Vientiane and Beijing agree to US$ 7.2 billion railway to link the whole of Southeast Asia
Vientiane (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Laos and China will jointly build a bridge linking the Southeast Asian nation with northeastern Thailand as part of a U.S. .2 billion high-speed railway project that has been delayed by numerous setbacks for more than four years.
Officials from both sides agreed to build the bridge over the Mekong River to link Laos with Thailand’s Nong Khai province. During their meeting, they also resolved to build the much-delayed rail line from Kunming in south China’s Yunnan province to the Lao capital Vientiane, a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport told RFA.
Landlocked Laos expects the railway’s 420-kilometre route through the country to lower the cost of exports and consumer goods while boosting socioeconomic development in the impoverished nation of nearly 7 million people. It is part of a longer railway that will extend southward through the Malaysia to Singapore.
Both sides agreed to complete in five years the construction of a 500-kilometer (310-mile) leg of the railway in China and in Laos, although they did not schedule a start date.
Political and financial setbacks have delayed the Lao-China stretch of the railway. The original construction plan called for work to begin in 2011 and be completed this year, this according to the state-owned Vientiane Times.
The two countries had agreed to a 40-60 split of the initial financing costs. Laos will pay 40 per cent, or US$ 840 million, of the initial construction costs, while China will pay 60 per cent, or US$ 1.26 billion.
Chinese venture capital firms would contribute the remaining US$ 5.1 billion, and receive substantial stakes in the railway once it has been completed, it said.
Lao Deputy Prime Minister Somsavat Lengsavath said Lao officials could not yet estimate how many passengers from Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore would use the railway once it was linked to Thailand.
Following his comments, some citizens expressed concern about whether the high-cost railway project would be worthwhile for the country.
“It is not necessary to invest a large sum of money in the railway project,” a resident of Luang Namth province where the railway begins in the northernmost region of Laos, told RFA. “Each province has many problems with roads. Why not use that money to build standard roads throughout the country, which is what people really need?”
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