BALIK PULAU, Penang: A Singaporean woman was killed and 10 other people were injured when a tourist van skidded before plunging into a ravine in Bukit Genting, Penang, on Sunday (Sep 24) night. The ravine was more than 6m deep. Nine Singaporeans were among the injured. The group’s Malaysian driverContinue Reading
PUBLISHED : 25 Sep 2023 at 07:16
The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives plans to have the fisheries law amended to help solve economic problems faced by fishermen who say their livelihoods are hurt by tough regulations.
Minister Thammanat Prompow said the ministry is aware of the concerns of fishing groups who have suffered under the Fisheries Act.
The law aims to prevent Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in the kingdom, but some critics say it is too tough. The ministry has set up a committee to look into the matter, Capt Thammanat said.
He said the panel will represent the government, the business sector and civil society. It will convene for the first time this week, he said.
He said the fisheries sector is crucial in driving economic growth, contributing to about 130.3 billion baht to GDP last year. Part of that was thanks to the Department of Fisheries which helped increase fish stocks and worked with local communities to preserve marine life, he said.
According to a senior department official, the committee will look into problems affecting fishing businesses, such as high penalties for those breaking the rules.
The committee will also meet international agencies such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to ensure any changes will not affect the country’s commitment to combating IUU fishing.
Mongkol Sukcharoenkana, president of the National Fisheries Association of Thailand, said his association supports the push for change because some regulations make it difficult to fish.
BBC/ Benjamin BegleyThe highway runs through the forest like a black ribbon, down to the sea and to what must be one of the world’s largest tourism projects.
Fifteen years after it began, there is still not much to see of the Dara Sakor Seashore Resort in southern Cambodia.
It is a grandiose scheme by a Chinese company to build a self-contained tourist city. A Chinese colony, some have called it a venue for “feasting and revelry”, according to the company, complete with international airport, deep-sea port, power stations, hospitals, casinos and luxury villas.
The airport is still unfinished. A single casino, with an attached five-star hotel and apartments, sits alone near the sea, fronted by an unmade road, and surrounded by a construction site.
As a tourist business it has barely got started. But it has already had a damaging impact on one of Asia’s richest natural environments, and on the thousands of people who live there.
China’s economic footprint in Cambodia now dwarfs that of any other country. It provides half of all direct investment and most of its foreign aid.
Cambodia is an enthusiastic partner in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), President Xi Jinping’s strategy for expanding Chinese built-and-funded-infrastructure around the world. A lot of this is clearly beneficial. But a great deal of Chinese investment is speculative, rushed and poorly planned.
The once quiet coastal town of Sihanoukville, for example, across the bay from Dara Sakor, was transformed in just a few years into a huge construction site to feed Chinese demand for casinos.
It fuelled a crime wave and then a collapse of the gambling economy during Covid, littering the town with half-built, empty tower blocks. There are good reasons to fear Dara Sakor may suffer similar problems.
“It’s like baking without flour,” says Sophal Ear, a Cambodian academic at Arizona State University. “You cannot rely on unsustainable practices to achieve sustainable development. What about the Chinese real estate bubble? When China sneezes, Cambodia will catch a cold.”
Dara Sakor is the kind of development favoured by Cambodia’s former prime minister Hun Sen.
It is on a massive scale, yet it was conceived in almost total secrecy. The BBC has found that there was minimal consultation or evaluation of the human and environmental cost.
The Chinese companies involved provide very little information about themselves, and some have dubious track records. The project has also seeded international suspicion of what other goals China might have in this part of Cambodia.
China’s “ask-no-questions” approach to aid and investment appealed to Hun Sen, a self-styled strongman who, after bringing three decades of devastating war and revolution to an end in the 1990s, pushed for breakneck growth to help his country catch up with its neighbours.
But much of this growth has been achieved by giving generous concessions, in particular huge parcels of land, to favoured cronies and foreign companies.
“There are no institutions,” says Sebastian Strangio, who has written what is perhaps the definitive book on Hun Sen’s Cambodia. “The system relies on keeping powerful people contented.”
The Dara Sakor project dates back to early 2008, when UDG, a private Chinese construction company based in the northern city of Tianjin, secured a 99-year lease – the maximum term allowed under Cambodian law – with a single deposit of $1m. This was for the right to develop 36,000 hectares initially, with 9,000 more added later.
UDG was required to pay nothing more for 10 years, and after that only a paltry $1m a year – a breathtakingly generous arrangement for control of one-fifth of Cambodia’s entire coastline.
As the land was inside the Botum Sakor national park, and greatly exceeded the legal limit of 10,000 hectares for any one project, it would have been very controversial – had anyone else known about it.
But because there was no information published about the deal at the time, there was no discussion of it in the Cambodian media.
Som Thy, a local fisherman, took the BBC on his motorbike along sandy tracks through the forest to see where he used to live, inside the UDG area. Much of the tree cover has now gone. In some places a few lonely giants still stand, surrounded by a denuded wasteland.
Since 2008 the national park has lost almost 20% of its primary forests, according to the NGO Global Forest Watch. More than 1,000 families have been uprooted and forced to abandon their villages. One of those families was Som Thy’s.
“It brings tears to my eyes to see it like this, all overgrown,” he said, looking out over what used to be his home and rice fields. A few cashew nut trees were still left from the orchard his family used to rely on to supplement their income from farming and fishing.
Like the other inhabitants of the 12 villages displaced by Dara Sakor, Som Thy was moved in 2009 to a small wooden house built by the company several kilometres from the coast.
In those first years there were many protests. Today Som Thy is one of a small group which still refuses to accept the company’s compensation package.
He says it is impossible to make a living from the small plots of land they have been given, and that the sums of money they were offered are just a fraction of their original land’s real value.
He sometimes sneaks back into Dara Sakor to take his boat out fishing. He has also travelled to Thailand in search of work. His continued opposition to the project means he cannot get a job, as his brother has done, on the building sites around the casino.
UDG has produced some dazzling brochures for prospective investors, with alluring images of manicured golf courses, orderly rows of villas, and happy families enjoying seaside leisure. There are complicated maps laying out the different parts of this model holiday city – the Science and Education New Town Zone, the World Trade City Center and the Forest and Elegance Zone.
But all this is a far cry from the stripped forests, displaced people and half-finished roads and buildings that you still see today.
According to the Chinese environmental organisation GEI, which published a detailed study of Dara Sakor in 2016, there is no evidence that the company has conducted any environmental impact assessments, as required by Cambodian law.
Nor could GEI find any information about how the forests, which were supposed to be protected, were redesignated as suitable for development. GEI says it presented its concerns to UDG.
“They did not respond to these points,” programme director Ling Ji told the BBC. “They just insisted that they had followed all relevant laws and regulations. They don’t see the problem. This has a very bad effect on China’s image. Many countries will think that Chinese companies are here just to plunder resources. Chinese companies do not have the awareness or ability to handle local grievances in other countries, because in China these are always dealt with by the local government. Overseas, it is very different. This is still a learning process for them.”
The sheer size of the project has also rung alarm bells in the United States.
In 2020 the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on UDG, citing human rights abuses against those evicted from their villages, but also the potential military use by China of the new airport. This has a runway far longer than needed for the smaller airliners expected to serve what is quite a remote tourist destination.
The US was already concerned about a naval base near Sihanoukville which is being renovated with Chinese state funding, and which Washington believes may be used in the future by the Chinese navy.
The US has become increasingly uneasy over Chinese-built infrastructure because of Mr Xi’s emphasis on dual civil-military use – what China calls “military-civil fusion” – in its economic planning, and the official requirement for Chinese overseas projects to meet military standards.
“The PRC has used UDG’s projects in Cambodia to advance its ambitions to project power globally,” said the statement accompanying the sanctions.
UDG has called the sanctions unjustified. The company says the US is acting on “fabricated facts and rumours”, saying it “always religiously followed procedures required by law”, and that those living inside its concession were illegal settlers.
It says the airport is being built on this scale to make Dara Sakor a “global transportation hub”. It has backed this with some very ambitious targets. By 2030, the company’s website says, it aims to have 1.3 million long-term residents, nearly seven million tourists visiting every year, and to provide employment for one million people.
These are staggering numbers considering that tourist arrivals for all of Cambodia are still well below the peak of six million who came in 2019. UDG also took issue with the US description of it as a state-owned entity – we are a privately-owned company, it said.
This may be true, but there has been strong backing from Chinese state agencies from the earliest stages of the project.
China’s top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, gave its approval even before the deal was signed, and has continued to monitor it. The Communist Party boss in Tianjin, Zhang Gaoli, was also involved early on, travelling to Cambodia at the end of 2008 to take part in the contract signing ceremony.
Mr Zhang would later rise to become one of China’s most senior leaders, and from 2015 he ran the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although Dara Sakor predates the BRI by five years, it is now officially described as a showcase BRI project.
UDG has also built close relationships with senior figures in the Cambodian ruling party. It has made several large donations to the Cambodian Red Cross, which is run by Hun Sen’s wife Bun Rany, and gave a million dollars to fund the construction of a monument glorifying Hun Sen’s achievements.
It has particularly close ties with the former defence minister Tea Banh, who heads one of the most powerful political factions in Cambodia.
The company issues very little information about its finances, though, which makes it difficult to assess its capacity for running a project this large.
One of the few known investments in Dara Sakor was a bond issue in 2017 underwritten by the China Development Bank. But that was for only $15m, a fraction of the nearly $4bn UDG has promised to invest.
And UDG’s leading role now appears to have been taken over by another company, China City Construction Company or CCCC. It was almost unknown outside China when in 2014, for reasons that are still not clear, it inserted itself into the Dara Sakor project.
Executives from CCCC now play a leading role in UDG, and CCCC states that it, not UDG, is responsible for “the design of the overall programme for the planning and development of this special tourism zone”.
CCCC is a state-owned enterprise. But it is also a troubled company.
In 2016, then under the control of the ministry of housing, it sent shockwaves through the Hong Kong financial markets after it suddenly announced it was being privatised on the orders of the Chinese government. It said it was being taken over by a little-known equity fund called Huinong.
This panicked investors who had bought hundreds of millions of dollars of CCCC’s so-called “dim sum bonds” – bonds issued in Hong Kong to get around Chinese capital controls. They tried to redeem the bonds, but CCCC could not raise sufficient cash to cover the payments.
CCCC has continued to struggle financially. It now has a tarnished credit rating and has been forced to sell off some of its more promising businesses.
It has also been revealed that Huinong, the mysterious fund which took over CCCC in 2016, is indirectly owned by the finance ministry, making CCCC technically state-owned again. This kind of opacity makes it very difficult to assess the real financial health of CCCC, which is likely to have been affected by the recent collapse of the Chinese property market.
“There was a binge of outward investment in the initial Belt and Road initiative period, 2014 to 2016,” says Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California San Diego. “By 2016, though, the Chinese government had become a lot more careful. They were no longer throwing money and approving projects left and right.”
Another investor in Dara Sakor is a Chinese entrepreneur called She Zhijiang, who has gained notoriety for running casinos along the Thai-Myanmar border, where large-scale human trafficking and scam operations have been uncovered. He is currently being detained in Thailand awaiting extradition to China.
Several people, from Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines, have had to be rescued after saying they were being forcibly held in scam centres operating inside the Dara Sakor complex.
Publicity over scam centres operating in Chinese investment zones in Cambodia is now deterring Chinese tourists from visiting. As a result the anticipated recovery in tourism, one of Cambodia’s most important sources of income, has been much slower than expected.
But a different approach under the new Cambodian PM – Hun Manet, Hun Sen’s Western-educated son – is unlikely, according to Sebastian Strangio.
“He will be a prisoner of this system. He will have limited power to rein in its excesses, even if he should wish to do so,” he says.
Last week, just a month after succeeding his father, Hun Manet visited Beijing to meet Mr Xi and assure him that the China-Cambodia relationship is rock solid.
Dara Sakor is in fact just one of several very large land concessions in the area, most of which have been awarded to local Cambodian businesses allied to the ruling party.
The sheer weight of vested interests in the rapacious model of development followed in Cambodia until now makes it very hard to change.
Eighty percent of the national park is now being exploited commercially, and little heed is being paid to the repeated warnings from environmental activists that the country is on the verge of losing one of its most important natural habitats.
One of those activists, a young woman in her 20s, travelled with us to see Dara Sakor. She is currently out on bail after being given an 18-month prison sentence in 2021 for trying to organise a protest against another land grab.
She had taken a big risk coming with us to the UDG concession. “We don’t have a choice,” she said, as we looked out over yet another stretch of ripped-up forest.
“We have to risk going to jail, or worse, to try to protect what’s left for the next generation.”
Given the dramatic developments in Canada, where PM Trudeau has said there is credible evidence to suggest India was involved in the killing of a Canadian Sikh, it is unsurprising that rumours now swirl around the deaths of other Sikh activists around the world, including in the UK.
Avtar Singh Khanda, 35, was well known for his support of the creation of a breakaway Sikh homeland, Khalistan.
He died from a sudden illness in Birmingham in June, and some of those close to him insinuate there was foul play involved.
West Midlands Police say they thoroughly reviewed the case and there were no suspicious circumstances and that there is no need to re-investigate.
But British Sikhs have long talked about feeling under undue pressure, as the Indian government has openly demanded that the UK authorities do more to stamp out “extremism” within the community.
Gurpreet Johal is a lawyer and Labour councillor from Dumbarton. He says he entered politics because of what happened to his family.
Six years ago, Gurpreet’s brother Jagtar – a well known pro-Khalistan and Sikh rights activist – went to India to get married.
Mr Johal’s family says that in the town of Rami Mandi in Punjab, he was forced into an unmarked car. He has been in prison ever since accused of extremist activities.
Jagtar Johal says he was tortured and forced to sign confession statements. It took years for him to be charged and he has never been tried.
“Fair play to Justin Trudeau,” says Gurpreet Johal. “The Canadian prime minister has stood up for his citizens, whereas the UK government has failed to do so.”
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The human rights group Reprieve says it has compelling evidence that Mr Johal’s arrest in India followed a tip-off from British security agencies.
British Sikh organisations expressed outrage at that, but also at the fact that even after a UN working group called for the release of Jagtar Johal – saying his detention had been made on arbitrary and discriminatory grounds – the UK government has failed to do the same.
“It seems like the UK government cares more about getting a trade deal with India than it does about its citizens,” says Mr Johal.
The Foreign Office has said that calling for Jagtar Johal’s release would not help matters and may even make things worse. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says he is “committed to seeing Mr Johal’s case resolved as soon as possible”.
There are strong ties between India and the UK, but the issue of Sikh activism in Britain is frequently raised by Indian officials.
In March this year, Prime Minister Modi’s administration expressed its concern when Sikh rights and pro-Khalistan protestors vandalised the Indian High Commission in London during a demonstration. The Indian government reiterated its frequent call for Britain to deal with “extremism”.
After its peak in the 1980s, support for a breakaway Sikh homeland waned in India, with all major political parties strongly opposed to the idea. But it has seen a resurgence in recent years, particularly in the Sikh diaspora.
For the most part, pro-Khalistan support in the UK has taken the form of peaceful activism, and the tension between Delhi and London can sometimes be over what constitutes “extremism” and what is freedom of political expression. But there have been occasions when violence has been used.
In 2014, while on a visit to London, retired Indian general Kuldeep Singh Brar was attacked and had his face and throat slashed with a knife.
In 1984, at a time of growing unrest and agitation for a Sikh state, Lt Gen Brar had led the Indian army’s attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It is Sikhism’s holiest shrine, but at the time it was also where leading separatists had taken residence.
Hundreds of Sikhs were killed in the Golden Temple operation; among them separatists but also large numbers of pilgrims packed into the complex on what was a Sikh holy day.
It was a pivotal moment. In revenge four months later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, precipitating widespread anti-Sikh riots across India in which thousands died.
To some extent, these events still have a profound impact on Sikh consciousness.
Lt Gen Brar survived the London knife assault in 2014 and his attackers, including a British Sikh who lost his father and brother in the Indian army operation on the Golden Temple, were imprisoned.
But, as well as the imprisonment of Scottish Sikh Jagtar Johal, many British Sikhs cite other incidents from recent years as evidence that theirs is a community under pressure because of demands being made by Delhi.
In 2018, there were raids carried out on the homes of five Sikh activists in London and the Midlands.
No charges were ever brought, but Sikh groups here have said the fact that details of the raids appeared in the Indian media that had not been made public by the British police suggests that Delhi had a hand in the operation.
Just this year, British Sikhs across the political spectrum shared their confusion and concern about the findings of a recent review into Britain’s faith landscape by the UK government’s Faith Engagement Advisor, Colin Bloom.
After years of research, Mr Bloom devoted more of his final report to Sikh “extremist and subversive activities” than it did to Muslim, far right and Hindu extremism combined.
Many Sikh leaders said publicly that they felt the report’s findings were a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration, that has long been vocal about the fact it wants the governments of countries with large Sikh populations – particularly Canada, Australia and the UK – to do more to counter Sikh activism.
Last month, the UK Home Office announced a further £95,000 to tackle the issue of “pro-Khalistani extremism”.
Calls for Khalistan separatism may have diminished over recent decades in India, but the issue continues to cause tensions and divisions among British Sikhs, with prominent voices in the community who do not support the creation of a Sikh homeland sometimes receiving online intimidation.
But it appears these often polarised sections of the community are coming together in their concern about misrepresentation.
“The Sikh community has integrated into British society and is known for its educational attainment and its seva (selfless service),” says Jagbir Jhutti Johal OBE, professor of Sikh Studies at the University of Birmingham. Though she does not discuss it, Professor Johal is one of those who has previously faced the ire of pro-Khalistanis. But of late, she has been deeply troubled by pressure she feels is being put on the whole community.
“This recent scrutiny as a result of the Indian and UK Government’s focus on ‘extremism’ is unfairly creating a negative impression of the community. That’s causing many Sikhs to question the intentions of both governments,” she says.
Professor Johal warns that all the focus and talk in recent years of tackling Sikh extremism here is potentially unhelpful and counterproductive.
The UK’s tactics and the news from Canada will be raising concerns for younger Sikhs, she says. They may not have been interested before but they will now study the concept of Khalistan, the alleged human rights abuses against Sikhs and the restrictions on freedom of expression.
For some women, taking the man’s name after marriage isn’t a cultural norm.
“I don’t see myself taking my husband’s name officially,” said Rebecca Ong, a 26-year-old management executive who is marrying her fiance within the year. “It’s not something my family members or friends in my community have done.”
“I wouldn’t mind being called Mrs Lim and I’m happy, when we have kids, for my family to be known as the Lims,” she said. “But to be called Rebecca Lim seems strange.”
Joan Chia, a 36-year-old staff wellness executive, said: “To me, it’s about sticking to my own family name. I didn’t grow up with my husband’s surname, so I can’t resonate with it and I find it strange if I had to change my name to his.”
Public relations specialist Linda Yusoff echoes this sentiment. Yusoff is of Arab descent and married to a Malay man. In Malay culture, almost all men and women have patronymic names, meaning their father’s name is part of their name.
Linda thus found it unnecessary to take her husband’s name – essentially his father’s name – when they got married. “It’s just not what we’re used to, in either Arab or Malay culture, in Singapore,” the 32-year-old said.
PUBLISHED : 25 Sep 2023 at 06:16
The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives plans to have the fisheries law amended to help solve economic problems faced by fishermen who say their livelihoods are hurt by tough regulations.
Minister Thammanat Prompow said the ministry is aware of the concerns of fishing groups who have suffered under the Fisheries Act.
The law aims to prevent Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in the kingdom, but some critics say it is too tough. The ministry has set up a committee to look into the matter, Capt Thammanat said.
He said the panel will represent the government, the business sector and civil society. It will convene for the first time this week, he said.
He said the fisheries sector is crucial in driving economic growth, contributing to about 130.3 billion baht to GDP last year. Part of that was thanks to the Department of Fisheries which helped increase fish stocks and worked with local communities to preserve marine life, he said.
According to a senior department official, the committee will look into problems affecting fishing businesses, such as high penalties for those breaking the rules.
The committee will also meet international agencies such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to ensure any changes will not affect the country’s commitment to combating IUU fishing.
Mongkol Sukcharoenkana, president of the National Fisheries Association of Thailand, said his association supports the push for change because some regulations make it difficult to fish.
SEOUL: North Korea on Monday (Sep 25) slammed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for criticising its cooperation with Moscow following leader Kim Jong Un’s Russia visit, saying it is “natural” and “normal” for neighbours to keep close relations. Yoon, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly last week, saidContinue Reading
Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit has denied putting the brakes on the southern land bridge megaproject worth an estimated 1 trillion baht, though he says a thorough study is required before it can go ahead.
Wichai Sudsawat, a United Thai Nation (UTN) Party MP for Chumphon, previously expressed concern the project could be scrapped and urged the government to press ahead.
He said the project belonged to the previous government and was part of the UTN’s plan to enhance connectivity in several areas — including between land and marine infrastructure — and bring economic prosperity to the southern region.
The land bridge project was initiated by the Prayut-Chan-o-cha government in 2021 to drive Thailand’s economy, apart from the flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) project covering parts of the eastern provinces of Chon Buri, Rayong and Chachoengsao.
The land bridge project is intended to connect the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand via Ranong and Chumphon provinces as a transit hub.
It also forms a part of the southern corridor, which comprises parts of Chumphon, Ranong, Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat provinces, Mr Wichai said.
His call came after Mr Suriya previously said the project has high investment costs and that other aspects, such as environmental concerns and cost-effectiveness, must be considered.
Clarification
However, Mr Suriya later explained that he did not order the project to be scrapped and said the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning (OTP) is conducting a study on it.
“When the study is finished, the project will go ahead in line with procedures,” the minister said.
He said that on Sept 14, he laid down a policy for agencies under the Transport Ministry.
At a meeting, Mr Suriya said he stressed the need for agencies to carry out their duties carefully and attach importance to solving problems that affect people’s livelihoods.
He said the ministry’s development projects will be prioritised based on the people’s best interests, and all megaprojects that cost substantial sums of money must be studied carefully.
State agencies also must work together to ensure those projects deliver tangible results.
The OTP commissioned a company to conduct a feasibility study for the project, the required environmental impact assessment (EIA), construction design as well as analyse a business development model.
The study and the EIA began in March 2021 but they had to be extended as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
They are expected to be completed by next September, but the initial findings will be presented for consideration by the new cabinet next month.
Pongkawin Jungrungruangkit, the minister’s adviser, said the EIA is expected to be presented for cabinet approval by the end of next year and a bidding will be open in the middle of 2025.
Feasibility study underway
OTP director Panya Chupanich said the feasibility study and the EIA are underway.
The land bridge project requires an investment of about 1 trillion baht, and it will come entirely from the private sector, he said, noting the government will only deal with land expropriation.
Previously, there were three foreign investors interested in the project, he said.
To draw more attention from foreign investors, the ministry also plans roadshows overseas, including China, the US and Europe, he said.
A public hearing will be held to gather opinions from all sectors including civil society to support the feasibility study, he said.
Under the project, a deep-sea port would be constructed at Laem Riw cape in Chumphon on the Gulf of Thailand side and the other at Laem Ao Ang cape in Ranong on the Andaman coast at a cost of more than 636 billion baht.
Each port would be able to handle about 20 million TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) of container throughput, he said.
As part of the project, a motorway and a dual-track railway will be constructed at a cost of more than 223 billion baht to connect the two southern provinces which are about 89.35km apart.
The Single Rail Transfer project valued at more than 141 billion baht will also be built to connect ship cargo with rail transport between the two provinces. The project will be carried out in four phases between 2025 and 2030, Mr Panya said.
He added that an initial plan to construct oil and gas pipelines along the motorway and the railway route was suspended because a study showed it was not worth investing in.
Panya: Foreign investors ‘keen’
New logistics hub
“The land bridge project will become a new logistics and transport hub as well as a new route for shipping, serving as an alternative to the existing route for the shipment of goods from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Malacca,” Mr Panya said.
“It will help cut travel time from nine days through the Strait of Malacca to five days, thus reducing costs.
“The project will also boost connectivity between the EEC project, the Greater Mekong Subregion, southern China, Asean and member countries of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectorial Technical and Economic Cooperation,” Mr Panya said.
“Most importantly, the project is not intended to rival Singapore’s port, but it will help support maritime transport in the region. The number of ships passing through the Strait of Malacca is increasing as sea traffic there is congested.
“The land bridge project will help cut transport time, with a new shipping route,” Mr Panya said.
“A study shows that with the land bridge, a new shipping route will emerge connecting transport between the European Union, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China. Main customers will be feeder ships with a capacity of 5,000 to 6,000 TEUs.
“Port industries will emerge and free economic zones will be established to attract investment for further development of ports in Ranong and Chumphon,” Mr Panya said.
“The land bridge project will also help support the development of Laem Chabang Port in Chon Buri and the EEC,” he added.
Cautious welcome
Chaichan Charoensuk, chairman of the Thai National Shippers’ Council (TNSC), welcomed the project, saying it will help boost logistics, transport and trade in the region.
“Thailand commands a strategic location which is an advantage,” Mr Chaichan said.
However, he said the country is not recognised yet as a shipping hub because demand for shipping via the country is limited, compared to Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, which have long-established shipping networks.
In Thailand, no more than 10 million cargo containers are in use each year. Of them, 9 million are used in Laem Chabang port and the rest in Klong Toey port, Mr Chaichan said.
“But if the land bridge project materialises, it will serve as an alternative route for ships passing through the congested sea traffic lane at the Strait of Malacca,” he said.
However, he also stressed the need to study the project carefully as it costs a huge sum of money to invest.
“If demand for shipping via Thailand is not enough, the project could backfire. We need to know how many shipping lines will be and where demand for containers comes from,” he said.
He also said the proposed ports in Ranong and Chumphon under the land bridge project should be designed as “smart and green ones” or high-tech ports that are friendly to the environment.
Mr Chaichan said laws should also be amended to reduce unnecessary paperwork for shipping lines and make it easy for goods transshipment.
Chaichan: More study needed
Kongrit Chantrik, executive director of the TNSC, said that if the government is concerned that any changes to laws related to transshipment will allow an influx of illegal into the country, a trial of the system should be held at Laem Chabang port for three months to assess its effectiveness.
“We must be attentive to detail as the land bridge project is a newcomer. We need to be sure customers receive good services,” he said.
Kongrit: Focus on services
Meanwhile, Sombat Premprabha, vice chairman of the TNSC, said the OTP should review any plan to suspend the project to build the oil and gas pipelines as this project should greatly benefit the country.
He said he believed oil-rich countries in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, which now enjoys cordial relations with Thailand, would want to invest in the pipeline project.
As a country’s population ages, economic growth starts to decline. The rate and the extent of the decline will depend on the foundation that the earlier, younger high-growth economy was able to lay, including for human capital, physical infrastructure and governance.
Although an imploding working age population may be attenuated by a higher labour force participation rate, especially of elder workers (that is, those aged 65 or above), on average, older workers are not as productive and innovative as younger ones. This usually translates to lower labour productivity growth and a slower rate of innovation.
The natural growth rate of a country’s economy, which is the rate of economic growth that could be sustained over the long term and is determined by demographic changes and technical progress, will also decline. This results in a lower appetite for corporate investment and consequently, lower firm productivity.
What seems to be preoccupying policymakers now is how to “get rich before getting old”, as touted in the Grand Strategy for Indonesia’s 2045 Vision. This mindset must change: Indonesia should close its development gap by getting its foundations right, then get rich, not vice versa. The sequence of reforms matters.
President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, in his two terms has made tremendous progress in building certain structural foundations for the country – including in transportation, electricity generation, irrigation systems, regulatory reforms aiding investment, the financial and health sectors, and tax harmonisation.
This is his legacy in improving the welfare of Indonesians. However, there are big development gaps that Indonesia’s next president still needs to close in the next critical 10 to 15 years, primarily laggard human capital and the eroding quality of governance.
In a speech delivered in Terengganu, Abdul Hadi had declared PAS’ struggle as jihad (holy war), and criticised UMNO for upholding a colonial Constitution, laws of unbelievers and pre-Islamic legislation. Conversely, PAS leaders were upset with Mahathir’s government for not uplifting the poorer east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu. PAS deemed UMNO to be secular.
As recently as 2019, Mahathir requested that PAS withdraw from Amanat Haji Hadi.
Now Mahathir and Abdul Hadi (and PAS) appear to have buried the hatchet, for political reasons.
On the one hand, Mahathir has joined the PAS bandwagon to revive his statesman image. As the father of Malaysia’s industrialisation, and the man who turned the country into an Asian Tiger economy in the 1990s, Mahathir does not want to end up in Malaysia’s annals of history as a downed political juggernaut.
At 97, Mahathir continues to garner respect from the international community, particularly in Japan and South Korea, and is regularly invited to speak at international forums. Moreover, the Islamic world remembers Mahathir for speaking up for the Muslims during the Bosnian war and the Palestinian issue.
It is on the domestic front that respect for him has waned significantly. With PAS’ strong electoral performance in the recent general and state elections, Mahathir is now trying to be on the winning side again, easing the memories of his 2022 defeat.
