[PHNOM PENH POST]
Representatives from Cambodia and Thailand yesterday agreed to a 2013
completion date for a railway link from Phnom Penh across the
Cambodia-Thailand border crossing at Poipet.
Outdated agreements
had delayed the project, Thai officials said. Insiders have also said
disagreements over cross-border trade have kept the Thai side from full
commitment.
Cambodian delegate Vasim Sorya and a Thai delegate
informally agreed to the date at the 32nd ASEAN Senior Transport
Officials Meeting yesterday. An official list of delegates—including the
Thai official—had yet to be released.
“Thailand is ready to sign
on this,” Vasim Sorya, the director-general of administration at the
Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, said on the sidelines of
the meeting.
Although Cambodia's North Line lacked 48 kilometres
of track between the Thai town of Sisophon and the Poipet border
crossing, Thailand needed only six kilomet-res of rail, including a
bridge, to complete the line, he said.
Delays in finalising the
project had been caused by outdated agreements between the two
countries, Voravuth Mala, of the State Railway of Thailand's marketing
department, told the Post yesterday.
“The original draft of the
agreement was too old. It needed to be updated,” he said, adding that
trade and territorial disputes had never been a factor in the delay.
Thailand
was updating and standardising its rail agreements with Cambodia and
other regional countries such as Malaysia, Voravuth Mala said.
Disagreement
over cross-border trade agreements may have also delayed Thai
commitment, Toll Royal Railways CEO David Kerr said yesterday, but
yesterday's statements from the two delegates were a promising step, he
said.
“If both parties are committed, [the project] certainly
could be deliverable by that time,” Kerr said, adding that the original
goal for completion of the rail line in Cambodia had always been 2013.
Toll has a 30-year exclusive concession to operate the Cambodian Railway Network once completed.
The 388-kilometre North Line also needs 338 kilometres of rehabilitation between Phnom Penh and Sisophon.
A
feasibility study by a Chinese company had shown the rehabil-itation of
Cambodia's railways would cost about US$600 million, Vasim Sorya
confirmed.
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