Handing-over of Consumer Hotline Equipment

The Consumer Hotline “1510” was set up in June 2016 through the support of GIZ regional project “Competition Policy and Law in ASEAN II (CPL II)”, the hotline is based at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MoIC) and its objective is to support the implementation of the Law on Consumer Protection, particularly to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Importantly, Consumer Hotline constitutes a very crucial information tool for consumers as they could complain about defective goods and dissatisfactory services and seek for Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADRs).

Up till now, the hotline has been operating for one and a half years and the number of calls reaches 155, which 65.1% of the complainant is male and 34.8% is female, thus, the advocacy with the focus on women is still necessary. However, the Consumer Hotline has been well known for people in Laos, but the facilities of handling the complaint are limited and old. Therefore, by providing the new and sufficient office facilities for MoIC shall greatly support the operation to be more effective and convenient for operators to manage and monitor the compliant.

The event of handing-over the Consumer Hotline equipment was successfully carried on by the MOIC, relevant consumer protection agencies and GIZ. The representative of CPL II project, Mr. Frank Tibitanzl (Project Director of the “Support to the Initiative for ASEAN Integration” (IAI)) was handing the equipment to Mr. Khuanchai Iemsouthi, the DDG of Internal Trade Department, MOIC.