Thailand touts $31-billion 'Land Bridge' plan amid Hormuz crisis, courts Singapore

BANGKOK — The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has given Thailand impetus to advance a longstanding plan to create a logistics link between the Indian and Pacific oceans, with its government on Monday seeking to court Singapore as a potential investor.

Thailand's government has said it is reviving a "Land Bridge" project across its narrow southern peninsula after recent disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz underscored the vulnerability of global shipping chokepoints, including the nearby Malacca Strait.

READ: What is the Malacca Strait, the world’s largest ‘chokepoint’?

The previous administration drafted a law for the Land Bridge but the proposal fell by the wayside during a bout of political turbulence, with public hearings and environmental and health impact assessments incomplete and some resistance from residents.

A proposal is expected to be submitted to cabinet in June or July and the government would seek investors for the estimated 1 trillion baht ($30.97 billion) project, potentially starting in the third quarter, Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said at the weekend.

Alternative route

A decades-old idea, the Land Bridge envisions two deep-sea ports, one in Ranong on the Andaman Sea and another in Chumphon on the Gulf of Thailand, linked by 90 km (56 miles) of road and rail plus energy infrastructure like pipelines.

The project would offer an alternative route to the Malacca Strait, the 900-km (550-mile) long channel bounded by Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, which ​provides the shortest sea route from East Asia to the Middle East and Europe.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul outlined the plan during a meeting on Monday with Chan Chun Sing, the defense minister of Singapore, a big regional investor that sits at the end of the Malacca Strait, through which more than 100,000 mostly commercial ships passed last year.

"He sees it as an economic opportunity for Thailand and for foreign investors, if the project can be successfully pushed forward," Thai government spokesperson Rachada Dhanadirek said, referring to Chan, adding he expressed interest in the plan.

Indonesia's finance minister last week caused a stir by openly musing about ways countries could impose tolls ​on ships as a way to monetize the Malacca Strait, before saying that would not be possible and leading to several subsequent clarifications.

The Land Bridge is regarded as more viable than the "Kra Canal," a centuries-old idea to cut a shipping passage across southern Thailand, which met resistance due to environmental, financial and security concerns. — Reuters