The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and brought about untold consequences to lives and socio-economic development of the world. No one is safe until everyone is safe. Therefore, it required concerted and genuine cooperation and partnership among nations across the world, especially in the face of the current wave of outbreak in which COVID-19 mutation has become more contagious and resistant to available vaccines. In this context, genuine cooperation should be strongly promoted through development and production of vaccines and medicines, politicization of vaccines or the origin-tracing of COVID-19 virus should be avoided, as it is a complex scientific matter that requires objective, transparent, inclusive and purely scientific based efforts. Only through multilateral cooperation, all nations, especially developing countries, would be able to have equal access to vaccines and medicines and thus COVID-19 would be defeated.

Lao PDR stands ready to support and contribute to this endeavor.

Vientiane, July 22^nd, 2021

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic would like to reaffirm its position that an embargo with its extra-terrestrial implications does not only hinder the socio-economic development of a nation, but it also contradicts the principles and purposes enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and international law and those sovereign equality of states as well as freedom of international trade and navigation. As such, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic has neither promulgated nor applied laws and measures of the kind referred to in the UN resolutions A//RES/74/7.

The imposition of the economic, commercial and financial embargo on the Republic of Cuba by the United States not only violates the international law, but it also imposes severe restrictions and obstacles to the socio-economic development of Cuba. Against this backdrop, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic calls for lifting of such embargo against Cuba at the earliest possible.

Vientiane, July 16^th, 2021