In the first application of its new aid policy, Japan will provide official development assistance to help finance a major road project linking Thailand, Laos and Vietnam to promote the development of the greater Mekong subregion, Foreign Ministry officials said Mar. 10.
National Road Route 9 is one of three candidate routes listed earlier by the Asian Development Bank for construction of the "East-West Corridor" on the Indochina Peninsula, the officials said, requesting that they not be named. The officials said the road project, estimated to cost about $150 million and scheduled to be completed by early 2002, will receive a formal go-ahead at a ministerial meeting of six Mekong-riparian countries to be held in Manila in mid-April under the sponsorship of the ADB. The six countries are Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China and Myanmar.
The Mekong River, the 12th longest in the world at 4,425 km, has attracted much international attention in recent years as the key to the development of war-battered Indochina. National Road Route 9 is one of more than 70 transportation, energy and other infrastructure projects the ADB and the six countries have already agreed to promote for the development of the greater Mekong subregion.