Lao Good Design Award (L Mark) is established to promote development of domestic product design. Although, Laos is rich in natural resources and high quality materials to produce premium products for domestic and international markets, but the design is still simple. This is because it businesses lack creativity and innovation. Therefore, L Mark is created and aims to encourage Lao entrepreneurs to produce innovative, high quality design in order to meet current trends and to bring better products to both domestic and international consumers. With regards this, Department of Trade Promotion (DTP), Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC) received encouragement from ASEAN JAPAN CENTER (AJC), the Japan Institute of Design Promotion (JDP) when Director General of DTP attended the meeting on the establishment of National Good Design Awards in 6 ASEAN Member States in Tokyo, Japan. After that three parties had communicated together consistently through online platform to develop the mutual MOU were initiated in November 2019. On 27th March 2020 the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the President of the JDP, the Secretary General of AJC and the Director General of DTP. The collaboration aims to develop and strengthen cooperation in the field of design promotion and design exchanges in Japan and Laos through establishing Lao Good Design awards and Good Design Award (GMark) like awarding mechanism in Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Through the collaboration between AJC, JDP and DTP, the winners of L Mark are exempted from the first screening of the Good Design Award judging and are entitled to take part in the second stage judging process in Tokyo. L Mark will be initially launched by the end of 2021 and receive support and cooperation from ASEAN-Japan Centre and The Japan Institute of Design Promotion (JDP) in leading to form and determine the judging criteria for L Mark Award, inviting professional experts as well as promoting L Mark Award in international arena. To implement L Mark Award, DTP will cooperate with national and international organizations to develop the work plan of this award. In addition, the lesson learned and experience of Japan, Thailand, Singapore and other countries that are implementing Design Award are very crucial to adopt for develop L Mark framework.
