Japan to pledge aid for Indochina development projects

Japan to pledge aid for Indochina development projects

Miwa Suzuki, Agence France-Presse, Bandar Seri Begawan

Japan is ready to help open up development "corridors" in eastern and western parts of Indochina rather than back a railway linking Southeast Asia to southern China, officials said Tuesday.

The comments came ahead of talks in Brunei between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

A Japanese official said Tokyo would back the road projects and offer help to establish various industries along the Maulamyaing-Mukdahan-Da Nang "East-West Corridor," running through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, where infrastructure work, including port and bridge facilities, is nearing completion.

Japan will also pledge assistance to another trunk road, the "Second East-West Corridor" from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok via Phnom Penh, in collaboration with the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), he said.

"But Japan has found the (railway) project would be very costly and economically questionable" after sending a fact- finding mission with the ADB to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia in July, the Japanese official said.

He added there were gaps in the proposed railway line -- which would run from Singapore to the southwest Chinese city of Kunming -- between Thailand and Cambodia and from Cambodia to Vietnam.

Japan will not specify the scale of financial aid to the road projects, but "money will continue to flow" to ASEAN in addition to past loans to build bridges and other infrastructure for the "East-West Corridor," he said.

But financial constraints amid the economic downturn mean there will be no fresh aid package.