This week, the eight-year, THB 2.4 trillion plan to develop Thailand’s transportation infrastructure is back in the headlines. The aim of the revived strategy is to develop the logistics system and integrate all transportation platforms, including rail, air, road and water. This network will also link Thailand with its neighbours and turn the country into a key logistics hub in the AEC by the time the projects are completed in 2022, reports The Nation.
The first priority of the plan is to develop 10 rail routes in Bangkok and its suburbs, worth THB 700 billion in total, by 2019. These lines will help support the inner city transportation system and city expansion from the heart of Bangkok into the suburbs. They will also reduce crowding in the central business districts. Undoubtedly, once the infrastructure projects get under way next year, residential developers will expand their investment in Bangkok’s peripheral provinces in line with the mass transit route expansion.
The next stage of the infrastructure investment plan focuses on developing the country’s wider transportation system, linking Thailand with Laos, Myanmar, and southern China by rail via a double-track system. Investment in these lines will commence in fiscal year 2015, which runs from this coming October, with completion targeted for 2021.
