Infrastructure
DevelopmentS
and ImprovementS

Anumber of major infrastructure projects under way will further enhance
the quality of the visitor experience in Bangkok and cement Thailand’s tourism and transport links to the Greater Mekong Subregion countries.
AIRPORTS: On the aviation front, Bangkok's new international airport, Suvarnabhumi Airport, has finally got a tentative opening date — 29 September 2005. Though there is still likely to be some delay, it is not expected to be more than a few months, a vast improvement over the time when it was difficult to safely pinpoint even the year when the airport would open.

The airport will have two runways (one for landings and another for take-offs) with a capacity to handle 112 flights per hour, roughly 45 million passengers a year and a peak-hour capacity of about 11,000 passengers. All flights, including domestic, charter and cargo, will shift to the new airport, which will play a major role in boosting the role of Thailand as a regional aviation hub.

Though its location, about 30 kilometres from Bangkok, will allow it access from five major surrounding expressways and major roads, plans are afoot to construct a direct rail network similar to that in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. Officials are also stressing that they will learn from the mistakes of both those cities and not sign-off on the opening of the new airport until they are certain that every piece of equipment is working as it should.

The existing Bangkok International Airport at Don Muang will be shut entirely. Studies are under way to establish precisely how to use the infrastructure but it could be converted into a trade and exhibition centre. It will also house the new premises of the Civil Aviation Training Centre.

MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS: Bangkok’s second major mass transit system, the subway, is on track for a test run on 13 April 2004, in preparation for an official opening on 12 August 2004, Her Majesty the Queen’s Birthday. The subway rail system will run from the city’s main railway station, Hua Lamphong, under two major thoroughfares linking the Queen Sirikit
National Convention Center with several more hotels, shopping centres and business districts.

Its 20-kilometre route will have 17 stations and four interchange stations connecting to the Bangkok skytrain, the existing overhead mass transit system that opened in 1999. More interchange stations will come on stream after line extensions to the skytrain are completed.

Like the skytrain, the subway is expected to play a major role in improving the quality of the visitor experience in Bangkok by helping tourists, business travellers and convention delegates get around easily, safely and conveniently. That will boost the average length of stay and allow visitors to enjoy its many attractions, department stores and shopping complexes.
ROADS AND BRIDGES: Japan recently granted a long-term, low-interest loan of about eight billion Japanese yen to Laos and Thailand for the construction of another bridge linking the western Laotian province of Savannakhet and the northeastern Thai province of Mukdahan.

Upon completion, it will be the third bridge across the lower reaches of the 4,800-kilometre Mekong River, after the first Australian-funded International Friendship Bridge, linking the Laotian capital of Vientiane and the northeastern Thai province of Nong Khai, and the second Lao-Nippon Bridge, funded by the Japanese in the Laotian province of Pakse.
Like the other two bridges, this one too will contribute to the economic and social development of the GMS by facilitating land transport and trade along the East-West Economic Corridor which spans Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. This will help create jobs, lower overland transport costs and thus benefit agricultural, industrial and tourism development in the GMS.

Also in 2002, an agreement was signed to complete a critical section of the Asian Highway from Thailand across Myanmar to India. The road will run from the border town of Mae Sot in Thailand, turn north to Pagan in Myanmar and join up with Moreh, a small border town in the east Indian state of Manipur, a distance of roughly 1,500 kilometres. The agreement will require several stretches of the highway to be upgraded within two years.

This will give a major boost to tourism and trade between South and Southeast Asia and further cement Thailand’s status as the tourism hub of the GMS region, with road, rail and air linkages throughout the length and breadth of the country and links beyond to South Asia.

Back to top