“As close comrades and friends, the CPV and Vietnamese people highly value and warmly congratulate the great and comprehensive achievements of the Lao people during their renewal process,” said the message.

The CPV Central Committee expressed firm belief that under the leadership of the LPRP, the Lao people will continue to achieve new and greater successes in implementing the Resolution of the LPRP’s 8th Congress and building a socialist-oriented country of peace, independence, democracy, unification and prosperity.

“We expressed our delights at the continuously developing traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, two States and two peoples,” according to the message.

The relationship, fostered by President Ho Chi Minh and President Kaysone Phomvihane, and tempered by efforts and sacrifices of many generations of Vietnamese and Lao people, has become a model for international relations and is a priceless asset for the two nations, as well as a decisive factor in the success of each country’s revolutionary cause.

The CPV Central Committee expressed the wish that the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, two States and two peoples will develop continuously and eternally.

The same day, a grand ceremony was held in Vientiane to mark the 55th anniversary of the LPRP’s establishment in the presence of Party and Government officials, as well as local people.

Addressing the event, Party General Secretary and State President Choummaly Sayasone recalled the development of the LPRP and the Lao people’s struggle for national liberation and unification.

He highlighted Laos ’s great achievements in the past and at present under the leadership of the LPRP. The country’s economy has been shifted from a natural economy to a market oriented one, and has been strongly and steadily integrating into the international economy.

Choummaly Sayasone stressed that the Lao Party and people are determined to overcome every challenge to shed their under-developed nation status by 2020.