A wise choice?
Re: "Locals want SEC bills, Land Bridge axed", (BP, Sept 18).
Why do we need the proposed Chumphon-Ranong Land Bridge? A faster or cheaper alternative to the existing all-water Malacca Strait Route for Asian shipments to Europe, the Mid East, South Asia, Africa, and vice versa, perhaps?
Let's take a look at the comparative merit of the Land Bridge vis-a-vis the Malacca Strait Route from the users' perspective by comparing the transit time and probable costing between Shanghai and Colombo (Sri Lanka) and similarly, Hong Kong-Colombo based on container vessels with a typical average cruising speed of 20 nautical miles (nm) per hour.
Their pros and cons would reflect those of other Asia-Europe/Mideast routings.
The all-water nautical distance Shanghai-Colombo via Malacca is 3,804nm against the combined nautical distances of Shanghai-Chumphon and Ranong-Columbo of 3,278nm. The proposed Land Bridge scheme indeed helps save 526nm -- or a sailing time of 26 hours.
Similarly, the all-water nautical distance Hong Kong-Colombo is 3027nm; whereas Hong Kong-Chumphon and Ranong-Columbo combined is 2630nm, with a Land Bridge saving of 397nm and 20 hours.
In short, the Land Bridge would cut about one day off the Malacca Route sailing time on these East-West routes. Nevertheless, the Land Bridge scheme would normally take one day to discharge containers in Chumphon Port, a half-day to load-rail-discharge Chumphon-Ranong and on average 3.5 days to await reloading onto the next connecting vessel westbound -- based on standard weekly sailing frequency. Crossing the Land Bridge would thus take an average of five days -- not to mention additional vessel port expenses and container terminal charges at both ends, plus rail freight Chumphon-Ranong and container costs, to name but a few. The Land Bridge service may end up costing more and taking four days longer.
What commercial entity on earth would opt to pay more?
There are many politically motivated but financially unfeasible projects, especially in developing countries. After being commissioned, they are invariably plagued by continuous operating losses and are labelled as 'long-term' investments, implying only God knows when investors will see their money again.
Even without mentioning inevitable damages to some of Thailand's best countryside, how would Thai voters and future generations look at this financial blackhole caused by construction and the billions needed for upkeep -- as a means to jump-start the slow economy? Surely, there are other less expensive ways to do so.
On the other hand, Kunming, Chengdu, Wuhan, Xian, and most Chinese inland cities are always crazy about a north-south route that promptly rails their cargo to/from more Asean terminals and the Andaman Sea. Does this deserve a higher policy priority instead ?
Y K Chan, Hong Kong
