Born in 1938 in Pakse (then a part of the French protectorate of Laos within French Indochina), Saysangkhi earned a secondary education degree in mathematics in 1960, attended a public works engineering school in Laos, and then studied law and economic science in Paris from 1964 to 1965. After returning, he became chief of the Communication and Transport Service of the Royal Government of Laos (RLG). At the same time, however, he is said to have "participated in the revolution" on behalf of the opposition Lao People's Revolutionary Party, which was then locked in a civil war with the RLG. It is believed that he worked as an "underground" activist, opposing the RLG from within its ranks. Just before the LPRP came to power, he became the RLG's Director General of Public Works. After the LPRP assumed power in 1975 and established the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), he worked as the Director for Materials and Equipment in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport until 1981, when he was appointed to be Director General of the LPDR Representation at the Vietnamese port of Da Nang. In 1982, he returned to Laos to become Acting Minister of Equipment in the LPDR cabinet. He remained in this post until 1985, when he became Vice Minister of Communications, Transportation and Post. In 1990, a few months before his resignation from the LPRP and arrest, he became Vice Minister of Science and Technology, a post which he also resigned along with his party membership.