In late April, Sebastian Strangio and I penned separate articles for The Diplomat highlighting how Thailand’s ambition to build a “land bridge” across its upper southern provinces as an alternative trade route to the Strait of Malacca – via two deep-sea ports linked by a dual-track railway and a six-lane motorway – was increasingly framed by Thai leaders as an imperative amid deepening geopolitical volatility. What we said lost relevance quickly, with the shelving of the one-trillion-baht megaproject coming to light on July 24.
The announcement was made verbally by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas, citing unfavorable findings in a government feasibility study. Just as too many skeptics have loudly reasoned, the projected financial return does not look promising. The operational requirement to repeatedly load and unload goods is too much of a hassle and may end up taking more time than shipping through the supposedly longer Malacca route.
Another guaranteed problem is environmental damage. Constructing a 90-kilometer transport corridor entails seaward land reclamation of roughly 13,000 rai in two ecologically rich provinces: 7,000 rai in Ranong on the Andaman Coast and 6,000 rai in Chumphon facing the Gulf of Thailand. This far exceeds 5,257 rai (2,411 during Phase 1 and 2 construction, and 2,846 as part of the unfinished Phase 3 expansion) of sea area reclaimed for Laem Chabang Port, Thailand’s main international deep-sea terminal in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).
In place of the land bridge, a downsized infrastructure upgrade will be directed to the area most in need, namely Ranong. The existing Ranong Port will be modernized, and it will have a direct rail connection to the national train network already running through Chumphon.
Advancing Ranong as Thailand’s logistics gateway to the Indian Ocean makes structural sense. First, Ranong has both strong coastal and inland connectivity, with the nearest distance to the capital Bangkok of any Andaman province, not to mention the close proximity to Myanmar. Second, Ranong is the sole Andaman province to have its port managed by the Port Authority of Thailand, the administrator of key state-owned commercial ports, including Laem Chabang. Phuket, despite being the poster child of the Andaman region and having its own deep-sea port near the Royal Thai Navy’s Third Naval Area Command, is too tourism-oriented and has limited capacity for expansion, in a literal physical sense.
As Ekniti stressed, stopping the land bridge project comes with no monetary loss since neither land acquisition nor actual construction has begun. The effect has purely been reputational for the Thai government, both good and bad.
The Thai public has opposed the land bridge, fiercely so over the past few months. Beyond environmental concerns discussed earlier, fear of excessive foreign capital flooding in is a crucial factor. Many have probably harbored an expectation that the government of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul would be stubborn, considering its action-oriented image and the high-profile promotion of the land bridge by successive Thai administrations since 2023. The Anutin government’s ultimate decision to scrap the project, then, could be viewed positively as a responsive move. Some netizens, such as those commenting on the Facebook page of a popular economic blog Longtunman, apparently think along this line.
At the same time, heavily promoting the land bridge to international investors when its viability has always been questionable reflects poorly on Thailand’s credibility. It does not help that other major infrastructure promises have stalled. The high-speed rail linking three airports (U-Tapao, Suvarnabhumi, and Don Mueang), a critical component of the EEC, has not taken shape since the contract was signed in 2019. The long-floated plan to build the Andaman airport in Phang Nga province to relieve congestion in neighboring Phuket remains stuck on paper. An even older proposal suffering the same fate is the one for Phuket’s light rail transit system.
To be fair, these projects are prone to unforeseen circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as structural complexities. In the case of Phuket, for instance, even a minor transport infrastructure upgrade could paralyze part of the island, given there is only one main highway. Yet there is a natural tendency to pay selective attention, and execution seems to be all that matters in rating how credible a government is.
With the centuries-old idea of digging a canal across the Kra Isthmus resurfacing time and again, the land bridge, as a strategically safer proposal rooted in the same concept, could very well make a return. A successful modernization of Ranong Port will be the vital first step.