ASIA

Thailand powers ahead with port plans

14 years ago

Thailand is moving on with developing its ports and supply chain as it positions itself as the hub of Upper ASEAN, a senior Thai official told Port Strategy.

It has decided to go ahead with another port for Thailand on the Andaman coast, at Pak Bara while it waits for neighbouring Myanmar to make a decision about Dawei.

“We can give the concession now,” Deputy Transport Minister, Chadchart Sittipunt, told Port Strategy in an interview. “We will go ahead.”

The plan is for a port offering a combined dead weight tonnage of 70,000 as well as 825,000 teu annually increasing to 2.475m teu in twenty years time.

Once permission is granted and a concessionaire chosen it is estimated it will take seven years to build, said Mr Sittipunt. One interesting feature is for it to be built out at sea – to help the environment, he added.

Importantly the plan is to connect Pak Bara to the rail network from the go, another detail of broader changes in connectivity the government is promoting. As part of this, Laem Chabang Thailand’s gateway port on its Eastern coast is having its rail links double tracked.

One reason for the decision to push on with Pak Bara is the continuing uncertainty over the Dawei mega-port in Myanmar. The government believes if Dawei does go ahead, Pak Bara can supplement it and if doesn’t happen it will be a useful port in its own right even though Mr Sittipunt acknowledged “the hinterland is limited”.

Dawei is currently stalled as government policy changes and its developers search for investors.

“I think they are trying to get money,” said Mr Sittipunt. He, like much of the Thai government and private sector, is taking a wait and see approach. “I wouldn’t worry too much. If they can get bookings, my concern is the political situation in Myanmar…..it worries me a little bit.”

That said, he reported in every forum he attended people expressed interest in Dawei believing that it could be an efficient way to connect to India.

More broadly, Thailand is moving to protect its industrial zones and the capital with a huge protective barrage made up of different dikes, roads and flood walls.

As well as upcountry dams and reforestation programmes to reduce the scope of floods serious contractors will soon begin to build a temporary shield circling the broader capital region which includes the significant manufacturing centre of Ayuthaya.