Shi Zhongjun Meets with Minister Linkham Douangsavanh of Agriculture and Environment of Laos

On June 23 2025, Secretary General Shi Zhongjun of the ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) met with Minister Linkham Douangsavanh of Agriculture and Environment of Laos in Vientiane. The meeting was also attended by representatives from relevant departments of the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and the Lao Embassy in China.

Shi Zhongjun emphasized that leaders of ASEAN and China have reached important consensus on strengthening agricultural and food security cooperation. As the only intergovernmental international organization co-established by 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS) and China, the ACC has been committed to implementing the leaders' consensus and acting as a bridge to advance practical agricultural cooperation. With support from the Lao side, the ACC successfully hosted the first ASEAN-Henan Cooperation Conference on Food and Agriculture held in Zhengzhou last November. The upcoming second conference aims to build an integrated platform to facilitate the whole-process agricultural cooperation, covering grain breeding, planting, machinery, storage, processing and trading. This visit by a delegation of Chinese agricultural related enterprises, research Institutes and academia to Laos, aims to further align needs between the two sides, explore opportunities to deepen agricultural whole process cooperation, so as to refine the quality of ASEAN-China food and agricultural cooperation.

Linkham Douangsavanh commended the ACC’s significant contributions to promoting agricultural cooperation between ASEAN-China, and Laos-China. He noted that the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment have recently merged into the new Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, undertaking broader responsibilities. Laos attaches great importance to agricultural cooperation with China, aspiring to export more agricultural products while drawing on China’s valuable experience to develop clean, pollution-free, and environmentally friendly agriculture. He welcomed the ACC’s agricultural delegation, expressing confidence that this visit will enhance mutual understanding of needs and facilitate the implementation of more collaborative projects. Laos looks forward to leveraging the ACC’s help to attract more Chinese agricultural enterprises, experts, and scholars to Laos, thus advancing smart agriculture and sustainable development, and better contributing to Laos’ national development, economic growth and well-beings of the people.