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The Future of Asia 2019

Laos can 'manage' debt to China, PM insists

Thongloun pushes back against warnings over infrastructure burden

Laotian Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith talks to the Nikkei Asian Review in Tokyo. (Photo by Manami Yamada)    

TOKYO -- Laos borrows from China and other countries only for projects that are both necessary and economically viable, the country's prime minister said on Friday, pushing back against international warnings about his government's debt to Asia's emerging superpower.

"If we don't borrow, Laos, as a least-developed country, won't develop further," Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith told the Nikkei Asian Review in an interview on the sidelines of Nikkei's Future of Asia conference in Tokyo.

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