NESDB puts Dawei project investment cost at Bt350 billion

The combined Dawei deep-sea port and industrial-estate project will require an investment of Bt350 billion, according to an estimate by the National Economic and Social Development Board.

This is far higher than the earlier estimate of Bt200 billion from Italian-Thai Development, which has won the concession from the Myanmar authorities to develop the facilities.

Charnwit Amatamatuchart, deputy secretary-general of the NESDB and among the officials summoned yesterday to the House committee on economic development, said the investment amount had been increased as the overall project would encompass many other projects, including a first-phase 33-megawatt power plant and a cogenerating power plant of 180MW. The two facilities are together worth Bt32 billion, he said.

Of the total Bt350 billion, Bt204 billion will be invested during 2015, with Bt148 billion being spent in Myanmar and another Bt55.9 billion on the transport link between the two countries.

The second phase, from 2016 to 2020, will see expenditure of Bt120 billion, of which Bt100 billion will be in Myanmar and the remainder on the transport link.

Fiscal Policy Office deputy director-general Ekniti Nitithanprapas said the investment format for the Dawei project was yet to be finalised, pending the complete development of the Myanmar Special Economic Development Zone law. The draft law will be submitted to the Myanmar parliament soon.

The Finance Ministry is part of a working committee, working with its Myanmar counterpart on the financing of the massive Dawei project, which is expected to boost Thailand's competitiveness.

Netpriya Chumchaiyo, director of the Commerce Ministry's Office of Trade Logistics, said that after taking them to the project area, Thai investors were yet to have full confidence in the various Dawei projects, pending the complete construction of infrastructure, from port to roads.

Somjet Tinnapong, managing director of Dawei Development, a subsidiary of Italian-Thai, told the House committee that the company is levelling an area of some 100,000 rai (16,000 hectares) for the Dawei project, as well as the land to be used for road construction linking the area with the Thai border.

source: The Nation
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