(Asian economic
crisis notwithstanding). But, while the country is still
poor and undeveloped in economic terms it is, nonetheless,
becoming increasingly tightly drawn into the
Asian mainstream, in both material and non-material
ways. The country is making the transition from command
to market, and subsistence to cash. The neo-liberal
agenda is broadly accepted and the World Bank and
Asian Development Bank have an important presence in
the capital, Vientiane. The government has also accepted,
albeit at times with a degree of reluctance, a
future in which Laos will become a central component in
an increasingly tightly integrated Greater Mekong Subregion,
linking the countries of mainland Southeast Asia
and southern China. Laos, in short, is on the move.