Supachai Panitchpakdi, World Trade Organisation director general from 2002-2005, made the claim following the Joint Committee Meeting for the GMS Cross-Border Transport Agreement in Nay Pyi Taw on November 21. Many GMS members – which include Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, as well as China’s Yunnan province and Guangxi autonomous region – are among the least developed in the region.
More trade corridors would help correct the imbalance, he said. “Myanmar should build border corridors to connect [countries with] each other for trade.” As ASEAN chair for 2014, Myanmar was in a key position to do so, he suggested.
According to the Ministry of Transportation, Myanmar is currently building four highways, including the so-called ASEAN Road, slated to be finished by 2015.
Construction resumed in early 2012 of roads to Thailand along two routes – Bago-Thaton-Phayargyi-Myawady, and
Meiktila-Taunggyi-Kengtong-Tachileik, said U Thein Zaw, chief engineer for the Ministry of Construction. Another route, planned for completion before 2015, will link Yangon and India via Taungoo-Gangaw-Kale-Tamu, while two others will link Yangon to China, via Mandalay-Lashio-Muse and Meiktila-Taunggyi-Kengtong-Mongla.
Myanmar is also converting the once-notorious “Burma Railway” into a road. Built by the Japanese during World War II, the 258-mile (415-kilometre) railway line once joined Yangon and Bangkok. It was widely known as the “Death Railway” because more than 100,000 labourers and POWs died during its construction, and it inspired the film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
“We are reconstructing missing links of the Singapore-Kunming road by rebuilding a 100-kilometre [62-mile] section between Payathonzu and Thanbyuzayat [in Mon State, the terminus of the original Burma Railway],” said U Myint Thu, deputy director general of the Department of ASEAN Affairs. He said the project should be finished in 2015 and is being supported by the Asia Development Bank (ADB).
Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan, Thai deputy minister for commerce, said Thailand had already nearly completed its section of corridors to Laos, which would allow Myanmar to export to Laos, via a Tachileik-Melsia-Chaung Kong-Chaung Rai route.
“We are planning to reduce the development gap between ASEAN and GMS countries,” said U Soe Win, deputy director general of the commerce ministry. “We will form partnerships between GMS countries to [create the] ASEAN single market.
Myanmar’s trade volume is currently the smallest among GMS countries, which have agreed on a three-year plan to cooperate in promoting trade, involving transportation contracts among Myanmar, China, Thailand and Laos.
Myanmar has to take action during its tenure as ASEAN chair to reduce the development gap, said the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development’s deputy director general of planning, U Thant Do Chin. He added that Myanmar, as the least-developed of the GMS countries, had to make increased efforts to build trade corridors.
source: The Myanmar Times
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