Over the past 10 months, cross-border trade hit US$38.4 million, up 44 percent from 2008, according to leaders from the two provinces, who met in Quang Binh’s city of Dong Hoi on October 20.

There are now two coach trips per week between Dong Hoi and Thakhek town in Khammouan.

Since 2006, Quang Binh has received and trained 42 students from Khammouan at Quang Binh University. In 2009, it sent four teachers to the Laotian province to help educate and train local people. It also invested VND9 billion in building a two-storey school in Thakhek.

Meanwhile, Khammouan has assisted its Vietnamese counterpart in searching for and repatriating the remains of 139 volunteer Vietnamese soldiers who were killed on the Lao battlefield. It has joined Quang Binh in placing border markers along their common border.

The authorities of the two provinces proposed that their countries allow transport through the Ca Roong-Noong Ma border gate and upgrade it into a main one. They also agreed to accelerate investment, trade and tourism promotion in their respective provinces and introduced business incentives to turn their border into one of peace, friendship, stability and development.