China backs US$12b rail link through Thailand
Print Edition
CONSTRUCTION on a US$12 billion Chinese-backed railway through Thailand will begin in September, officials said yesterday, as part of a grand vision to overhaul the country’s notoriously creaking network.
“The first two phases will start by September or October at the latest this year and will take around two and a half years to complete,” Thailand’s Transport Minister Prajin Juntong told reporters after a meeting with Chinese officials in Bangkok.
Thailand has just 250 kilometers of dual track railway, making train travel painfully slow. Bangkok plans to lay down two new dual track lines, part of a wider regional network that Beijing hopes will eventually link China’s southwestern hub city of Kunming with Asia’s second busiest port of Singapore.
The largest line will cut 734 kilometers through Thailand, from northern Nong Khai province — which borders Laos — to the vast, coastal industrial estate of Map Ta Phut, southeast of Bangkok.
Prajin, the former head of Thailand’s airforce, said construction on that line would be in four stages with the first beginning in September, laying down tracks between Map Ta Phut and Kaeng Khoi, via the capital. In total the four stages are expected to cost around 400 billion baht (US$12 billion), the Ministry of Transport said in a statement.
Completion of all stages is expected around 2020 with further meetings to be held in Beijing in February to decide the level of Chinese involvement.
The Thai economy remains weak after months of anti-government protests hobbled the previous administration.
“This is a new era in Thailand and China’s relationship,” Deputy Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai told reporters.
Last month Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Thai leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who is also prime minister, signed an agreement over the railway’s construction. In November China pledged US$20 billion in soft loans and for infrastructure projects to the 10-members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations during a summit in Myanmar.
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