Agriculture is the dominant economic activity in the Mekong Basin and no doubt will remain so for many years to come. Data on production and employment in the Basin alone are scarce. In the four riparian countries as a whole agriculture accounts for from 30 percent of Gross Domestic Product in Thailand and Vietnam to considerably more than that in Cambodia and Laos. Since the major urban centers, Bangkok and Saigon, lie outside the Basin, one must infer that the share of agriculture in produc­ tion is substantially higher in the Basin than in the countries as a whole. Output per man in agriculture is only a fraction of what it is in nonagricultural employment, and the labor force in agriculture is higher than agriculture s share of total productionranging from at least 65 percent in Vietnam to 80 in Laos and Cambodia.