Thailand revives $30 bln coast-to-coast corridor to rival Malacca Strait
Key takeaways
- “This thing will be located in the area where we make our living,” he said last month in the small fishing hamlet of Baan Hat Sai Dam on an island ringed by mangrove forests. “Where will we go?”
- Reuters crisscrossed the land and communities in the path of the proposed Land Bridge and interviewed more than 15 residents, local officials, experts, planning leaders and others involved or affected by the process.
- Analysts say the project currently appears economically ambitious and is unlikely to compete with Malacca as a global transit route, but it could prove viable as a smaller-scale strategic corridor for Thailand.
Why this matters: local context for readers following news across Pakistan and the region.
Add ARY News on Google AAResize RANONG: Chaiyaporn Arunrasamee hunched over his fishing nets, overlooking the waters of the Andaman Sea, where Thailand’s government is proposing an ambitious “Land Bridge” that will ferry goods between ports on opposite sides of the peninsula.
“Personally, I don’t want it to happen at all,” Chaiyaporn said of the project, which Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has resuscitated after the war in Iran and the closure of the Hormuz Strait highlighted countries’ reliance on strategic maritime chokepoints.
Plans envision a 1 trillion baht ($30.45 billion) logistics corridor to offer an alternative route to the congested Strait of Malacca by connecting two new deep-sea ports: Chumphon, on the Gulf of Thailand to the east, and Ranong, along the western Andaman coast, where Chaiyaporn, 50, has fished for his entire life.