Construction of new Thai-Myanmar border checkpoint building set to be completed in 2019

BANGKOK, August 29 (TNA) - The construction of a new building as part of the Thai-Myanmar border checkpoint is expected to be completed by late 2019. Thanin Somboon, Director-General of the Department of Highways, under the Thai Ministry of Transport, told journalists on Tuesday that his department will sign a contract on the construction of the new building by the end of this year and expects the construction should be completed by October 2019. Thanin revealed that his department will use a budget of about 1.23 billion baht for the construction of the new building, 586 million baht of which will be for the construction of the building in the Thai side, while the rest will be for the construction in the Myanmar side. Thanin said the new building, with its space equally divided into 380 meters wide and 450 meters long in both the Thai and Myanmar sides, will be separated between passenger and cargo terminals. According to the senior official, the new building will be designed in a modern style with the mixed architecture showing the identity of both Thailand and Myanmar. The senior official noted, meanwhile, that the construction of the Second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge across the Moei River, linking Mae Sot of Thailand's Tak Province with Myawaddy in Myanmar's Kayin or Karen State, has already been completed, while the construction of a road connecting the Second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in both the Thai and Myanmar sides is scheduled to be completed by mid-2018. The senior official explained that all the releated projects are part of the East-West Economic Corridor in Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), stating that the Second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge and related roads, once opened for public services, will not only be part of the Asian Highway No. 1, but also deepen the connectivity of the Thai and the Myanmar economies through more facilitations of cross-border trade, investment, transport and tourism. Besides, the new Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge will support the expansion of the Tak Special Economic Zone and strengthen relations between member countries in the ASEAN Community (AC), while also relieving the increasing congestion of the First Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, which has been opened for public service for 10 years, and catering for growing Thai-Myanmar cross-border transport in the future. (TNA)