Trans-Asian Highway gains
traction By Tran Dinh Thanh
Lam
HO CHI MINH CITY - Though still
incomplete, the Trans-Asia Highway, conceived last
year by Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) countries
and supported financially by the Asian Development
Bank (ADB), is already proving its economic value
and capacity to dramatically transform the region.
Due to be completed in 2008, the
East-West, North-South, and Southern corridors
will link different parts of Vietnam to Laos,
Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. The 1,500
kilometer-long East-West corridor will cut across
mainland Southeast Asia, linking Vietnam's central
seaport of Danang with the Andaman
Sea in
Myanmar. A Trans-Asian Railway network is also in
the works.
In a next step, the ADB has
promised to provide funding to extend the
Trans-Asia Highway further westward into India.
"All the three corridors will be mostly finished
by 2008, although in one sense they will never be
entirely complete, since there will always be
ongoing improvements and the expansion of
investment," said Paul Turner, an ADB official
charged with Mekong affairs, at a conference.
The participating countries hope that the
network of highways will increase trade and travel
among themselves and with other regional
countries, while enhancing the region's overall
global competitiveness at a time when China is
still consuming the lion's share of foreign direct
investment.
The need for greater regional
cooperation in developing key infrastructure is
essential, according to multilateral agencies. A
study released last week by the UN Economic and
Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(UNESCAP) estimated that US$600 billion is needed
per year in infrastructure spending, while
individual country outlays would on average fall
short by around $180 billion per year.
"Transport infrastructure is crucial to
facilitating the trade and investment that will
contribute to economic development and poverty
reduction in the region," said Hoang Van Dung,
vice chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce
and Industry, which co-organized the conference.
New transport links, it is argued, will facilitate
new regional trade blocs that historically have
been blocked by geography and politics.
For instance, India has recently put in
place a "Look East" policy, as part of which it is
developing the city of Guwahati, the capital of
the remote and land-locked eastern Assam state, to
serve as a future trade hub for a trade bloc that
conceivablky could include China's southern
province of Yunnan. India, which conducted $25
billion worth of annual trade with members of the
ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), hopes to double that figure by signing an
Indo-ASEAN free trade agreement in January 2007.
Seven ASEAN countries, namely Myanmar,
Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia and
Singapore, will become readily accessible from
India once the Trans-Asian Highway is completed in
2008. The other countries, Indonesia, the
Philippines and Brunei will benefit indirectly
from greater intra-regional trade, the projects
supporters say.
''The development of the
[Trans-Asia Highway] is of immense importance to
India,'' Rajiv Sikri, a senior Indian diplomat
said in an interview. ''India is anxious to revive
overland links in the region that have existed for
centuries but closed down in recent history.''
That's already happening between Vietnam
and landlocked Laos, a country rich in natural
resources. The Hai Van Tunnel, a project on
Vietnam's national Highway 1 linking the East-West
corridor with the central seaport of Danang, was
recently completed, cutting travel times between
the two countries immensely. Turner said that
about five years ago, his travel from Vietnam's
central city of Hue to Savannakhet in southern
Laos was difficult and took a whole day.
With the recent infrastructure
improvements, he could have breakfast in Hue,
lunch in Savannakhet and dinner in Khon Khaen in
Thailand. "After only a few short years, not only
is the road infrastructure largely in place, but
much new investment has been made along the
corridor.''
For instance, several travel
agencies in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand have
already taken the opportunity to launch short bus
trips allowing regional tourists to tour major
cities of the three countries. Vietnamese
newspapers report that on a single day as many as
500 international tourists enter Vietnam via the
new East-West highway.
Better transport
infrastructure continues to attract new investors
to Vietnam's Lao Bao Border Economic Zone, which
is benefiting from a new cross border transport
agreement with their Lao counterparts in
Dansavanh. Copper exports from the Lao Sepon mine
have commenced, and the ore is already being
transported to markets using the East-West
highway.
Around 60 companies have so far
invested in the Lao Bao Border Economic Zone,
according to Vietnamese officials. "We have
already seen significant mining operations open
up, plantation forestry projects being developed.
Jobs are being created and new production
opportunities are emerging. Poverty levels along
the east-west economic corridor (EWEC) have also
come down," the ADB's Turner claimed.
Since the GMS Economic Cooperation Program
began in 1992, ADB has provided not only financial
support but also technical advice on the economic
and social development of the GMS countries.
That's included reducing bureaucratic red tape
through cross-border transport agreements that in
the past stifled trade and freedom of movement.
That said, there is still a need for
complementary infrastructure, information
technology, and the implementation of rules and
regulations that facilitate legal commerce while
checking illegal activities. "One of our big
concerns is the absence of adequate safeguards to
protect against the possible negative social and
environmental impacts [of] an international
highway, such as the trafficking of women and
children and illegal wildlife trade," said the
ADB's Turner.
