Thailand planning land and rail passageway, bypassing congested Strait of Malacca
Discussions are underway in Thailand to construct two deep seaports on both sides of the country’s southern coast, which would be linked via rail and highway in hopes to shorten shipping time by bypassing the busy Strait of Malacca with a 100-kilometre highway and railway passageway.The latest proposal replaces the Kra Canal plan, which has been dropped on environmental grounds. That plan would have seen a canal crossing the skinniest point of the country, through the Isthmus of Kra just south of Phuket and Krabi, chopping around 1,200 kilometres off the shipping journey.The new project is expected to reduce shipping time by 2 days by bypassing the Strait of Malacca, which runs along Peninsular Malaysia’s south-west coast, before curving east past Singapore.However, the passageway is notor...