Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam triangle striving to succeed

A LITTLE-KNOWN economic zone, the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle (CLV-DT), is aiming to reduce the economic gap between itself and the more developed Asean countries. It is striving to harness its collective strengths through borderless free trade, investments and tourism, but it has confronted obstacles.

The triangle - encompassing a few provinces from each country that either share borders with each other, or are close by - suffers from the three "poors" and the two "lacks", which are hobbling development efforts.

Nguyen Binh Giang argues in a research article that the triangle faces "poor cooperation" among the member provinces, "poor road network" and "poor facilities" in some provinces. And, there is a "lack" of a trilateral arrangement for bus travel among the three countries, and a "lack" of properly conceived trilateral tourism projects.