New bridge over Mekong under review

Published on Oct 2, 2004

Thailand, Laos and the Asia Development Bank (ADB) yesterday authorised research aimed at helping leaders decide whether to build a new bridge across the Mekong River linking Chiang Rai and Laos' Bo Keo province.

The agreement was a springboard for future transportation links between Thailand, Laos and China, said Utis Kaotien, senior advisor in policy and planning at the Office of National Economic and Social Develop-ment Board.

He signed the authorisation along with his counterparts from Laos and the ADB.

Officials will study the bridge's feasibility until June next year, and then in July convene in China to submit their report at a summit of leaders from the six Mekong riparian states, Utis said.

The ADB is the sponsor of the Greater Mekong Subregion development scheme to upgrade infrastructure and economic cooperation in the Mekong basin, which includes China's Yunnan province, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The bridge would be the third across the Mekong River linking Thailand and Laos. The first was built a decade ago and provides a route from Nong Khai to Vientiane, while the second - linking northeastern Mukdahan province to Savannakhet in Laos - is under construction.

Thailand, Laos and the ADB will urge China to cooperate financially, since the new bridge could be used to transport goods and passengers to and from China's southwest by skirting over the western edge of land-locked Laos, Utis said.

Under the GMS' North-South Economic Corridor, Thailand, Laos and China are jointly financing the construction of Laos' 228-kilometre national road No 3, which runs from Bo Keo's Houayxay district to the town of Bo Ten in Luang Namtha.

It connects further north to Jinghong in China's Yunnan province.

The new bridge, if built, would complete the route from Bangkok to Kunming in Yunnan, Utis said.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

THE NATION

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