This research was carried out in Lao PDR between May and October 2012 as a joint Enterprise Survey and Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) survey, and included a large panel component based on the 2009 data collection efforts. The objective of Enterprise Surveys is to obtain feedback from businesses on the state of the private sector as well as to help in building a panel of enterprise data that will make it possible to track changes in the business environment over time, thus allowing, for example, impact assessments of reforms. Through interviews with firms in the manufacturing and services sectors, the survey assesses the constraints to private sector growth and creates statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries. For Lao PDR 2012 study additional interviews were conducted in the following sectors: mining and quarrying, electricity, gas and water supply, financial intermediation, real estate, and education. The observations collected in these sectors were not used to compute indicators shown on the Enterprise Surveys website (www.enterprisesurveys.org) as they are not comparable to other countries surveyed.
