussion will follow.

In the course of his career in Asia as an economic specialist for the U.S. government and the Asia Foundation, Parker has been posted to Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan with USAID, the ADB, and the Harvard Institute of International Development. The Southeast Asia Forum and the Stanford Center for International Development co-sponsored his last talk at Stanford in 2007: "The United States and Asia's Newest Tiger:  Trade, Aid, and Governance in Vietnam."

This seminar series is co-sponsored by

The Stanford Center for International Development