Go-ahead for pan-Asian highway

YANGON, Myanmar -- India, Myanmar and Thailand have agreed to complete a highway that would link the South Asian subcontinent to Southeast Asia.

Foreign ministers from the three Asian countries met in the Myanmar capital of Yangon on Saturday and pledged to finish a highway from Moreh in eastern India to Mae Sot town in western Thailand through Bagan in Myanmar "within a timeframe of two years," a statement said.

The road link, estimated to be over 1,600 km (1,000 miles) long, is seeking to boost trade, investment and tourism between the nations, it said.

Globalization made such "regionalism" more important, Secretary-One of Myanmar's ruling State Peace and Development Council, Lt-General Khin Nyunt, said, according to Thailand's The Nation newspaper.

"In the face of reality, developing countries must join together sub-regionally and regionally, to strengthen solidarity and advance their common interests," the paper quoted Khin Nyunt as saying.

While the ministers did not say how much such a project would cost, a committee has been set up to arrange financing though private banks and other international finance institutions.

Thailand plans to provide a special long-term low-interest loan over a period of 40 years to build a 238-kilometre stretch of road in eastern Myanmar adjacent to Thailand, The Nation reported.

The loan would be extended on the condition that Thai companies be contracted to carry out the project, the paper added.

Bottlenecks

Priority will be given to two transport bottlenecks, The Nation reported on Sunday.

The first is between the Myanmar town of Myawadi, on the border with Thailand, and Thaton, just west of Rangoon. Meanwhile the bottleneck between the northern Myanmar city of Monyam to the west of Mandalay, and the northwestern town of Kalewa, is also a key area.

A road from India's Manipur State to Kalewa financed by the Indian government has been already completed.

The three ministers also talked about building a road from Kanchanaburi to the deep-sea port in Myanmar's Tavoy, which would link the Andaman Sea with the Gulf of Thailand.

"[With the new road] we would not have to go through the Strait of Malacca," The Nation quoted Myanmar's Foreign Minister Win Aung as saying.

China

The trilateral road works would not come at the expense of Myanmar's relations with China, a main strategic competitor of India, The Nation quoted Thaung Tun, director-general of the Myanmar's Foreign Ministry's Political Department, as saying.

Relations between Myanmar's military government and China have warmed in recent years, with Beijing becoming a key supplier of arms to its southern neighbor.

This has caused growing concern in other countries in the region, especially in India, that Beijing's political and economic influence is moving rapidly southwards.

Impoverished Myanmar offers China a potential path to the Indian Ocean, and could serve as a land bridge for trade between South and Southeast Asia.

But India too is vying for influence in Myanmar, although The Nation reported Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh as saying that India's interest in linking up with Southeast Asia was not aimed at countering the growth of Chinese influence in Myanmar.