Laos’ Mammoth Train Project a Fast Track to Debt and Despair

Change is coming to sleepy Laos in the form of a $7.2 billion railway, set to carve its way through this war-ravaged nation. The costs are to be borne by the Laotian government, courtesy of a Chinese loan amounting to a staggering 86% of Laos’ annual $8.3 billion GDP. The level of indebtedness has led some to condemn the scheme as the latest example of Beijing’s inexorable expansion into Southeast Asia. Aghast economists fear that such exorbitant spending could saddle an already impoverished nation with an insurmountable deficit. Moreover, in Laos’ shadowy police state, where even household-name dissidents are “disappeared” without a murmur of explanation, there are serious doubts on whether ordinary Lao could influence the course of a deal inked by their communist government, however unfavorable it may prove.