Vientiane’s water utility company, Nampapa Nakhone Luang, is currently installing a new pump to draw water up from the Nam Ngum river as some areas of the capital are facing water shortages.
In particular, parts of Xaythany, Xaysettha and Chanthabouly districts do not have sufficient water, Lao Phatthana Daily reported.
The shortage comes as the Dongmakkhay water treatment plant is unable to produce enough water after the Nam Ngum River dropped to an unusually low level in the middle of this month.
The water level of the Mekong River is already exceptionally low, but some of its tributaries will continue to fall as the rainy season has come to an end, said Deputy Director General of the Meteorology and Hydrology Department, Ms. Outhone Phetluangs, as quoted by Vientiane Times.
The population of Vientiane Capital uses about 200,000 cubic meters of water per day.
Ms. Outhone cited an unusually low rainfall as the main cause for the drop in river levels.
Based on the data collected by the department in recent years, rainfall this year was at a historic low, especially in the north of the country, she explained.
A report issued by the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology in July indicated that rainfall in that month was 70 percent less than average.
Cambodia’s Meal Temple Group has launched its new DriveUp ridesharing service in Laos, becoming the second player in the country after locally-grown LOCA.
Meal Temple, which was established in 2013, made its first foray into Laos in July by purchasing an existing food delivery service mobile application, MyDelivery, from local fintech firm Kiwi Group. The company currently has a presence in Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan.
The group’s move to launch a ridesharing service in Laos comes amid the growth of the country’s tourism sector.
“Laos is the new eldorado for tourism in the Mekong region, after Cambodia, with more than 5 million tourists yearly already, growing at a fast rate, expecting to double in the next ten years and accounting for more than 15% of the country’s GDP,” the group said in a statement.
The latest figure shows that the number of domestic and foreign tourists holidaying in Laos during the first nine months of this year increased compared to the same period last year.
More than 3.4 million people vacationed in Laos in the first nine months of this year, an increase of about 11 percent compared to last year, while the number of visitors from China soared by 26 percent, according to the Tourism Development Department, Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism.
Laos attracted more than 4.1 million foreign tourists last year, an 8.2 percent increase from the previous year. Tourism generated revenue of more than USD 755 million in 2018. The country hopes to attract at least 4.5 million people this year.
The company’s main strategies to appeal to the customers as a newcomer are to provide lower costs while reducing wait time for its customers, said Ms. Angele Fargette, product manager for DriveUp in Laos.
The service currently has about 100 drivers available in Vientiane, and it plans to add more while looking into the possibility of expanding the service to other major cities in the country.
“Vientiane is the perfect city to test our service for the first time, as competition is really small, prices are really elastic depending on cars, drivers and customers, and tourism is growing, so the market is ripe for disruption here.” Ms Angele added.
LOCA sees ridesharing competition as opportunity
Having a new competitor might be alarming for existing player, LOCA, but founder Mr. Souliyo Vongdala rather sees it as an opportunity to grow his service further.
Mr. Souliyo told The Laotian Times that the company is currently focusing on improving the service quality along with the welfare of its drivers and overall safety standards for both drivers and customers.
“Our sales volume has grown 600 percent since the launch in 2018,” Mr Souliyo said. “I believe it’s time for us to focus on the quality of the service.”
Souliyo Vongdala, CTO of local technology firm Bizgital (owner of LOCA ridesharing pp)
Mr. Souliyo cited its competitive hiring process for LOCA drivers as an example.
“We currently have about 300 drivers in Vientiane working as a LOCA driver. They have to go through a competitive screening process, and we reject a lot when they fail to meet our standards,” he said.
Mr. Souliyo said the company regularly monitors feedback from customers and provides training and coaching to its drivers.
He also cited the company’s efforts to improve its customer service, so that the company can respond to the customers’ complaints or feedback in a timely and professional manner.
There are a total of 33 dedicated officers at the company who respond to such complaints or feedback, and the company is the process of adding more, said Mr. Souliyo.
In addition, Mr. Souliyo stressed the importance of improving the safety standard of the service for both drivers and customers.
Many ridesharing services in Southeast Asia either do not have proper insurance for their drivers or customers or have a wrong kind of insurance, which cannot cover different types of incidents that could occur during the operation of the service, Mr. Souliyo explained.
By recognizing the issue, LOCA is currently looking into ways of providing proper insurance for its drivers and customers, which could improve the overall safety standard of the service, he added.
In fact, LOCA signed a cooperative agreement last week with Vientiane-based insurance firm Lanexang Assurance Public Company in a move to enhance the protection standard of the service.
With the agreement, two companies will start providing standard insurance coverage for LOCA service, while exploring healthcare for its drivers.
“This cooperation will be the initiative to set a new standard for passenger transportation. LOCA wants to lift this standard to enhance public awareness about [the importance] of the protection when they are using public transportation service,” Mr. Souliyo said at that time.
Laos is among countries that will have the largest increase in obesity between 2017 and 2030, a recent study has revealed.
Laos ranked 8th in the obesity crisis ranking compiled by the World Obesity Federation and Atlas of Childhood Obesity, Guardian reported. The ranking estimates percentage point increase in children aged between five and nine from a total of 191 countries.
South Africa topped the ranking, and it was followed by China and Maldives. From Southeast Asia, Vietnam ranked 5th while Thailand landed 7th.
“Childhood obesity is rising exponentially worldwide as the relentless marketing of junk foods reaches around the globe,” Guardian noted. “Governments do too little to protect their children’s health.”
The number of obese children globally is predicted to reach 250 million by 2030, up from 150 million now, according to Guardian.
The fact that several Southeast Asian nations ranked high on the study mentioned above might not be a coincidence.
Southeast Asia was and is often associated with undernourishment, but that is no longer the case thanks to a half-century of economic development and income growth.
“Although hunger remains an issue in some areas, overall, Asians now have access to more and better food than ever,” wrote Bloomberg.
Asia’s eaters have tended to shift away from traditional starch-based diets and toward food rich in fat, protein, dairy, and sugar, much of it packaged and processed, it added.
Some numbers back this up. Obesity surged 24 percent in Singapore, 27 percent in Malaysia and 38 percent in Vietnam between 2010 and 2014. In addition, Southeast Asia now accounts for about 20 percent of all diabetics globally, according to Bloomberg.
“Promoting healthy [or healthier] eating will require long-term public-education campaigns, ideally combined with school-based nutritional programs,” it suggested.
Thai Airways International is looking into cancelling six fight routes to four Southeast Asian nations, namely Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos.
These routes, which all emanate from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, are to Phnom Penh, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Yangon, Vientiane and Luang Prabang, The Nation reported.
The Nation quoted Sumeth Damrongchaitham, President of Thai Airways as saying that these routes are all covered by a small number of flights and have low customer capacity.
Mr Sumeth added, however, Thai Airways will assign Thai Smile Airways to cover these routes instead once the cancellation plan is finalized.
The company’s decision comes amid fierce competition as airliners reduce prices stay ahead of its rivals, according to Mr Sumeth.
He added that the company will focus on rolling out promotional campaigns until year-end while adjusting its strategies to preserve its reservation rate, although next year’s strategy remains to be seen.
“Our prices this year have been reduced to a record low, and if this strategy doesn’t work, we may take a different direction, such as seeking more partners for organization tickets, increasing online channels, or giving privileges to frequent fliers,” said Mr Sumeth, as quoted by The Nation.
The company has a total debt of over THB 2.45 billion (USD80.9 million) and losses of more than THB 20 billion (USD661 million), despite being able to reduce its debts by THB 48 billion (USD1.58 billion) over the past five years, according to The Nation.
The Lao capital Vientiane has been named as one of seven best cities in the world for walking tours by Booking.com Japan.
Booking.com Japan is a Japanese arm of Booking.com, a Dutch travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine for lodging reservations.
According to Booking.com Japan’s survey, Vientiane was named as the best city for walking tours in Southeast Asia where tourists could explore the city on foot day and night.
“Tourists can walk down streets lined with French colonial-style buildings and visit historic sites and monuments such as Pha That Luang,” the website said. “It is also highly recommended to visit night markets near Mekong River when it gets darks where tourists can enjoy many different street foods.”
Apart from Vientiane, Booking.com Japan named Trois-Rivières in Canada, Orenburg in Russia, Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, Daegu in South Korea, Vienna in Austria, Culiacán in Mexico as the best cities to enjoy on foot.
A total of 21,500 people were asked for the survey, and 40 percent of respondents said they were interested in walking tours, according to Booking.com Japan.
The cities mentioned above, including Vientiane, received more than 500 recommendations on Booking.com Japan’s website in a “walking tour” category.
Lao Samsung Electronics in cooperation with the World Food Program has created educational opportunities for deaf and speech-impaired students, equitable with the general public, through technology.
Because education and nutrition are important for everyone in society and everyone has the right to access these basic necessities, including the more than 90 students with speech and hearing problems at the Capital Special School.
Lao Samsung Electronics Sole Co., Ltd. joined the World Food Program of the Lao PDR to develop the Employee Volunteer Program on the morning of October 17, 2019. Employees from Lao Samsung Electronics, the World Food Program, and from distribution representatives of Samsung, such as LTH, Lao AC Telecom, and SCE, will involve deaf and speech impaired students in activities. These activities will include teaching sign language through an app in the Samsung Tablet, provision of books to the library and cooking competitions.
Thus far, Lao Samsung Electronics has developed a library for the school and donated more than 400 textbooks to increase learning opportunities for the students.
In addition to this, Lao Samsung Electronics has given six Samsung Tablets and the HANDME app (created by Lao people and further developed by Bizgital) to the school to aid the teachers in teaching sign language to the students.
At the same time, for the purpose of promoting nutrition, the World Food Program has provided assistance in the form of the School Meal Program, which provides three meals a day to the students. Each meal consists of 300 grams of rice, 120 grams of soy beans, 30 grams of vegetable oils, and 90 grams of canned fish. This program was established in 2018.
Samsung representatives, such as LTH, also donated luggage, backpacks, and athletic wear tops to the students of the school. SCE, or the Xok Xai Group Company, donated 20 cases of drinking water to the school.
During this volunteer experience, all of the volunteers learned a great deal about each other, especially the lives of students with hearing and speech disabilities who experience many social issues, such as with communicating with the outside world.
Laos’s first ride-hailing service LOCA has signed a cooperative agreement with Vientiane-based insurance firm Lanexang Assurance Public Company in a move to enhance the protection standard of the service.
With the agreement, two companies will start providing standard insurance coverage for LOCA service, while exploring healthcare for its drivers.
“This cooperation will be the initiative to set a new standard for passenger transportation. LOCA wants to lift this standard to enhance public awareness about [the importance] of the protection when they are using public transportation service,” said LOCA founder Mr. Souliyo Vongdala.
Lanexang’s General Director Mr. Do Dang Khang also said this cooperation is only a small beginning, and the two firms will explore opportunities for further cooperation.
LOCA currently has more than 300 service vehicles, over 16,000 registered passengers. Its passengers have given the service a 4.87 satisfaction score out of a total of 5 so far, according to the company.
Lanexang is one of the leading insurance firms in Laos with more than 300 dealerships across the country.
According to a notice issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday, nine of Laos’s border checkpoints will discontinue providing visa on arrival services to tourists.
The notice orders the closure of visa on arrival units at nine border checkpoints:
– Pang Hok (Phongsaly Province) bordering Vietnam
– Nam Soy (Huaphanh Province) bordering Vietnam
– Nam Kan (Xieng Khouang Province) bordering Vietnam
– Nam Ngeun (Xayaboury Province) bordering Thailand
– Nam Heuang (Xayaboury Province) bordering Thailand
– Nam Phao (Khammouane Province) bordering Vietnam
– Na Phao (Khammouane Province) bordering Vietnam
– Savannakhet International Airport
– Phou Keua (Attapeu Province) bordering Vietnam
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been tasked with coordinating the closure of the visa units and is to ensure that no disruptions are caused at border checkpoints.
Laos launched an e-visa service earlier this year, but so far this is only available for use at three checkpoints; Wattay International Airport, The First Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge, and Luang Prabang International Airport.