"I started my business in Laos with 1,000 yuan's worth of daily necessities placed in front of people's homes to sell. Lao people are very kind. They did not bargain. I sold out all the goods within four to five days," Song Jiefeng, Executive Vice President of the Hunan Chamber of Commerce in Laos, recalled.
After that, Song, together with his fellow villagers, continued to bring commodities to Lao's rural areas to sell. "We had meals and slept along the road whenever we could. Sometimes, we had to sleep outside local residents' homes," Song said.
For now, Song and his fellows have become bosses running various kinds of companies in Laos, saying farewell to low-end trading.
Song himself currently runs an international air agency which provides direct flights connecting Laos' capital Vientiane and China's Hunan province, facilitating transportation for Hunan native people doing business in Laos.
With the rapid development of bilateral economic-trade relations, the establishment of the Mohan-Boten Economic Cooperation Zone between China and Laos recently in August is expected to contribute to creating favorable conditions for people-to-people as well as trade exchanges between the two sides.
The Mohan-Boten zone was the second cross-border Economic Cooperation Zone between China and a neighboring country after that of the Sino-Kazakh International Trade Center.
The economic cooperation zone is a new model of China-Laos bilateral cooperation, and is among measures to accelerate the opening-up process.
To date, at the site of Laos' Boten, the construction of a business-financial zone, a tourism-cultural zone, and a logistics-processing zone, among others, has been basically completed, with parts of them put into operation.
This helps laying a solid foundation for the cross-border economic cooperation zone, and also helps facilitating exchanges between the two countries.
The Mohan-Boten zone is not the only symbol of China-Laos cooperation.
Located around 21 km from Laos' Vientiane capital, the Laos Saysettha Development Zone has so far welcomed 19 enterprises settling down,including China's Dongyan-Laos oil refining project, DSG Logistics Parks of Thailand, Laos National Tobacco Company, among others.
Laos Saysettha Development Zone is China's 10th overseas economic cooperation zone, and also a major projects within the "Belt and Road" initiative proposed by China.
This is also a new field of China's Yunnan Province Construction Engineering group Co. Ltd. in sustainable development and whole industry chain cooperation with Laos after its almost 20 years of operation in the country.
Yunnan Province Construction Engineering group has also cooperated with local enterprises to build the Vientiane Center, a complex for finance, offices and shopping activities.
The Vientiane Center is the first modern, large-scaled shopping center in Laos, which helps increase the level of urbanization in the country's capital city. This is also a bright example for the success of Yunnan Province Construction Engineering group in Laos.
