Asia's largest ever infastructure project

Now, however, with China emerging as the number two most dominant economy in the world, the project to link two major continents (Asia and Europe) is finding its feet once more and the Chinese are looking into investment opportunities, with some aspects of the project, such as the several thousand kilometers that pass through Thailand, being slated for possible construction in 2013.

The railway project is a beast, it is a mammoth infrastructure investment that would be without doubt one of the greatest projects of its kind in the history of the continent and is often referred to as the Iron Silk Road.

Spanning 14,000 kilometers, the railway would start in Istanbul, Turkey and end in Singapore. It would be primarily a freight transport system and would significantly benefit the economies of the Asian countries through which it passes, providing better inter-continental trade networks and facilitating the efficient transport of goods over long distances quicker than could be achieved by ship, thereby spurring development.

For land-locked economies like those of Laos, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) the railway would provide crucial export and import infrastructure that is lacking in these landlocked countries. Indeed, Central Asia remains the poorest region of the whole continent and this is largely due to the region’s isolation from major trade routes.

The railway is important then, and in 2006 when Asia news media reported that 22 countries on the continent had signed an agreement to work on the venture, it provided some measure of investor support. The size of the project requires extensive collaboration between countries and the emergence of China as a world power in recent decades is no doubt a fundamental reason for the renewed feasibility of the railway.

The 2006 agreement between various Asian countries did not take legal binding effect until 2009 when it was ratified by China. In all ways then, China is the driving force behind the project, underscoring the country’s unilateral influence in regional affairs.

For instance, a large part of the network is already in existence in the form of the Eurasian Land Bridge, which links Pacific seaports in Siberia and China to seaports in Europe. But, there are around 8000 kilometers of “missing links” in Southeast Asia. Two of these missing links are between Nong Khai, on the Thailand-Laos border and Bangkok and Bangkok and Padang Besar, on the Thai-Malaysian border.

The 850 kilometer and 1000 kilometer railways would cost US$9.7 billion in total, the majority of which China will contribute. Another rail link will then be built between Laos and Southern China.

In addition, China and Laos have agreed to study the feasibility of a rail link between Boten in Luang Namtha province, and Vientiane, the national capital of Laos. The agreement is for China and the Lao Railway Authority to work together on developing the country’s railway infrastructure, but when one considers that the totality of the Lao Railway Authority’s network is a 3.5 kilometer link between the capital and Dongphosy town, the extreme influence of China becomes clear.

China has the both the financial resources and the expertise, as the country currently manages around 3,500 kilometers of high-speed railway within its borders. The railways proposed by China for development within Thailand and Loas will all be high-speed lines and the link to be developed in Laos is around 400 kilometers in length. It is important to China, because it will enable them to link Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province with the Lao capital.

For Laos, it would provide highly efficient overland links to two of its most economically active neighbors, but the concern locally is that the country might become a transit stop for goods and won’t see any real benefit from the project, which will be extremely expensive. These are issues that will be worked out by the Chinese and Loa authorities responsible for the project.

Apart from the cost of actually building the railway network, additional considerations for member countries of the Trans-Asian Railway Network Agreement are that there are four different track-gauges used across the continent, as well as other standardization issues such as electrification, couplings, signaling systems and other factors.

The immense size of the ambitious project holds it back, as well as the financial expenditure needed. No return will be seen for many decades, and this makes it difficult to rally support.