WALSON Southeast Asia Operations Center opens

1. A regional base in Laos, with further cross-border service capabilities in Myanmar and Malaysia

With WALSON's new Laos office entering service, the WALSON Southeast Asia Operations Center has also formally opened.

This marks another important milestone in WALSON's regional development in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia is becoming one of the most active regions for Chinese companies' international expansion. As investment destinations diversify and project structures grow more complex, legal needs are moving beyond a single country or matter towards integrated cross-border support covering investment decisions, market entry, project development, corporate governance, operational compliance and dispute resolution.

Drawing on its experience supporting Chinese investment projects in Laos and Southeast Asia, WALSON has further integrated regional resources and established the center in Vientiane. Its functions include regional project coordination, organising professional resources, knowledge management and support for projects spanning jurisdictions.

In addition to its local service system in Laos, WALSON's Southeast Asian business cooperation network now extends further into Myanmar and Malaysia.

2. From single-country services to regional coordination

The center is not simply an expansion of the number of countries served. It represents a further development in how cross-border legal services are organised.

For businesses entering Southeast Asia, a single project often involves investment decisions in China, establishing an overseas project company, land and concession arrangements, financing, tax, employment, commercial contracts and local regulatory requirements.

Legal systems, administrative structures and business practices differ significantly between countries. Handling each jurisdiction separately can result in fragmented information, disconnected legal advice and excessive project management costs.

WALSON is therefore developing a model based on regional coordination, local professional support and collaboration with the China-facing team. The center develops a shared understanding of clients' commercial objectives and project structures, coordinates professionals across jurisdictions, and manages core legal issues, schedules and deliverables consistently. This allows clients to manage legal matters in several countries through one principal point of contact.

3. Building substantive cross-border capabilities

The center's priority is not merely broader country coverage, but regional service infrastructure that can support international business operations over the long term.

Its principal functions will include:

• Regional project coordination: coordinating lawyers and professional organisations in different countries;
• Cross-border project management: aligning work plans, milestones and deliverable standards;
• Major investment project support: serving energy, mining, infrastructure, manufacturing and other key investment sectors;
• Regional compliance management: tracking changes in investment, corporate, employment, tax and sector-specific regulation;
• Knowledge management: translating project experience into a repeatable cross-border investment legal services system;
• China–Southeast Asia coordination: connecting Chinese companies' decision-makers with implementation in destination countries.

For WALSON, internationalisation means more than adding offices or partner organisations. It means building a consistent professional service capability across different legal systems, languages and business cultures.

A new office, a new stage

The Southeast Asia Operations Center is located in WALSON Law Firm (Laos)'s new Vientiane office.

It formally opens on 6 October 2026.

New address: 6th Floor, area AB-36, VietinBank Office Building (VOB), No. 268 Lanexang Avenue, Hatsadinua Village, Chanthabouly District, Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR.

From Laos, connecting China and Southeast Asia.

WALSON will continue expanding its regional professional network around clients' actual cross-border business needs, providing more stable, standardised and sustainable support for Chinese companies entering Southeast Asia and operating across the region.