ABSTRACT
Laos is the only land-locked country in Southeast Asia. This has historically been a major factor in the country’s trading relations and patterns. Trade has largely been dictated by geographical contiguity between the inhabitants of Laos and its neighbours in the Mekong Basin for several centuries. Since then, the overland route through Thailand has become increasingly important and the state of Laos’ relations with Thailand has remained a crucial consideration in Laos’ external trade. Thailand has imposed varying degrees of control on the channels of trade and items traded with Laos, including border closures, leading a commentator to express the view that since 1975 the socialist Lao People’s Democratic Republic has been “a good illustration of a land-locked state at an ideological boundary suffering from the enmity of its neighbor”. These developments point to improving relations between Laos and Thailand in tandem with similar developments in world politics.
