ily Mekong and tributaries; 2,897 additional km are
intermittently navigable by craft drawing less than 0.5 m (2003)

Pipelines:
refined products 540 km (2004)

Merchant marine:
total: 1 ship (1,000 GRT or over) 2,370 GRT/3,110 DWT
by type: cargo 1 (2005)

Airports:
44 (2004 est.)

Airports - with paved runways:
total: 9
2,438 to 3,047 m: 1
1,524 to 2,437 m: 5
914 to 1,523 m: 3 (2004 est.)

Airports - with unpaved runways:
total: 35
1,524 to 2,437 m: 1
914 to 1,523 m: 13
under 914 m: 21 (2004 est.)

Military Laos

Military branches:
Lao People's Army (LPA; includes Riverine Force), Air Force

Military service age and obligation:
15 years of age for compulsory military service; conscript service
obligation - minimum 18 months (2004)

Manpower available for military service:
males age 15-49: 1,500,625 (2005 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:
males age 15-49: 954,816 (2005 est.)

Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males: 73,167 (2005 est.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$10.7 million (2004)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
0.5% (2004)

Military - note:
Laos is one of the world's least developed countries; the Lao
People's Armed Forces are small, poorly funded, and ineffectively
resourced; there is little political will to allocate sparse funding
to the military, and the armed forces' gradual degradation is likely
to continue; the massive drug production and trafficking industry
centered in the Golden Triangle makes Laos an important narcotics
transit country, and armed Wa and Chinese smugglers are active on
the Lao-Burma border (2005)

Transnational Issues Laos

Disputes - international:
Southeast Asian states have enhanced border surveillance to check
the spread of avian flu; Laos and Thailand pledge to complete
demarcation of boundaries in 2005, while ongoing disputes over
squatters and boundary encroachment by Thailand including Mekong
River islets persist; in 2004 Cambodian-Laotian boundary commission
agrees to re-erect missing markers in two adjoining provinces;
concern among Mekong Commission members that China's construction of
dams on the Mekong River will affect water levels

Illicit drugs:
estimated cultivation in 2004 - 10,000 hectares, a 45% decrease
from 2003; estimated potential production in 2004 - 49 metric tons,
a significant decrease from 200 metric