Concessions and Leases in the Lao PDR

eucalyptus are the main forestry products, and zinc/tin and
copper are the dominant mining products by area under
investment. Still, the product with the greatest number of
projects overall is rubber with 225 projects included in the
inventory (see Figure 7).
Likely due to the considerable differences in geography and
topography across regions in the Lao PDR, deals in each subsector
are very differently distributed across regions (see Figure
8). Few agricultural projects occur in the mountainous North
(less than 2% of the total area is under agricultural investment),
while the flatter more productive Centre and South
host 45% and 53% of all areas granted for agricultural
activities. Forestry projects are even more disproportionately
located in the South, with 66% of the area under investment
in forestry occurring in the South, and only 10% in the North.
This scarcity of forestry deals in the North is partly due to the
exclusion of contract farming arrangements from the inventory
which in total most probably would dwarf the area of
forestry concessions and leases examined here. The Concession
Inventory Report on Luangnamtha alone documents 5,949
ha (22 land deals) under concession-like (also referred to
as 1+4) contract farming agreements (NLMA, 2009a). Recent
evidence also shows that many of the contract farming
agreements can indeed be considered “concession-like” land
deals in terms of the labour and compensation arrangements
used (Shi, 2008; Dwyer, forthcoming). Mining areas are far
more numerous in the North (58% of mining deals), and cover
only a small area in the South (6% of mining areas).
Map 4: Investment Project Locations by Subsector in the Primary Sector
RESULTS
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