AFP
HANOI - A railway system connecting more than 300 million people who live around one of the world’s great rivers, the Mekong, will come a step closer on Friday.
A plan for connecting regional rail lines is expected to be endorsed in Vietnam by ministers from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, said the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
It is “the first step in developing and implementing an integrated railway system in the sub-region,” Kunio Senga, director general of ADB’s Southeast Asia department, said in a foreword to the 25-page plan.
Except for a line that connects China and Vietnam, the six nations’ national railway systems do not link up, and Laos has no rail network at all.
The plan cites four possible ways of connecting the region but it says one is most viable. It would stretch from Bangkok to Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and up to Nanning and Kunming, largely using existing lines or those already under construction.
The only missing link on that route is between Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh, it says, estimating a cost of 1.09 billion dollars for completion. This does not include roughly seven billion dollars in additional funding needed to upgrade the existing lines.
By 2025, an estimated 3.2 million passengers and 23 million tonnes of freight are forecast for the completed route, the document says.
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