Laos
Lao People's Democratic Republic
- Region
- Asia · South-Eastern Asia
- Capital
- Vientiane
- Population
- 7,873,046 (2025)
- Government
- communist party-led state
- Currency
- Lao kip (LAK)
- Official languages
- Lao
- Spoken languages
- Lao (official), French, English, various ethnic languages
- Written scripts
- Lao
- Area
- 236,800 km²
- Coastline
- Landlocked
- UN member
- Yes
- Affiliations
- ASEAN, IMF, WCO, WTO
- Borders
- Myanmar , Cambodia , China , Thailand , Vietnam
Political stability
75 / 100
Economic stability
35 / 100
Population stability
66 / 100
0–100, higher is more stable. Political: World Bank governance score. Economic: government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and inflation proximity to 2% (World Bank). Population: stability of growth and net migration rates (World Bank).
Trade profile
- Key exports
- electricity, fertilizers, gold, garments, paper (2023)
- Key imports
- refined petroleum, cars, raw sugar, plastic products, trucks (2023)
- Natural resources
- timber, hydropower, gypsum, tin, gold, gemstones
- Primary route
- Strait of Malacca corridor on Asia–Europe and intra-Asia lanes
- Secondary route
- Transpacific services to North America
The xin.bz view
- Laos has become the world’s sixth-largest potash miner (2.4M t K2O equivalent in 2025, ~4.9% of world output) — new Asian supply that shortens the route to Chinese and Southeast Asian fertilizer buyers.
xin.bz coverage
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Commodity Deep Dive ·
Potash Is the Potassium Backbone of Global Agriculture — and Its Supply Is Concentrated in a Handful of Countries
Potash (potassium chloride/MOP) deep dive — Canada, Russia, China, and Belarus at 76% of mine output, the rail-and-port chokepoints, storage, price history, and why potassium is agriculture's irreplaceable nutrient.
Trade research
- WTO trade profile — tariffs, trade in goods and services, top partners
- World Bank country data — GDP, trade share of GDP, logistics indicators
- OEC trade profile — export/import composition and partners, visualized
- ITC Trade Map — detailed trade statistics by product (ITC/UN Comtrade)
- CIA World Factbook — geography, economy, transportation infrastructure
xin.bz can watch Laos for you — email alerts when new disruptions hit. Start free
Sources: mledoze/countries (ODbL), CIA World Factbook (public domain), World Bank Open Data (CC BY-4.0), flag-icons (MIT). Stability scores are xin.bz composites of the cited World Bank indicators; routes and commodity notes are xin.bz assessments. Informational only — verify with official sources.