LARGE PROJECTS

Infrastructure to speed recovery

Charoen Kittikanya

The picture of His Majesty the King laying the foundation stone at Suvarnabhumi airport's passenger terminal in January this year may be symbolic of a turning point in Thailand's infrastructure sector as it seeks to recover from the economic meltdown of 1997.

Infrastructure projects are viewed by the government as crucial to economic recovery. But post-1997 the government was forced to bow to pressure by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to achieve a balanced budget, significantly trimming public spending and freezing many infrastructure projects.

Turnkey projects of a short duration were among the first affected because they imposed a heavy repayment burden on the government, with expressway and mass-transit projects regarded as especially vulnerable.

Seventeen major infrastructure projects, worth 313 billion baht, mostly highway and railway projects, have been suspended over the past two to three years because of the government's budget constraints.

However, in keeping with economic recovery, infrastructure investment started to gradually improve late last year, as evidenced by the increased investment budget of the government.

Several key projects have been dusted off by the government led by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It singled out 10 ventures, worth 100 billion baht, as keys to stimulating the economy.

They include two special rail projects (Makkasan-Hua Mark-Suvarnabhumi) that would link Bangkok with the new international airport, and the Bang Sue-Rangsit elevated tracks to be handled by the State Railway of Thailand.

The 20-kilometre Makkasan-Suvarnabhumi route, which would open simultaneously with the new airport in 2005, would cost 29 billion baht.

The cost of the project includes six billion baht for signalling, eight billion baht for rolling stock and 15 billion baht for construction.

The project would turn the Makkasan railway station into a major terminal adjoining the Bangkok subway of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority and the skytrain system at Phaya Thai.

The SRT plans to fund the project with a loan from the Japan Bank for International Co-operation.

The 22-km Bang Sue-Rangsit route is estimated to cost 13 billion baht. It would be built using the abandoned structure of the Hopewell project, once envisioned as a combined road and rail route.

The 120-billion-baht Suvarnabhumi airport project was, understandably, assigned priority status among the megaprojects set in motion by Transport and Communications Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha, when he came to office in February last year following the election of the Thaksin government.

The new airport occupies a 20,000-rai site in Samut Prakan's Bang Phli district. The 2005 completion date now seems achievable, but no one is holding his breath given the project's chequered history. First conceived in 1960, it took more than 30 years for the agencies involved to find an appropriate site.

Prolonged controversies over the bidding for the design and landfill followed for many years. Politicians and senior officials involved in the project were accused of corruption.

Work on the passenger terminal of the Suvarnabhumi airport finally began on Dec 1 last year, under the ITO Joint Venture Group, which won the contract with a bid of 36.67 billion baht. Italian-Thai Development Plc is the core partner in ITO, along with two japanese engineering and construction concerns.

Construction of the airport is now expected to be finished by December 2004 with three months of operational testing to follow before the formal opening.

The 563,000-square-metre terminal complex will have the capacity to handle 8,550 passengers an hour or 43 million a year.

Mr Wan Nor is committed to opening the airport for use in March 2005. The four-year term of the Thaksin government will end in January of the same year, though Mr Thaksin has said repeatedly that he would be satisfied with nothing less than two terms to complete his agenda.

The Suvarnabhumi airport would handle both domestic and international traffic, while Don Muang international airport would handle aircraft maintenance, chartered and special flights and private airlines' flights, without transit connections. The building complex at Don Muang would be used for conferences, exhibitions and air shows.

Although clouded by delays, Thailand's first-ever subway project is also making headway, while a planned extension of the capital's skytrain has also made concrete progress.

The civil work on the subway project was 94.88% completed as of April. The Mass Rapid Transit Authority (MRTA), the project's owner, had hoped to partially open the long-delayed 20-km service from Hua Lamphong to Bang Sue late this year, and the full route by mid-2003.

In fact, the subway would partially open at the end of 2003, with full commercial services expected to be delayed for a year, from July 2003 to August 2004, because the delivery of the 19 trains by Siemens Co, the winning train supplier, cannot be brought forward.

Siemens insisted it would deliver the trains on schedule, but not at an earlier date, because its production schedule was already tight.

Bangkok Metro Co Ltd (BMCL) signed a 14-billion-baht contract last December for Siemens to supply 19 trains as well as signalling and fare-collection systems.

The supply contract must be completed in 30 months from Feb 22 this year, with a deadline of August 2004.

Siemens had initially proposed delivery of the trains in 36 months but the subway concessionaire, BMCL, had cut the period to 30 months.

Siemens won the supply contract after BMCL failed to seal a deal with the consortium of Alstom and Mitsubishi Electric.

With construction of the subway project now moving ahead, the MRTA has also been working on the subway's extension plan.

The MRTA initially proposed extending the subway from Hua Lamphong to Bang Wa, Thon Buri, but the proposal was turned down by the Finance Ministry and the Budget Bureau, which argued the financial returns for the state were too low.

But after drawn-out deliberations with the National Economic and Social Development Board, the MRTA proposal is now under consideration by the cabinet secretariat before being submitted to the cabinet for further approval.

Under the revised plan, a 13-km route from Hua Lamphong to Bang Khae would be elevated, except for the portion between Hua Lamphong and Tha Phra.

The construction cost is estimated at 40 billion baht and will be added to the first 20 km of the subway system from Hua Lamphong via Huay Khwang to Bang Sue, which is now being built.

While the opening of the subway is getting closer to reality, the ambitious extension plan of the skytrain is also expected to go before the cabinet soon for approval.

The extension project of three new routes has already been approved by government authorities: Onnuj to Samrong (8.9 km), Sathon to Phetkasem (6.7 km) and Mor Chit to Major Cineplex at the Ratchayothin junction (2.9 km).

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has already agreed to share the costs of the civil works of the two extensions from Onnuj to Samrong and Sathon to Phetkasem, leaving the operating systems and trains to the skytrain operator.

Under the skytrain's 30-year concession, all investment costs, both civil works and operating systems of the skytrain, are entirely met by Bangkok Mass Transit System Co (BTSC).

The civil work on the two extension projects, in which the BMA agreed to co-invest, is estimated to cost 9.5 billion baht.
The cost of tracks, signalling equipment and electric trains would also be about 5.5 billion baht. The work would take three years.

Extensions to the skytrain are expected to go before the cabinet soon for approval. Three new routes are planned.

According to Anat Arbhabhirama, an adviser to the BTSC board of directors, the company is committed to investing in the extension projects, if the state agency helps share the investment costs.

BTSC itself remains in the midst of a 33.77-billion-baht debt-restructuring plan, and the number of passengers the skytrain handles is still not enough for the company to break even.

Average weekday use has risen from about 140,000 passengers soon after the network opened on Dec 5, 1999, to about 260,000 at present. But the company needs at least 450,000 daily passengers to break even, and 650,000 to make a respectable profit.

The proposed second expressway between Bangkok and Thon Buri has also moved a step closer, with the cabinet being asked to fund a 125-million-baht feasibility study.

The project has already been approved in principle by a sub-committee studying Bangkok's east-west expressways.

The new expressway would run for about 10 km from Bang Sue along the southern railway track, across the Chao Phraya river near the Rama VII bridge, and join Boromratchonnanee Road.

A second stage of about six kilometres would extend to the Taling Chan railway station.

The cost would be relatively cheap, only five to six billion baht, because 90% of the route would be parallel to the railway track and only a small amount of land would have to be expropriated.

At present, the first-stage expressway via the Rama IX bridge is the only fast route between Bangkok and Thon Buri.