Land use planning in Lao PDR facilitating foreign direct investments
while respecting peasants’ traditional land rights
In rural Laos, all land is officially considered to be state land. On this land,
however, the local population generally holds non-registered traditional
rights. Land registration and the issuing of formal titles is still very limited
and mainly focussed on housing areas and paddy fields. In addition,
demarcation of village or communal land is often unclear and not always
officially acknowledged. This makes it difficult for the government to
identify land for investment projects – mainly foreign direct investme