Wider World by CS

Thailand approves high-level Dawei working group

Thursday, 11 October 2012 13:32 Mizzima News

The Thai Cabinet has approved the establishment of three joint Myanmar-Thailand committees to coordinate the development of the Dawei deep-sea project and related areas in Burma and Thailand.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's is expected to visit Burma in early December, said officials.

After the committees are formed, three panels will be invited to hold discussions in Thailand, said Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul, according to an article in The Nation newspaper on Wednesday.

The first of the three committees is a policy-level mechanism to be co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong and Burma’s deputy president.

The committee's role is to push progress of agreements under a memorandum of understanding and coordinate promotion for development of the Southern Economic Corridor linking up with Dawei and Thai energy zones.

The second panel will be co-chaired by PM's Office Minister Nivatthamrong Boonsongpaisal and Burma’s industry minister, and the third is a subcommittee covering infrastructure and building, specific industry and business development, energy and community development, and rules and laws.

Meetings involving each of the committees will be chaired by the relevant ministers from both countries, the article said.

The Dawei deep sea-port, industrial zone and road and rail link to Thailand includes construction of the Dawei deep sea-port, buildings for shipyard and maintenance work, establishment of zone for petrochemical industries, an oil refinery, steel plant, power stations and a Dawei-Bangkok highway and railroad, plus laying of an oil pipeline along the motorway and railroad, according to the framework agreement.

The project, tentatively scheduled to be completed by 2018, will feature steel mills, refineries, a petrochemical complex and power plants and the strategic Dawei deep-sea port, which is designed to bypass the Malacca Strait and shorten the transportation route to Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Burma and Thailand recently agreed to establish connectivity between the Dawei Special Economic Zone in the southernmost part of Burma and the Laem Chabang Industrial Estate of Chonburi south of Bangkok, in talks concluded in July.