Vietnam invited to join plan for Thai-Laos bridge

Asian Economic News, April 16, 2001

BANGKOK, April 9 Kyodo

Thailand and Laos will invite Vietnam to discussions on a common master plan for use of a Japanese-financed second bridge across the Mekong River, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Monday.

Thailand and Laos signed an agreement last month to build their second bridge over the river as a facility to boost economic activities between the two countries as well as to connect with a land transportation route to central Vietnam.

Foreign ministers from the three countries will discuss the plan when they gather on the sidelines of an informal meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Yangon later this month.

''We need cooperation because both Thailand and Laos have similar plans to use the bridge to link to Vietnam,'' he told reporters following completion of a visit to Laos on April 8-9.

With financing proposed by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the $45 million bridge will link the northeastern Thai province Mukdahan and the central Lao province Savannakhet.

The 2,000-meter bridge, scheduled to be complete by 2005, would ease the flow of goods and passengers between the two countries and to and from central Vietnam.

Along with the bridge, Laos plans to develop Savannakhet as a special economic zone, providing incentives for trade and investment in the province.

Thailand is considering a similar idea for Mukdahan, according to Surakiart who noted the concerned countries would exchange views to cooperate rather than competing with each other.

If the ministerial meeting is successful, the three countries will upgrade the dialogue to the prime ministerial level and tripartite cooperation could become a model for further cooperation in the Mekong Basin, Surakiart said.

The Mekong bridge project is part of an East-West Corridor plan sponsored by the Asian Development Bank to boost trade and tourism in the Mekong River region, but it was delayed for several years after the Thai and Lao economies were hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

In 1994, Thailand and Laos opened an Australian-funded bridge over the Mekong known as the ''Friendship Bridge.'' It links Thailand's northeastern Nongkhai Province and the Lao capital Vientiane.