With the government intent on drumming up foreign investor support for its proposed land bridge, a Chulalongkorn University researcher warns they could be deterred by the sheer size of the project.
Lecturer Sompong Sirisoponsil, part of the university's team studying the scheme, said on Monday the huge size of the land bridge design could make investors cautious about putting their money into the project.
"Considering the amount of money needed to invest, they may not be interested in the project," he said during an interview on the university's radio programme.
Mr Sompong said investors might ask the government to scale it down, or demand more favourable conditions in exchange for investment.
The land bridge would include a new railway line and a new highway and link the South China Sea with Chumphon, on the Gulf of Thailand, and the Andaman Sea in Ranong, with a deepsea port to be built at each end. The construction cost of the entire project is estimated at 1 trillion baht.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said last week on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerand that Dubai Ports World, a multinational logistics company, had shown interest in the project. Its representatives would visit the country for further discussions and to survey the locations, according to the prime minister.
He said earlier that other investors were also keen on the scheme.
Chulalongkorn Universiy (CU) was commissioned by the National Economic and Social Development Council to study Thailand's logistic links with the world, with a land bridge being one of the options the university explored.
The CU report was conducted in 2021. It did not favour the scheme due to the megasize and possible lack of interest from freight lines using the Malacca Straits.
The Transport Ministry, which is the main agency responsible for the scheme, also studied the project and the preliminary design is to handle 20 million containers annually at both the Ranong and Chumphon ports. That would outweigh Laem Chabang, Thailand's biggest deepsea port, which currently handles only 8 million a year.
The CU academic doubted the ministry's figures on the popularity of the land bridge project, citing the lack of interest from shippers.
He said the study also showed the project might not draw interest from global marine freight companies. It could save about two days compared with transiting the Malacca Straits, but they would have to also pay for the overland transport of containers between the two ports, and other costs, and the whole process could take about a week, he said.
Mr Sompong said about 80% of ships carrying goods between Asia, Europe and Australia would not use the land bridge, leaving only goods exported by Thailand and those from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Mr Sompong said the government should reconsider the project, and possibly scale it down to serve only regional customers. More importanly, the government should first come up with a development direction for the southern region, before designing infrastructure schemes to support it.
Thailand had not made it clear what it plans for the region, whether it would be a new industrial hub or a wellness centre, he said. "We might not need a land bridge at all if we want to be a wellness hub. In that case, we need an airport," he said.
The prime minister was due in Ranong on Monday and Tuesday to promote the project. "The land bridge project will create new jobs, income and development in these areas, like they have never been before," he posted on X before leaving Bangkok for Ranong.
He said on Sunday the government would give serious consideration to concerns voiced by groups opposed to the project.