By Panu Wongcha-um
RANONG, Thailand, June 18 (Reuters) - Chaiyaporn Arunrasamee hunched over his fishing nets, overlooking the waters of the Andaman Sea, where Thailand's government is proposing an ambitious "Land Bridge" that will ferry goods between ports on opposite sides of the peninsula.
"Personally, I don't want it to happen at all," Chaiyaporn said of the project, which Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has resuscitated after the war in Iran and the closure of the Hormuz Strait highlighted
countries' reliance on strategic maritime chokepoints.
Plans envision a 1 trillion baht ($30.45 billion) logistics corridor to offer an alternative route to the congested Strait of Malacca by connecting two new deep-sea ports: Chumphon, on the Gulf of Thailand to the east, and Ranong, along the western Andaman coast, where Chaiyaporn, 50, has fished for his entire life.
"This thing will be located in the area where we make our living," he said last month in the small fishing hamlet of Baan Hat Sai Dam on an island ringed by mangrove forests. "Where will we go?"
Reuters crisscrossed the land and communities in the path of the proposed Land Bridge and interviewed more than 15 residents, local officials, experts, planning leaders and others involved or affected by the process.
The interviews, as well as government documents reviewed by Reuters, reveal previously unpublished details of a project with promises of savings and speedy shipments, but hampered by complicated logistics, local opposition and a staggering cost that has yet to attract major investors.
Analysts say the project currently appears economically ambitious and is unlikely to compete with Malacca as a global transit route, but it could prove viable as a smaller-scale strategic corridor for Thailand.
The 900-km (550-mile) long Malacca Strait is bounded by Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and provides the shortest sea route from East Asia to the Middle East and Europe.
"The land bridge may ultimately...emerge as a modular national security asset aimed at securing local energy routes and boosting Thailand's own western export capabilities," said Eugene Mark at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
ALTERNATIVE TO MALACCA
An internal government presentation seen by Reuters says the proposed corridor could reduce logistics costs by nearly 30% and cut transit times by up to 14 days for cargo moving between southern China and ports in the Indian Ocean serving South Asia and the Middle East.
At the core of the project is a standard-gauge railway across the 90 km (56 miles) between the two deep-sea ports, which will be capable of handling up to 20 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) a year, according to the presentation.
One TEU represents the volume of a single, standardized 20-foot shipping container.
Another meter-gauge rail line will link the cargo flow to the existing national railway network. The corridor would also be supported by multi-lane highways and local roads, all integrated with Thailand's broader transport network.
About 80% of all container traffic handled at major regional ports along the Malacca Strait, including Singapore, consists of trans-shipment cargo waiting to be transferred between vessels rather than goods destined for local markets, according to Thai estimates.
"We want to capture some of this 80% market, particularly the feeder segment," said Jiraroth Sukolrat, Director-General of Thailand's Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, referring to freight ships with 12,000 TEU capacity or lower.
Overall, feeder-to-feeder cargo movements from the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea - or vice versa - could be around 10% cheaper and six days faster than comparable routes through Singapore, largely because of lower congestion, according to the internal government presentation.
"We are not targeting giant mainline vessels," Jiraroth said.
DIPLOMATIC BALANCING ACT
A Thai government-appointed panel, currently reviewing the projects and its previous impact assessment reports, is due to submit its findings before the end of July.
The Land Bridge plan, first floated around 2020, is a successor to a series of infrastructure schemes pursued by Thai governments over two decades that did not materialise due to shifting policies and lack of continued investment support.
Unlike earlier iterations, the current version of the project excludes petrochemical complexes and oil refineries, focusing instead on ports, railways and light industries.
"The concept hasn't really changed. What has changed is the packaging," said Wipawadee Panyangnoi, an independent researcher who wrote her doctoral dissertation on the Land Bridge proposal.
"In the past they openly talked about industrial estates and petrochemicals, which people opposed. Today the project is framed as transport infrastructure and logistics because that language is easier for the public to accept."
The government faces an uphill effort to convince cargo liners to bear the financial and time costs of unloading, moving goods overland, and reloading them onto another vessel, said Mark of the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.
"Proving that this double-handling model can genuinely compete with the seamless transit through the Strait of Malacca remains a major hurdle," he said.
But authorities have learned from unsuccessful past projects and the state will play a regulatory and supporting role, while the financing primarily comes from private investors, said Jiraroth.
"It has to be a consortium involving shipping lines, port operators, financiers and land developers," he said.
So far, investor interest has been decidedly cautious and non-committal due to shifting policy frameworks and immense capital requirements, Mark said.
The project also faces a tricky geopolitical situation, with neighbours watching with both cautious interest and wariness, he said.
"Chinese state enterprises are unlikely to commit significant capital unless they secure strong operational leverage, which would trigger intense domestic political pushback in Thailand over foreign control," Mark said.
"Thailand must navigate a delicate diplomatic balancing act to prevent the corridor from becoming a geopolitical flashpoint."
The Singapore foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
EXPANDING RESISTANCE
Chaiyaporn is among a dozen residents along the 90-kilometers (56-mile) corridor between the two seas, home to fishing and farming communities that would be upended by the project, who told Reuters that they are opposed to the plan.
In the middle of the proposed land bridge corridor in the fertile Phato district, where durian plantations and coffee farms bring in substantial income, some residents question whether this scale of industrialisation is needed at all.
"My hometown's durian industry alone generates around 10 billion baht a year without needing to build anything new," said coffee entrepreneur Chalermchart Seekhiao, 30.
"People need to understand: this isn't an empty wasteland."
The project suffered a blow this month when regulators ordered a completely new Environmental and Health Impact Assessment because of a large discrepancy between government and private research estimates on the density of marine life near the proposed ports.
"Local opposition alone rarely cancels a top-down mega-project in Thailand, but it acts as a powerful regulatory drag that compounds investor risk," Mark said.
($1 = 32.8400 baht)
(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um, Additional reporting by Federico Maccioni, Editing by Devjyot Ghoshal, Josh Smith and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
