India, Thailand, Myanmar To Build 3,200km Trilateral Highway
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India, Thailand and Myanmar will soon be linked by a 3,200km highway, running from India’s North-eastern states to the Thai border with Myanmar, reported the Times of India on Monday, after the Indian government agreed to loan Myanmar $500 million in order to complete the project.
India, Thailand and Myanmar will soon be linked by a 3,200km highway, running from India’s North-eastern states to the Thai border with Myanmar, reported the Times of India on Monday, after the Indian government agreed to loan Myanmar $500 million in order to complete the project.
According to The Telegraph, the new route, which is expected to be completed by 2016, is part of India’s plan to open the “Mekong-India Corridor”, which will link the world’s second fastest growing market with the new Asian Tiger economies of Indo-China.
Additionally, the super-highway would also “allow freight and container trucks to move across the borders from India to Myanmar and Thailand via Chiang Rai and border towns,” said Anil Wadhwa, India’s ambassador to Thailand, “boosting trade and investment flows in the three countries,” and creating economic opportunities for the towns along the route.
[quote]”We expect this to benefit India’s northeastern region as well, as four of our states are on the border with Myanmar, especially if there is connectivity to ports like the planned Dawei deep-sea port and industrial estate in Myanmar,” Wadhwa added.[/quote]Several Thai firms are already believed to be salivating at the prospect of building greater connectivity with their Indian counterparts. According to the Press Trust of India, trade between India and Thailand grew by $2 billion last year to $8.2 billion, while India has already invested some $2.5 billion in Thailand.
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“Thailand is an important interlocutor of India in the context of ASEAN and India’s connectivity with Myanmar and other ASEAN countries,” said Wadhwa after a day-long India-Thailand Foreign Office Consultations in Bangkok.
Furthermore, the promise of a more “open” Myanmar has also sped up forecasts for the completion of the project. While the highway had been in the pipeline for years, the lifting of international sanctions against Myanmar has resulted in the three countries being able to push ahead with the project – with a feasibility study already complete.
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[quote]“Burma (Myanmar) was the hurdle, but now it has opened up, thanks to the Americans. It marks a great opening of a new economic zone,” said Mohan Guruswamy of the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Alternatives.[/quote]The project is expected to be co-funded by the three governments along with grants from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
When completed, analysts say that the trilateral highway will form a so-called East-West Economic Corridor – linking India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – that will match the current North-South Corridor that comes from China all the way down to Singapore.
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