Thailand aims to complete by 2030 the construction of a 250-km (155 mile) section of a high-speed rail line that will connect it to China, its government said on Monday, as Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul concluded a five-day visit to the country.
Thailand’s new rail projects are intended to be part of Beijing’s vision for a 3,900-km rail network that would connect the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming to as far south as Singapore.
Thailand aims to complete the first high-speed line — connecting the capital Bangkok with Nakhon Ratchasima — by 2030 and is preparing to start construction of a second high-speed line from Nakhon Ratchasima to Nong Khai, the government said in a statement.
The Thai rail project will connect to neighbouring Laos, which has a high-speed line to Kunming in southern China.
Thailand was separately advancing on construction of another project, a link to a conventional rail line that will connect with Laos to the north and Malaysia to the south, it said in the statement.
Thailand has asked China, its second-largest export market, to import more Thai fruit and processed food, the statement said.
Thailand and China also agreed during Anutin’s trip to establish a foreign affairs and defence mechanism and to expand defence industry cooperation and personnel development, the statement said.
Thailand and China would also share intelligence and transaction data to help tackle online scams and financial fraud, it added.
Thailand has been part of a regional effort to dismantle sprawling “scam centres” that have proliferated across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar and Cambodia, where illegal online schemes operate to defraud people globally in an industry worth billions of dollars.
(Reuters)