Thread: China section of Kunming-Bangkok highway completed

China section of Kunming-Bangkok highway completed
Friday, March 21, 2008

KUNMING, Mar 21, 2008-- The Chinese stretch of a trans-national highway linking Kunming city in the southwest Yunnan Province with the Thai capital of Bangkok was completed on Friday, marking progress in a land link from China to Southeast Asia.

The 688-kilometer Chinese section starts in Yunnan provincial capital Kunming and stops at Mohan, an important trade port on the Sino-Laotian border.

The first stretch of the section -- from Kunming to Yuxi -- was completed in April 1999. The total length will be 1,887 km.

The opening of the Chinese section will reduce the travel time from Kunming to Bangkok by half, to about 20 hours.

Qin Guangrong, Yunnan's governor, said at the opening ceremony:

"The opening of the Chinese stretch will greatly enhance transport facilities and promote common development and the prosperity of people of the nations along the road."

The sections in Thailand and Laos have been almost completed, except for a bridge linking the two nations.

The Chinese section costs about 25 billion yuan (3.5 billion U.S. dollars) As key part of Asian road network, the project is an important infrastructural facility for construction of the China-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) free trade zone and the Lancang-Mekong River subregional economic cooperation.

The 4,000-km Mekong River, also called Lancang River in China, begins in the Tibet plateau and flows through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Experts estimate the full opening of the highway will realize cargo transport worth 400 billion U.S. dollars each year.

Driven by tourism, the gross domestic product of regions along the road will also be greatly boosted.

"Undoubtedly, relevant countries will all benefit a lot from it as long as the whole road opens," said Li Jiming, deputy director of Yunnan Provincial Commerce Department.

tradingmarkets.com

the Bangkok to Beijing pub crawl can't be too far off then

Can't be far off? More like the dream that Chartchai Choonhavan had when he talked of Thailand becoming a NIC in 1988 and the country's GDP exceeding the UK's by 2002. My guess is that it'll be around 2020 at the earliest always assuming China doesn't implode and disintegrate by then which is highly likely. Oh well dream on......

Based on that distance, it should take about 3 days to drive from Bangkok to Kunming. It would be an interesting road trip!