ICT Profile - Lao PDR

Total population	5,377,000 (2000 estimate)
Rural population as a percentage of total population	85% (2000)
GDP per capita	US$290 (2000)
Literacy in national language	60%
Literacy in English	Less than 5%
Computer ownership per 100 inhabitants	0.18
Telephone lines per 100 inhabitants	0.91
Internet cafés/telecentres per 10,000 inhabitants	0.371
Internet users per 100 inhabitants	0.16
Internet hosts per 10,000 inhabitants	0.011
Cell phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants	0.54
Number of websites in English and other language(s)	Approximately 20 websites, all in English
National bandwidth within the country	No backbone in Lao PDR, but the government intranet is 11 Mbps
National bandwidth to and from the country	2 Mbps for uplink and 4 Mbps for downlink (combined total for the six ISPs operating in the country)

ICT Developments	ICT Policy
Teledensity 1.31% Mobile 2.02% (2003) — nationwide coverage GSM, CDMA to start soon Fibre optic link with Viet Nam and Thailand part of CSC project Master plan on telecom drafted up to 2020 High cost of Internet — high import tariff of PCs e-government project underway	Science,Technology and Environment Agency Established National ICT Policy and e-Strategy Task Force with five Working Groups consisting of government, agencies and private sector

WTO Issues	Regulatory Frameworks
Accession under process with support from ASEAN and US	Universal Banking service initiative (under process, to be completed by 2005–2006)

Key ICT Information

It is estimated that less than 1 percent of Laotian households currently have a telephone (there are now a total of 48,557 lines in the country).
Less than half of Lao districts (58 out of 142) have fixed-line telephone service.
An AMPS analogue cellular network was launched in 1993 serving Vientiane, and a GSM 900 network was introduced in December 1994.
The AMPS network has since been shut down. The GSM network is now available in 9 of the country's 18 provinces. Coverage is usually available only in the largest towns of the provinces covered. It is estimated that less than 10 percent of the population is covered by mobile signals.
As of September 2001, there were 29,545 mobile subscribers and mobile density was a mere 0.25 percent.
Prepaid service was launched only in 2000.
The number of subscribers grew by 75 percent between January and September 2001; this was significantly the annual average growth of 44 percent experienced between 1997 and 2000. One reason for this significant increase is the commencement of the M-Phone prepaid service. Launched in 2000, there were 5,402 prepaid subscribers as at September 2001, accounting for 21 percent of all mobile subscribers.
The GSM network is now available in 9 of the country's 18 provinces. Coverage is usually available only in the largest towns of the provinces covered. It is estimated that less than 10 percent of the population is covered by mobile signals.
As of September 2001, there were 29,545 mobile subscribers and mobile density was a mere 0.25 percent.
Prepaid service was launched only in 2000. There were 5,402 prepaid subscribers as at September 2001, accounting for 21 percent of all mobile subscribers.
The number of subscribers grew by 75 percent between January and September 2001; this was significantly the annual average growth of 44 percent experienced between 1997 and 2000.
As of September 2001, there were 6 ISPs, about 200 Internet cafés and approximately 2,900 subscribers to ISPs in Lao PDR. It is estimated that there were around 9,000 Internet users in the country.
The ISPs have their own international gateways (three commercial and one government).
Lao PDR has the lowest expenditure on education compared to the rest of the ASEAN countries, accounting for 7.4 percent of all expenditures.
The average number of PCs with Internet access in each ministry is about 10 to 15, limiting access to the top administrators.
The Lao IT market is very small so most computer service companies are located in the capital city. Only a few smaller companies serve the provinces. Most of the big computer companies have significant foreign investment which accounts for 50-100 percent of its capitalisation.
There is a 5 percent tariff on all imported hardware. There is also a 10 percent turnover tax applied to all computer retailers. These two taxes are passed on directly to customers, along with an additional 20-50 percent markup as operating profit.
The project is PAN-Laos, which is supported by IDRC of The Informatics Technology Centre of STEA established the Open Source Laboratory in December 2002 with the assistance of the Francophone Organisation. The organisation has donated two servers, 15 PCs, and other IT facilities to this laboratory.