Twenty-eight billion dollars! "Land bridge" replaces Malacca Strait!

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told investors in San Francisco that the project could cut sailing times by an average of four days and reduce shipping costs by 15 percent. He said traffic was expected to exceed the capacity of the Strait of Malacca by 2030 and the new project would ensure seamless movement of goods.

The so-called "land bridge" project will cost about 1 trillion baht ($28 billion), according to the Thai government, and will build seaports on both sides of Thailand's southern peninsula and connect them through a network of highways and railways. The 100-kilometer (62-mile) line would replace Thailand's decades-long proposal to dredge a canal on the Kra Isthmus. 

The Strait of Malacca, a narrow sea passage between Malaysia and Singapore, is the shortest sea route connecting the Asia-Pacific region with India and the Middle East. About a quarter of the world's trade in goods passes through the strait, which is only going to get busier, pushing up transport costs, Sreta said. He noted that an average of more than 60 maritime accidents occur in the strait each year.

Thai Prime Minister Sreta Thavitsin said: "The land bridge will be another important route to support traffic and an important option to resolve the Malacca Strait issue." It will be a cheaper, faster and safer route." He said that the western port is designed to handle 19.4 million TEUs and the eastern port is designed to handle 13.8 million TEUs. Together, they account for about 23% of the total cargo volume at the port of Malacca. Srettha said the project, when fully implemented, would help create 280,000 jobs and boost Thailand's annual economic growth to 5.5 percent. In recent weeks, he has also pitched the project to investors in China and Saudi Arabia. Southeast Asia's second-largest economy grew 2.6 percent last year and is expected to grow 2.5-3 percent in 2023.

Thailand plans to complete the project by 2030 and allow foreign investors to jointly build the port and related infrastructure with local companies, with a stake of more than 50 percent. According to Thailand's Office of Transport Policy and Planning, the deep-sea ports in Ranong Province in the Andaman Sea and Chumphong Province in the Gulf of Thailand could cost 630 billion baht. "The Land Bridge offers an unprecedented opportunity to invest in this commercially and strategically important project linking the Pacific and Indian Oceans and connecting people from East to West," he said. Thai officials will hold a briefing for potential U.S. investors on the sidelines of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Srettha said U.S. companies interested in the project include SSA Marine Inc., the Port of Long Beach, Oracle Corp., and Webtec. Thailand has for decades discussed the idea of building a canal through the country's narrowest point and cutting shipping distance by 1,200 kilometers, but the proposal has been repeatedly rejected over environmental concerns.