Pre-engineering work on building Myanmar-Thai direct highway to start soon
22/9/2008 16:36
Pre-engineering work on building a highway directly linking Myanmar's
planned deep-sea port of Dawei in the southern coastal Tanintharyi division and
Thailand will start soon, the local Weekly Eleven News reported today.
The
pre-engineering work, which covers an initial distance of 100 kilometers,
includes land survey, mapping and soil test, the report said, adding that the
construction project, which extends up to the Myanmar-Thai border, will be
undertaken by the Thailand- based Italian-Thai Development
Corporation.
Meanwhile, feasibility study on building the Dawei deep-sea port
is also underway.
Once the project is implemented, it could carry out trade
from the Dawei deep-sea port with Bangkok within a day which is only a 300
kilometers' voyage, experts said.
According to other local report, a Myanmar
section highway in southeastern Kayin state, which constitutes part of the
East-West Economic Corridor covered by the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)
Economic Cooperation Program, is also being built.
Of the Myanmar section
highway, which stretches as Myawaddy- Thingan Nyinaung-Kawkareik-Mawlamyine with
a total length of about 1,400 km, the prior 18-km Myawaddy-Thingan Nyinaung
section was completed with the assistance of Thailand last year, while that of
the 22-kilometer (km) section lying between Thingan Nyinaung and Kawkareik is in
progress.
The East-West economic corridor under the GMS program, links the
South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal, that is from Vietnam's Danang Port in the
East to Myanmar's Mawlamyine in the West. The Mawlamyine-Danang land route will
take only 1,000 km whereas the sea route which passes through the Malacca
Straits takes 4,000 km.
Once the remaining 1,360-km section from Kawkareik to
Mawlamyine, where the planned deep-sea port locates, is further built, it will
provide a link to Europe through Asia's China, India and Thailand, experts
said.
Meanwhile, another deep-sea port project at Mawlamyine in Myanmar's
southern Mon state has also been reportedly planned.
Xinhua
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