Thailand to complete Bt12b Pak Bara port project in four years

BANGKOK, March 20 (TNA) - After Tuesday's Cabinet approval of a bill for the Thai government's planned borrowing of 2 trillion baht to fund its new mega-infrastructure development projects, especially transport ones, Deputy Transport Minister Prasert Chantararuangthong, who supervises national marine transport, announced on Wednesday that among the projects to be urgently implemented include the 12-billion-baht Pak Bara port in Langu District of Satun province in the Thai South. Prasert told reporters that the project has passed its processes of detailed design and initial environmental impact assessment and it is now, thus, ready for the implementation. Prasert noted the Pak Bara port will be Thailand's first deep-sea port on the southern Andaman coast, which, once completed over the next 3-4 years, will handle exports from southern Thailand, especially Para rubber, a major Thai export product with its total shipment value to overseas markets at nearly 300 billion baht annually. The deputy transport minister acknowledged that there are also several other major Thai port projects, including the second port of Songkhla province, also in the Thai South, funded by a state budget of about 10 billion baht, as well as those in the southern Chumphon and the central Ang Thong provinces, all of them will support the national economic growth in the future, thanks to reduced logistics costs then. According to the deputy transport minister, Thailand's logistic costs now stand at 15.2 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and the government plans to reduce them by at least 2 per cent over the next seven years. (TNA)