Since the second half of the 1980s, the socialist country of Laos has been promoting chintanakhan mai ( literally, "new thinking"), a policy for developing human resources to assist the shift to a market economy. As part of this policy the National University of Laos, the nation's first integrated national university, was established in 1995, with support from the Asian Development Bank, Germany, Japan, and other donors. The university's Faculty of Economics and Management, which plays an important role in turning out human resources to lead the shift to a market economy, faces the challenges of a shortage of textbooks and the imperative to quickly develop teaching staff. For Laos, having joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations only in 1997, independent production of textbooks dealing with international fields is especially difficult, and there is also a serious shortage of teachers in these fields.
This project contributed to the training of teachers in the Faculty of Economics and Management by supporting the production of two textbooks, International Finance and International Business Management, for which the Laotian side requested assistance especially strongly. Preparation was supervised by a team of experts from Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand assembled by the grant recipient, De La Salle University, a leading Philippine university. The two textbooks, written in Lao, were completed in March 2003, and 200 copies of each were distributed to teachers, students, policymakers, and business people.