Khammouane, Lao PDR (June 25, 2015) The 4th RLED-EWEC Project Steering Committee (PSC) Meeting is held today in Riveria Hotel of Khammouane Province, Lao PDR. The PSC meeting is to report the project progress in the first half of 2015, address rising issues and discuss ways forward to ensure the efficient project implementation. H.E. Somchay Phetsinuam, Vice governor of Khammouane Province, and MI Director Dr. Watcharas Leelawath co-chaired the meeting. 

During the one-day meeting, the delegates reviewed the key points of the last PSC meeting minutes of December 2014, and the current project progress. 3 MI staff from 3 different project sites reported the achievements made and share lessons learnt in the first half of 2015. After reviewing the project progress, the representative from the Swiss Agency of Development and Cooperation (SDC) gave positive feedback and congratulated on Vietnam team on the achievements made. SDC representative comments that SDC is glad to see the result and see the strong commitment from the local government. Other PSC members provided valuable recommendations for a more fruitful project implementation to achieve the project goal. 

About 25 delegates attended the PSC meeting. They are PSC members from Lao PDR, Vietnam and Myanmar, SDC representative and MI staff. Funded by SDC, the RLED-EWEC project is to develop the capacity of the value chain actors in the rice sector of Khammouane Province of Lao PDR, the maize sector of Kayin State of Myanmar and the coffee sector of Quang Tri Province of Vietnam so as to improve the production of selected agricultural commodities and to promote the cross-border trade and investment along the East-West Economic Corridor.