Next blow for Myanmar’s Dawei project

The huge project for an industrial zone plus sea port in Myanmar’s southern region of Dawei has suffered another setback as the planned 110-kilometer motorway expansion from Thailand to Dawei, a crucial infrastructure artery for the project, has been postponed due to “high investment risks”, the Thai Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning said.
This is another blow for the $11-billion project which is now hanging by a thread as major funding from Japanese investors did not materialise yet. The result is that Thailand and Myanmar have also gone cold on the project and Thailand’s vision of having a sea port on the Indian Ocean, which could shorten shipping time to European and Middle East markets significantly, may remain just a dream.
Experts already anticipate the entire Dawei project to be dead. Myanmar has recently set its focus on another project, a deep sea port plus container terminal at the Andaman Sea coast at Kyaukphyu, to where China is currently building oil and gas pipelines from its Yunnan province as well as a new railway link.
Japanese investors have also shown interest in building an alternative port complex in the Irrawaddy delta near Yangon rather then in Dawei and have linked any possible investment in Dawei to the result of a new feasibility study on investment risks there.
However, after the Myanmar government announced it was suspending work on a 4,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant that was to supply electricity to the Dawei project, chances are high that there will be no Dawei project at all.
[caption id="attachment_7263" align="alignleft" width="300"] Planned road an rail links from Thailand to Dawei (click to enlarge)[/caption] The huge project for an industrial zone plus sea port in Myanmar's southern region of Dawei has suffered another setback as the planned 110-kilometer motorway expansion from Thailand to Dawei, a crucial infrastructure artery for the project, has been postponed due to "high investment risks", the Thai Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning said. This is another blow for the $11-billion project which is now hanging by a thread as major funding from Japanese investors did not materialise yet. The result is...

The huge project for an industrial zone plus sea port in Myanmar’s southern region of Dawei has suffered another setback as the planned 110-kilometer motorway expansion from Thailand to Dawei, a crucial infrastructure artery for the project, has been postponed due to “high investment risks”, the Thai Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning said.
This is another blow for the $11-billion project which is now hanging by a thread as major funding from Japanese investors did not materialise yet. The result is that Thailand and Myanmar have also gone cold on the project and Thailand’s vision of having a sea port on the Indian Ocean, which could shorten shipping time to European and Middle East markets significantly, may remain just a dream.
Experts already anticipate the entire Dawei project to be dead. Myanmar has recently set its focus on another project, a deep sea port plus container terminal at the Andaman Sea coast at Kyaukphyu, to where China is currently building oil and gas pipelines from its Yunnan province as well as a new railway link.
Japanese investors have also shown interest in building an alternative port complex in the Irrawaddy delta near Yangon rather then in Dawei and have linked any possible investment in Dawei to the result of a new feasibility study on investment risks there.
However, after the Myanmar government announced it was suspending work on a 4,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant that was to supply electricity to the Dawei project, chances are high that there will be no Dawei project at all.