ADB to support Thailand’s rail reforms

BANGKOK, February 8 (TNA) - The visiting Vice President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Stephen Groff, has pledged to support the Thai government’s reforms of rail systems nationwide, highlighting the Kingdom's economic potential in Southeast Asia. Groff, who attended a workshop on Thai railway sector development in Bangkok on Friday morning (Feb. 8), said that the rail system reforms in Thailand would raise the competitiveness and efficiency of the Thai economy and enhance regional economy as a whole because rail infrastructures in Thailand have potential to become the “backbone” of transportation networks in mainland Southeast Asia in the foreseeable future. Groff pointed out that the Thai rail system reforms, in which the ADB will provide technical assistance, include a massive spending to rebuild existing infrastructures and the construction of new rail tracks, along with refinancing and reforming the State Railway of Thailand or SRT and creating new bodies, both inside and outside the Thai Ministry of Transport, to strengthen the government’s overall management of rail assets across the Kingdom. Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittirat Na-Ranong, who attended the same workshop, welcomed the ADB assistance, noting that Thailand can learn a lot from the Manila-based ADB, which has experienced in rail development projects in the region. The deputy premier acknowledged that the Thai rail reforms is a major part of the government’s 2 trillion-baht-plan to upgrade the country’s transport infrastructures, which will further improve the livelihood of Thai people, raise the level of connectivity in the Greater Mekong Sub-region or GMS and enhance national economic development in the lead-up to the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 and beyond. Friday's workshop on Thailand's reforms of rail systems was the last of a series of forums jointly organized by the ADB and the Thai Ministries of Finance and Transport, in which more than 70 delegates from government and private agencies, think tanks and other development partners particiapted. (TNA)