Japan, Thailand and Myanmar sign MoI for Dawei Project
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) shakes hands with Myanmar’s President Thein Sein (L) and Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha (R) after the signing ceremony on Dawei port project at the Akasaka State Guest House in Tokyo on July 4, 2015. Leaders of five Mekong delta nations are in Tokyo to attend the Japan-Mekong Summit this weekend.
Japan, Thailand and Myanmar have signed a memorandum of intent for the joint development of the long-delayed Dawei project in southeastern Myanmar.
The document was signed on the sidelines of the Japan-Mekong Summit in Tokyo.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said the project will become a new distribution hub for the world.
“The cooperation between the three countries on Dawei will be the world’s new economic gate linking the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. This will be major opportunity for Japan’s private sectors with Thailand’s support as manufacturing base, as a connecting point and as a product distribution centre to the region. With this, we reaffirm that Thailand will do its best to look after Japanese investment’s best interests.“
The project has been stalled for years largely due to the Italian Thai Development (ITD), which had failed to secure private investment and agree on a power source for the complex.
It will begin with construction of a 138-kilometer road from Dawei to Kanchanaburi province, 119 kilometers northwest of Bangkok.
If successful, the project will allow cargo to bypass the narrow and congested Strait of Malacca to forge shorter trade routes from the Middle East and Africa to China and Japan.
Source: CRIENGLISH.com