Laos has huge potential to boost livestock production for exports following the inauguration of the China-Laos Railway in 2021, local media quoted a senior official as saying on Thursday.

Kaviphone Phouthavong, director general of the Department of Livestock and Fisheries under the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, told a meeting that the Southeast Asian country has large tracts of land that are suitable for livestock production projects tailored to export markets, according to a report of the Lao Economic Daily.

Livestock plays a pivotal role in the Lao agricultural sector, accounting for more than a third of the sector's value-added products, said the report.

Laos' livestock exports in the past nine months reached over 61 million U.S. dollars.

The demand for livestock and livestock products, including meat, milk and eggs, is rapidly increasing both domestically and in neighboring markets, particularly China and Vietnam.

This growth is fueled by the development of a regional road network throughout the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), and bilateral agreements between Laos and its neighbors on livestock exports.

Annual livestock exports to China alone are valued at about 54 million U.S. dollars, according to the report.