Thai PM for Chennai-Dawei corridor

The sleepy little town of Dawei, earlier known as Tavoy, in southern Myanmar is certainly not a familiar name in India. But if the young Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has her way, it could well become the hub of India’s long-sought transport corridor to Southeast Asia.


In her address to the business associations in New Delhi on Wednesday, Shinawatra talked about her government’s commitment to transform the connectivity in Southeast Asia by building a deep sea port and a massive industrial complex at Dawei.

Estimated to cost more than $50 billion and to be implemented in multiple phases, the Dawei project is being touted as the biggest infrastructure project ever in Southeast Asia.

Once translated into reality, the Dawei complex will put the recent Chinese port development in Gwadar (Pakistan) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka) and Kyauk Phyu (Myanmar) into shade.

Unlike the Chinese ports, which are surrounded by underdeveloped hinterlands, Shinawatra’s proposal for the Chennai-Dawei corridor will connect economically robust regions. As the crow flies from Chennai, Dawei is directly across on the other side of the Bay of Bengal.

The Dawei development project also came up for discussion in Delhi this week in the talks with the visiting foreign minister of Myanmar, U Maung Lwin.

More than a decade ago, India, Myanmar and Thailand had outlined a triangular initiative to develop overland road networks linking the three countries. Shinawatra wants to revive that moribund project.

The Chennai-Dawei corridor, however, is much simpler in its conception and will connect India’s emerging industrial hubs in southern India with the heart of continental Southeast Asia, China and other thriving East Asian markets.

Thailand has plans to develop transport corridors that will link Dawei to Southern China, Vietnam’s coastline in South China Sea and the waters of Cambodia through the land-locked Laos.

The narrow peninsula, where the territories of Myanmar, Thailand and Malyasia meet, has been the barrier separating the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The bustling trade between the two oceans today has to circumnavigate the peninsula through the crowded Straits of Malacca.

Finding a shorter route between the two oceans by cutting through the peninsula has long stirred the imagination of sovereigns and sailors in the region. The Thai project is probably closest to the realisation of that dream.

Thai companies promoting the project have already won support from counterparts in China and Japan.

China, which is developing many transport corridors in Southeast Asia, is happy to invest in yet another network. It has plans to build a large free trade centre in Bangkok, from where it plans to boost trade with the Indian Ocean region.

Japan, conscious of its declining influence, is stepping up its diplomatic activism in Southeast Asia and strongly backing its integration with India and South Asia.

Delhi, which long remained apart from the recent spectacular infrastructure development in the Indian Ocean littoral, now has a welcome opportunity to partake in the physical and economic integration of the region.