ECBER KHONKAEN UNIVERSITY
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR HABITUDES IN VIENTIANE, LAOS A Report Based on Primary Data Analysis
FEBRUARY 2014
Copyright: E-Saan Centre of Business and Economic Research (ECBER), Khon Kaen University (KKU), Thailand
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CONTENTS OVERVIEW……………………………………………………….……………………………...………04 1) LEARNING HABITUDES…………………………………………………………………………….05 2) WORKING HABITUDES……………………………………………………………………………..05 3) EATING AND DRINKING HABITUDES……………………………………………………………06 4) GROOMING HABITUDES……………………………………………………………………………08 5) FASHION HABITUDES………………………………………………………………………………08 6) HEALTH AND WELLNESS HABITUDES…………………………………………………………..09 7) SMOKING HABITUDES……………………………………………………………………………...11 8) SHOPPING HABITUDES……………………………………………………………………………..11 9) LEISURE HABITUDES…………………………………………………………………………….....13 10) HOME AND DIY GARDEN HABITUDES…………………………………………………………14 11) PET OWNERSHIP HABITUDES……………………………………………………………………17 12) TRAVEL/HOLIDAY HABITUDES…………………………………….……………………………17 13) COMMUTING HABITUDES………………………………………………………………………...18 14) FINANCIAL HABITUDES…………………………………………………………………………..19
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CONSUMER BEHAVIOR HABITUDES IN VIENTIANE, LAOS OVERVIEW Laos (Laos PDR) is a small land locked country with countries like China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar bordering all around. The main cities are Vientiane (Capital), Luang Prabang (Tourist destination), and Savan Nakhet (Industrial). The country has an agriculture based economy with rich natural resources but the country is dependent on private investments and domestic consumption. The annual imports are higher than exports and this has contributed to a growing inflation in the recent years even though the GDP is growing at a gradual pace the deficit is also increasing. Though, Laos is one of the poorest countries in the region the recent development reforms introduced by the government in the past years has shown some positive outcomes. The foreign investments are growing gradually and the poverty is decreasing at a slower pace over the years and more people moving from rural areas to city areas to get jobs in industries and growing consumer markets. With Laos becoming a member of WTO in 2013 and the country opening the trade liberalization by adhering to the commitments toward the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), has given rise to growth in private investments and resulted in the increase in income and domestic consumption. This has also resulted in the changing consumer behavior as a result of the growth and the changing market and business environments. In Laos the main traditional culture is based on the Theravada Buddhism but there are other areas with non-Buddhist ethnic groups as well. In the Laos society the male members enjoyed more privileges in acquiring education through the monastery then the females till lately when the government implemented reforms to educate the other half the female population. The basic education is still not accessible to the children of the rural areas and families think that working is better than going for education. In this report we try to analyze the consumer behavior trends and lifestyle behaviors with the changing growth environment by organizing a survey of 400 respondents in Vientiane, Laos to culminate this report. In Vientiane, Laos the income is relatively low for the people with 34.72% of the respondents earning less than 166US$, another 35.94% earning between 167-333US$, some 21.03% earning between 334-833US$ and a very few (8.31%) earning more than 834US$. The currency of Laos is Laotian Kip (LAK) (1 Kip= 100Aths) and is weak in the international foreign exchange market (1 US$= 8,030 LAK). The reflections of this survey indicate that the people of Laos embrace for good education and better future and they understand the importance education in their path to achieving financial stability and sustainable growth in their country and efforts are being made at different levels by the government to accomplish this by educating the citizens and opening the more opportunities towards growth and incoming investments. In this survey report we try
to analyze consumer behavior trends in Vientiane, Laos covering fourteen habitudes.
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1) LEARNING HABITUDES In Laos the learning habitudes have been going in a positive direction as the education has increased since 1986 after the Laos PDR government implemented the education for all policy, and the highest education mostly sort after is Bachelors degree accounting to 49.4% of the total respondents. In a traditional family environment the boys in Laos are given more attention in terms of providing them with good education but girls are not encouraged to study till few years back when government of Laos introducing special development programs to encourage and empower girls with education and skills to enable them to find their better livelihoods. Though the literacy level is going up in Laos but there is still immense shortage of skilled people with only 11.5% of the respondents having vocational certificate/diploma. Higher education is also not very sort after as only 7.3% of the respondents had a Masters degree and a very meager percentage 0.2% of the respondents had a Doctorate degree. The Exhibit 1 gives us an idea of the education level of the respondents in Laos. Exhibit 1:
Highest Education Level of Respondents in Vientiane, Laos 0.2% 3.7% 7.3%
Primary school Secondary school
6.4%
High school 21.5%
49.4% 11.5%
Vocational certificate / Diploma Bachelor degree Master degree Doctorate degree
2) WORKING HABITUDES
In Vientiane, Laos, a majority (22.2%) of the respondents work as government employees and another significant section of them (13.2%) are employees of private firms and (10%) of the Page 5 of 19
respondents were business owners of small and very small businesses (selling from small shops, kiosks and carts) and yet another small number of respondents (2.4%) are self employed medium and large scale business owners who are also the privileged class and the remaining section of the inhabitants are temporary workers, housewives, freelancers, unemployed with a significant section (27.9%) of the respondents being students. Most people Laos live away in the rural areas and after the reforms in education and opening up of the market in the recent years people are moving to towns and cities where they find their first jobs in the new markets/shops, businesses and industries. The gradual pace of development and the increase of workforce has increased income levels but many of these workers being unskilled and inexperienced and this has created a great demand for vocational and specialized training in all fields and the government reforms to better the quality of education system is contributing to better standard of living of the people. Many inhabitants start working from a very young age to help their families to survive and education still remains a secondary option. The respondents in Vientiane, Laos mostly commute to work on motorcycles (53.1% of respondents), some privileged upper income group travel to work in cars (39.9%), and public transport is not prevalent in Laos with only a very small meager percentage (0.2%) travel by buses and remaining small percentages use other modes of travel.
3) EATING AND DRINKING HABITUDES
Majority of the respondents (89.2%) prefer to cook their own food everyday at home as a part of their way of life because it is cheaper to have home cooked food than to buy cooked food from outside or go out to eat.
In Vientiane, Laos, cooking in the households is mainly done by
themselves or family members at homes like parents, spouse, and brothers/sisters. It is observed from the survey that 93.9% of Vientiane respondents like to cook their local traditional dishes or recipes for food at home including sometimes Thai and Chinese food as well and only a very small percentage of respondents prefer to cook something different like Western or Japanese dishes at home. Many respondents prefer to cook meals at home for Breakfast (74.8% of respondents), for Lunch (28.8%) cook at home with a majority (53.3%) of respondents prefer to eat outside and for Dinner (59.4% of respondents) say they eat outside with only (11.5%) cook dinner at home and some respondents (24.9%) say they don ’t have dinner at all. Bringing food Page 6 of 19
box from home for lunch is not popular in Laos. For Supper most of the respondents (59.4%) said that they have their supper outside home and with some prefer to cook at home or don
’t
have at all. In Vientiane during breakfast time people prefer to have a Simpe dish (59% of respondents), Boiled Rice/Congee/Soup (42%), Tea/Coffee (30% of respondents), Milk (27%), Bread Egg Sandwich Ham/Sausage (16%), Bread/Bun/Baguette (15%), and Rice with elaborated different dishes (12%). When eating or drinking ouside most of the respondents said that they don’t read the labels of food and they usually buy fimiliar food brand or as recommended by family or friends. International dishes are getting popular and is still a novice culture in cities. According to the respondents they mostly buy their food from the wet markets and some food types like snacks or packaged food they prefer to buy form supermarkets that are coming up gradually. Healthy food awarness is still not prevalent in Vientiane, Laos. Though the people in Laos have an influence of Buddhism on their lifestyle but the survey indicates that there is little influence on their drinking habits with majority (63.1%) of the respondents said that they do drink alcohol sometime and 8.6% say they drink regularly with only 28.4% saying they don’t drink alcohol at all. The male population drinks more alcohol on a regular basis (14.5% of male respondents) and only small percentage (3.9%) of female population drink regularly. This gives us a picture that drinking alcohol is prevalent in the society and may grow with the growing economic trends. And for the few respondents who don’t drink alcohol have cited reasons for not drinking as it is not good for health (64.8%) or it doesn’t taste good (21.6%) and only very small percentage (0.8%) of respondents said that it’s against their religious beliefs. The young generation seems consuming more alcohol than the senior citizens. Going to night clubs is quite prevalent in Vientiane as more than half of the respondents (52.8%) said they do visit night clubs sometimes and 6.1% visit regularly. Other drinks that the respondents consumed daily are milk (39.6 %), fresh brewed coffee (11.7%), instant coffee (18.3%), tea (11.5%), and vegetable/fruit juice (27.9%). And some drinks that’s they preferred to drink sometimes (once or twice a week) are soya milk (38.9%), vegetable/fruit juice (38.6%), soft drink with gas (31.5%), soft drink without gas (21.3%) and energy drink (11.0%).
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4) GROOMING HABITUDES
Though, Vientiane respondents have a simple living but still more than half (56.4%) of the males respondents do involve in grooming themselves and only 62% of the male respondents uses creams/lotions and another 12.3% consumes vitamins and supplement for better health and looks. In the female segment there is a lot more to beauty and personal care happening with a significant percentage (87.0%) of female respondents going for grooming themselves and extensively use lotions/creams (88.3%), make-ups (52.2%), another 24.5% consumes vitamins and supplement for better health and beautiful looks. Young women between the age group of 18-39 Yrs consider it as important to visit the beauty clinics to make themselves more beautiful and smart to cope with the latest fashion trends and lifestyles. This has resulted in Beauty clinics popularity and many such clinics are coming up in the big cities and along with fitness centre as residents are more becoming conscious about their appearance and to some extent health.
5) FASHION HABITUDES
In Vientiane, Laos the traditional dresses like sarongs, traditional long Laos skirts like Sinh are giving way to Korean and Thai fashion styles and to some extent to the western style with the increasing exposure of the Laos people to popular television series and movies from the countries like Thailand and Korea, the people are fast updating and changing to the new lifestyles. With the opening of the economy in the recent years the younger generation is fast adapting to the new fashionable trends, especially the modern young women who are increasingly avoiding the traditional dresses and embracing more modern looks and styles. The men fashions are not evolving as rapidly as the women fashion trends though with the changing era and media exposure to fashions trends of other countries has inspired the youth lifestyle resulting in a change in the grooming habits of the modern youth. Social networks like the Facebook are increasingly becoming a popular platform for entertainment and social networking among the young generation. Though, owing fashion/luxury items such as clothes, shoes, watches, bags, sunglasses etc. that value more than $1,000 is not very common as only 16.2% of respondents owned 1-2 expensive items and the majority of the respondents (76.8%) did not own any luxury items at all. Most of these luxury items like jewelry are bought from shopping Page 8 of 19
centre/department stores and the other items like clothes, shoes and bags people mostly bought these from flea markets. Celebrities play a significant role in influencing the consumers’ buying decisions in Laos. The main reason to own fashion/luxury items as cited by the respondents is that they buy these items mainly for social status in society and for good design plus high quality. In the Exhibit 2 we can see the ownerships percentage of luxury items. Exhibit 2:
Luxury Items Ownership Among Vientiane Respondents that Value Over $1000 3%4% None
16%
Some 1-2 items About 3-5 items More than 5 items 77%
6) HEALTH AND WELLNESS HABITUDE
According to the response of the survey many respondents in Vientiane have a low tendency of smoking and moderate drinking habits which gives a fairly healthy picture of the society. In case of minor illnesses the majority (56.5%) of the respondents prefers to buy over the counter medicine from nearby pharmacy to fix their sickness and some prefer to see a doctor at a clinic or hospital and very tiny sections (0.7%) of the society still prefers to visit a traditional doctor or would like to have herbal medicines to get better. When there is a moderate or serious illness most of the respondents (73.1%) preferred to visit a public hospital for treatment and some prefer to visit private hospitals or clinics but some higher income privileged class people also prefer to go to hospitals abroad to neighboring countries like Thailand. Medical insurances are slowly becoming prevalent in the Laos society and will grow with the growing demand and opening of the markets but many people even buy medical insurance for across the border in Thailand. Page 9 of 19
Around 37.9% of the respondents said that they prefer get their medical checkup done every year. Some respondents (26.4%) preferred to exercise everyday either at home or public parks to be in good health. Refer Exhibit 3 & 4 give further details. Exhibit 3:
General Habitude to Fix Minor Illness Among Vientiane Respondents 0.7%1.5% 4.6%
Do nothing Buy medicine from nearby pharmacy
13.9%
Seeing doctor at clinic 22.7%
Seeing doctor at hospital 56.5% Taking herb or seeing traditional doctor Others
Exhibit 4:
General Preferences for Medical Treatment for Severe Illnesses Among Vientiane Respondents 0.2% 0.5% 9.8%
7.3%
Modern international hospital Public hospital
9% Private hospital Clinic Seeing traditional doctor 73.1% Others
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7) SMOKING HABITUDES
Remarkably in Vientiane, Laos smoking is not very popular with only 10.8% of respondents smoke and 89.2% of the respondents do not smoke which is a good sign for healthy lifestyle. The male respondents smoke more (17.9% of male respondents) than the females in Laos’s society and many inhabitants do not prefer to smoke in public places and would prefer to have a law to prohibit smoking in public places similar to some other neighboring countries. The respondents between the age groups of 30-60Yrs smoked more though the overall percentage of smoker in Laos is pretty low. And, the people who do smoke buy the cigarettes from grocery/traditional retailers (54.8% of respondents), shopping center/ department store (23.8%) and wet markets (11.9%). The Exhibit 5 shows the smoking habits by age group. Exhibit 5:
Smoking Habits (By Age Group) of Vientiane Respondents Yes More than 60 years
No 100.00%
50-60 years
16.20%
83.80%
40-49 years
14.90%
85.10%
30-39 years
15.10%
84.90%
23-29 years
7.90%
92.10%
18-22 years
8.30%
91.70%
8) SHOPPING HABITUDES
Laos has witnessed recent opening up of markets and educational reforms and as a result the thing are changing and shopping is also an activity that people of Vientiane like to engage in, with very few respondents saying that they never or rarely go shopping. In Vientiane, Laos advertising through celebrities is an effective mode of convincing the consumer to buy the products, even marketing campaign through mobile phone to play lucky draw is quite effective to influence Laotian people. Word of mouth is also effective in decision making for what or where to shop. In Laos cash only is the mode of payment for transactions and international Page 11 of 19
currencies like Dollar and Pounds are widely acceptable including the Thai Baht. Eco friendly awareness is not prevalent in Laotian consumer markets yet. And many Laotians prefer to cross the border to Thailand for weekend shopping and travel. In Laos today, there are a variety of convenient stores and traditional grocery stores but have very few super market/hypermarket or department stores and is not comparable to the standard of the neighboring countries. Though, the promotions and advertisements through celebrity and television are also widely effective to attract Laotian customers. People also like to go shopping at places like wet markets, grocery/traditional retailer depending on location and what they want to buy. In Vientiane, as per respondents’ response the consumer products like detergents, tissue paper are mainly bought from Grocery/traditional retailers (51.1% of respondents) and convenient stores (15.6%) and the frequency of buying is once or twice in a month (45.7% of respondents), products like soap, shampoo, toothpaste are also purchased from Grocery/traditional retailers (49.9%) and convenient stores (22.2%) and the frequency of buying is once or twice in a month (52.1% of respondents), skincare products like body/face lotion, deodorants are shopped mainly at specialty stores (20.3%) and some (14.5%) respondents buy either from super market/hyper market or from shopping centre/department stores and the frequency of buying is once or twice in a month (48.8% of respondents) and another 24.1% of respondents say they buy every three months, makeup products are also mostly bought from convenient stores (17.1%) and specialty store (15.6%) the frequency of buying is a little different as some 21.8% of respondents say they buy once or twice in a month, some 19.4% of respondents say they buy every three months and another 19.6.% of respondents they buy makeup products in six months or longer period. Other products like computer/phone/tablet and accessories are mainly bought from specialty stores (53.3%) and some (23.7%) buy them form shopping center/department stores and the frequency of buying is every six months or longer for 64.8% of respondents, another 20.6% of respondents say they have never bought these products. Youngsters in Vientiane, Laos have exhibited a noticeable transformation in their behavior and lifestyle in hanging out with friends and colleagues, wearing modern fashionable outfits and meeting at the shopping malls and also find their jobs there in the recent years. Below are pictures of Markets in Vientiane, Laos.
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Picture 1 & 2: Markets in Vientiane, Laos
1)A Small Shopping Mall
2) A Traditional Market (Shops)
9) LEISURE HABITUDES
Leisure habitudes of Vientiane respondents are mainly watching television with 97.3% of the respondents watch television regularly or sometimes, they have their national channels on telecast over the country and Thai and Korean channels are received through cable network and the Thai and Korean programs/series are very popular. Inhabitants in Vientiane like watching movie and listening to music with 31.8% of respondents saying that they have seen movies regularly and 33.5% said that they listened to music regularly, sports doesn’t seem to be a popular activity in Vientiane only 22% of the respondents have played sports regularly but they do like watching sports on television similar to habitudes in the neighboring countries. Reading books is also a little less favorite activity for people here with only 19.8% of the respondents read regularly and 57.23% sometimes. Internet and social networking is also a quite widely preferred leisure activity for people with 35.0% respondents in Vientiane surfing internet either regularly and another 40.8% sometimes and another 17.1% of the respondents say that they play digital video games regularly. Exercise is also another activity the people like to do in their leisure time with 59.3% of the respondents exercise sometimes and 25.2% regularly. People in Page 13 of 19
Vientiane also like to prepare food at home and doing household chores like cleaning during their leisure time at home but have less interest in doing handicraft or art activities. Gardening also is also another activity people indulge in occasionally with 35.7% of the respondents do garden activities sometimes. Partying out is another prevalent leisure activity in Vientiane with 74.8% of the respondents goes out parting sometimes though not regularly. Laotians also like to go out for sightseeing and travelling in their spare time. 10) HOME AND DIY GARDEN HABITUDES
The meaning of home for many Laos’s people is the same like most people around the world. In Vientiane, Laos 65.3% of the respondents said they lived seven days in a week at home, 3.2% said that they lived only one day in a week at home, which give a fair idea that people prefer to be close to home and the trend to move away from home to places for work and education is yet to come with the increasing urbanization in the coming years. Most of the homes in Laos are self build and owned (79.2% of respondents), but some (11.7%) respondents say they live in rental houses. Laotian people like to have 1-3 bedrooms in their house and they like to have 1-2 bathrooms in their house and like to have traditional type kitchens. Young Vientiane people prefer modern living style over traditional living style. The kitchenware widely used in Myanmar are refridgerators (96% of the respondents), and electric kettle (82%), gas/electric stoves (57%), and the other kitchenwares used are toastesr, microwaves, stainers, ovens, cooker hoods etc. Irrespective of income ranges most (59.7%) of the respondents said they would prefer to buy fully furnished (ready to move-in) house than buying a unfurnished house.
According to the
respondents, in Vientiane, Laos PDR the most preferred building material used for construction is Brick and Cement (70.9% of respondents), Semi-wooden Semi cement (26.2%), and complete wood as material is not prevalent to use but people do like to have wooden furniture in their living rooms to show their status. The new young generation likes to have modern furniture at home but they have to compromise with the old furniture at home. Wooden furniture is most preferred and is also affordable as the Laos PDR is plenty of wood as natural resource (See Picture 3 &4). People in Vientiane like privacy and majority (75.3%) of the respondents like to have curtains in their house. Painted cement walls is the most preferred wall texture used by Laotians in Vientiane to decorate their walls with only 10.5% of the respondents saying that they preferred to have wood paneled/laminated walls. Page 14 of 19
Picture 3 & 4: Wooden Interior of a house in Vientiane, Laos
3) Wooden Stairs and Ceiling
4) Wooden Furniture
Regarding DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and Gardening habits, 64.9% of the respondents did not have a garden in their present house and another 35.1% do have a garden in their current home. Only 18.6% of the people seem to do regular gardening at home and 58.4% doing some gardening activities at home. More than half of the respondents (58.9%) in Vientiane rarely do any craftwork or handcraft work but some 35.7% of the respondents do like to do craftwork and handicraft work. In Vientiane, only 18.6% of respondents can do some home maintenance by themselves such as replacing the light bulb, plumbing, fixing chair and do home maintenance regularly others said they can them sometimes or they rarely do it themselve and get the maintenance done from related trades persons. In Vientiane, according to respondents’ response it seems that people do not prefer hiring any professionals like architects, interior designers to design and decorate their homes, 65.3% of the respondents said that they did not hire any professional at all to decorate/design their homes, some 24.0% of respondent said that they did engage professionals to design some parts of their homes and only 10.8% of respondents said that they did get thier complete home designed by hiring professionals. Therefore, hiring professional is not popular in Vientaine, Laos in all Page 15 of 19
income groups except the higher income group.
Exhibit 6 & 7 gives more details about Home
Gradening and Maintenance preferences. Exhibit 6:
Percentage (%) of Vientiane Respondents' Prefer Doing Gardening
23%
18.60% Regularly Sometimes Never/Rarely
58.40%
Exhibit 7:
Percentage of Vientiane Respondents' Preference of Doing Home Maintainances
18.6% Regularly
35.2%
Sometimes Never/Rarely 46.2%
11) PET OWNERSHIP HABITUDES
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According of the survey, it seem that Laotian people like having pets at home, the most popular pet among the respondents of Vientiane are dogs as 57.5% of the respondents own dogs, and some people own cats, fish and other pets are fairly less popular. Pet shop, pet grooming services are not popular as the majority of the respondents 68.5% have never been to these shops and veterinary services and some (21.0%) respondents say they do go to pet shops or grooming services once in a while. The Exhibit 8 shows the details of pet ownership in Vientiane. Exhibit 8:
Pet Ownership Percentage (%) Among Vientaine Respondents Others Fish
4.90% 15.80%
Cat Dog
21.80% 57.50%
12) TRAVEL/HOLIDAY HABITUDES
The respondents in Vientiane like to travel during weekends and holidays and prefer visiting tourist attraction like beaches, mountains, cultural and recreational attractions. Most of respondents (60.9%) like to go out for holidays domestically once a year or once in few years. Some (13.7%) of respondents travel domestically every six months and for some (12.2%) once every three months and in most of the trips they prefer to stay for 2-4 days and mostly travel by private cars (64.1%), buses (21.5%) or by rental cars (7.3%) with only 2.9% traveling by air. Most respondents said that they like to travel with family, relatives and friends for holidays. Traveling overseas is not very frequent with only 13.0% of the respondents travel once in a year and only 5.6% very six months and many of them may not travel overseas in years. The most popular destinations for traveling overseas for Laotians are China and Japan (32.9% of respondents), South East Asia (27.1%), and some (23.9%) prefer to travel to European countries and other destinations around the world are less popular. When travelling overseas some 52.8% of the respondents prefer to travel with parents/family/relatives and some (26.4%) prefer to travel with friends and some travel by themselves. The durations for short overseas holidays for some Page 17 of 19
32.4% of respondents could be 5-7 days and some 10.3% of the respondents said that they could stay even more than 10 days for medical, study or work related purposes. The mode of overseas travel in most cases is the regular airlines or budget airlines but in some cases traveling abroad to neighboring countries (Laos has five bordering countries) like Thailand the trips are undertaken in personal cars or buses. 13) COMMUTING HABITUDES
Majority of the Vientiane respondents (53.1%) prefer to travel/commute to work by motorcycle some (39.9%) of the respondents prefer to travel by car and public travel is like busses are not effectively plying. After the recent years of opening up of the country and reform by the government the mid-high income people started buying cars resulting in the increase of vehicles in Vientiane, and other cities of Laos contributing to frequent traffic congestions in the cities and the infrastructure like roads not fully developed. The public transport is not developed enough, the Vientiane Municipal Transport buses are running in the city but not a popular and reliable mode of transport but the private operators and specially the tri-wheeled motorized vehicles (Tuk-Tuks) are more popular and reliable mode of transport, they are preferred over taxis as taxis ply mainly between the main locations like markets, bus stations and the Friendship bridge. All these private land transportation modes are most widely used by the people of Laos to go around locally and domestically. Refer Exhibit 9 for more details. Exhibit 9:
How do people commute in Vientiane? 1.5% 0.2%0.7%
Walk
4.7%
Private car Motocycle 39.7% Bus / public transportation
53.2%
Vehicle provided by Employer Others
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14) FINANCIAL HABITUDES
Financial habitudes are very basic and as this country is gradually opening up with a growing private investments and government reforms the habitude are gradually changing. Majority of respondents in Vientiane (98.8%) prefer using cash in their day to day transactions, debit cards and credit cards are very less prevalent in the country and people like to deposit in banks than keeping money at home. Investment in any funds, bonds or shares by respondents is almost negligible. Only 6% of the respondents said that they had bought insurance coverage with the majority having no insurance coverage. People do like to invest in gold in Laos as 16.4% of the respondents said they had invested in buying gold. Real estate investment is also is very less prevalent as only 6.1% of the respondents had investment in this sector. Saving is not an essential habit as per the survey 99.0% of the respondents said that they had not save money. Vientiane, Laos is still in the initial stage of financial sector development and will take years to mature and build investor confidence. Exhibit 10 shows the preferred mode of payments.
Exhibit 10:
Shopping Payment Options used by Vientiane Respondents 0.5% 0.7%
Cash Cashier Check Cashier Check
98.8%
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