Deal nears with Japan on highway

Deal nears with Japan on highway

Economic corridor to link Tak, Mukdahan

Tokyo has agreed in principle to partner with Thailand in developing the East-West Economic corridor project following a visit to Japan early this week by a Thai delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon.

The agreement followed a meeting between the Thai delegation and Japan's Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, and Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Akihiro Ota.

Gen Prawit was accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, and former finance and commerce minister Somkid Jatusripitak in his capacity as a special envoy for the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).

According to a senior Foreign Ministry official who accompanied the Thai delegation, the agreement reached between the governments is the most significant deal Japan has entered into with Thailand for many years.

The East-West Economic corridor is a development programme initiated during a ministerial conference of the Greater Mekong Sub-region in 1998 with the aim to promote development and integration of four Asean countries — Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

The economic corridor features a 1,450-kilometre-long highway from the west of Mawlamyine in Myanmar, linking Thailand's Tak province before cutting through the upper part of Thailand to enter Laos' Savannakhet province through Mukdahan and ending at Danang City in Vietnam.

Under the agreement, Japan will help Thailand develop the highway link between Tak and Mukdahan.

"The next step is that the two countries will work out details through ministerial collaboration. This partnership will reinvigorate our relations with Japan after they declined from their peak a decade ago," said a diplomatic source.

The source said that the Japanese deputy premier decided to enter into the agreement with Thailand because the kingdom is a strategic partner of Japan and has served as its gateway to economic assets in the Asean region.

The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that for almost a decade Thailand had tried to seek collaboration from other countries through diplomatic channels to develop the project but had hit a dead end, until reaching an agreement with Japan.

The Japanese government's positive response was in line with the foreign policy of its current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who was the first Japanese leader to visit Thailand in almost 10 years as part of his Asean tour to foster closer relations in the region.

"Before the Abe administration, Thai-Japanese relations were not really close. But inevitably, the new economic chapter due to Asean integration has drawn foreign attention including that of the Japanese government which is now placing emphasis on economic improvement," said a source.

"Thailand is the largest destination for Japanese investment in Asean and the second in the world for Japanese investors. And even though there has not been much activity at the top level between the two countries in recent years, on the private front, we have very strong ties with Japanese investors. They have never left us no matter how messy our politics in the past decade have been," said the senior foreign official. 

Last week, a Thai delegation, also led by Gen Prawit, Mr Somkid and Mr Don, succeeded in obtaining an agreement from the Chinese government to help build a new dual-track railway linking Bangkok with Nong Khai in the Northeast.

The agreement was reached in principle during a meeting between the Thai delegation and Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan.

The Chinese government will provide a loan to support the development of the new railway line through a barter deal.

Under the arrangement, Thailand would be able to repay the investment cost to China with rubber and rice. Details of the soft loan arrangement have yet to be worked out by the two countries.

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