Accordingly, the VNIO will carry out free eye surgery to 50 poor people in Quang Xuong district, Thanh Hoa province in Vietnam and 150 others in Laos.

At the presentation ceremony in Hanoi on May 12, the two sides expressed their hope of developing a fund for humanitarian eye surgery and called upon individuals, organisations and businesses donating money to bring sight to the poor.

It is estimated Laos has more than 56,200 blind citizens out of the 5.8 million total population. Meanwhile the country has only 15 eye doctors, mainly in Vientiane and some other cities who carry out around 5,000 surgeries each year.

In Vietnam cataracts are the main cause of blindness, accounting for 65 percent of documented cases. Currently, around 1.2 million people are awaiting eye surgery.