Roads and bridges

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha this week publicly endorsed a proposed land bridge between the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, apparently shelving a long-discussed project to build a canal across the Malay Peninsula. The dueling project ideas have generated debate, with some calling the ...

Vietnam plans to build a 130-kilometer expressway linking the southern localities Can Tho City and Ca Mau Province in the 2021-2025 period. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently tasked the Ministry of Transport to study the feasibility of constructing the four-lane Can Tho – Ca Mau ...

Residents of the Lao capital Vientiane are resisting seizure of their land by a Lao-China joint venture building an expressway, saying they had been promised earlier their land would not be taken, and calling offers of compensation unacceptably low, Lao sources say. The project, a 13-km ...

A 40-meter section of National Highway 91 fell into the Hau River, a branch of the Mekong, on Wednesday morning. The highway and the soil beneath in Binh My Commune in An Giang Province’s Chau Phu District slipped into the river after a crack opened up ...

Xayaboury province is becoming a major transit hub for international tourists after the government upgraded a border crossing with Thailand to inter-national level, according to a senior provincial official.  “We are becoming a new transit hub for international tourists coming to Laos,” the province’s Deputy Governor, ...

Four ‘Friendship Bridges’ span the wide majestic Mekong River as it creates a meandering borderline between Thailand and Laos but just how friendly are these border bridges? When the first bridge opened back in 1994, spanning the river between Nong Khai in Thailand and Vientiane province ...

The Prime Minister’s Office plans to upgrade the Daktaok local border crossing in Dakcheung district, Xekong province, to an international level crossing on the Vietnamese border. Lao and Vietnamese officials are currently discussing the date when this change will take place. If the status is elevated ...

When I returned to Xigang after five years, I couldn’t recognize it. What had been a small but generally well-maintained beach town had become a sprawling mess of a city; construction, mud, and piles of garbage were seemingly everywhere. The Han Chinese with whom I ...

Laos and Vietnam are preparing to upgrade two more local crossing points to official border crossings to facilitate international visits between them. The facilities to be upgraded are the Pa Hang-Long Sap crossing point between Laos’ Huaphan province and Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province, and the Dak ...

The Thai government on Tuesday approved financial assistance to Laos for the construction of the fifth Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge linking Thailand’s northeastern province of Bueng Kan with Lao’s central province of Bolikhamsai. “The fifth Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge had been approved in principle in the Cabinet’s resolution ...