Japan's recent $1 million technical assistance grant to upgrade a coastal transit corridor from Vietnam to Thailand looks at first like typical governmental largess, a slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars Japan gives to developing Asian countries.
But to Southeast Asia, the grant indicates again that Japan has strategic economic designs on the five countries that make up the 200-million-strong Mekong basin -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- according to officials at the Second Greater Mekong Subregion Summit in Kunming, China. The two-day summit ended Tuesday.
Japan probably sees Southeast Asia as an export market, a place to find natural resources and to develop tourism, said Suranand Vejjajiva, a minister at the Thai Prime Minister's Office.
"Not only Japan, but I think other investors from other areas will be much interested in this area if we can really integrate ourselves," he said after signing trade agreements for fast-track border-crossings with Cambodia and Laos.