RANONG, Thailand, June 18 — Chaiyaporn Arunrasamee hunched over his fishing nets, overlooking the waters of the Andaman Sea, where Thailand's government is proposing an ambitious "Land Bridge" that will ferry goods between ports on opposite sides of the peninsula.
"Personally, I do not want it to happen at all," he said of the project, which Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has resuscitated after the war in Iran and the closure of the Hormuz Strait highlighted countries' reliance on strategic maritime chokepoints.
Plans envision a ฿1 trillion (RM124.5 billion) logistics corridor to offer an alternative route to the congested Strait of Melaka by connecting two new deep-sea ports: Chumphon, on the Gulf of Thailand to the east, and Ranong, along the western Andaman coast, where the 50-year-old has fished for his entire life.
"This thing will be located in the area where we make our living. Where will we go?" Chaiyaporn said last month in the small fishing hamlet of Baan Hat Sai Dam on an island ringed by mangrove forests.
Reuters crisscrossed the land and communities along the proposed Land Bridge and interviewed more than 15 residents, local officials, experts, planning leaders, and others involved in or affected by the process.
The interviews, as well as government documents reviewed by Reuters, reveal previously unpublished details of a project promising savings and speedy shipments, but hampered by complicated logistics, local opposition, and a staggering cost that has yet to attract major investors.
Analysts say the project currently appears economically ambitious and is unlikely to compete with Melaka as a global transit route, but it could prove viable as a smaller-scale strategic corridor for Thailand.
The 900 km-long Strait of Melaka is bounded by Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore and provides the shortest sea route from East Asia to the Middle East and Europe.
"The land bridge may ultimately...emerge as a modular national security asset aimed at securing local energy routes and boosting Thailand's own western export capabilities," said Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute's Eugene Mark.
Alternative to Melaka
An internal government presentation seen by Reuters says the proposed corridor could reduce logistics costs by nearly 30 per cent and cut transit times by up to 14 days for cargo moving between southern China and ports in the Indian Ocean serving South Asia and the Middle East.
At the core of the project is a standard-gauge railway spanning 90km between the two deep-sea ports, which will be capable of handling up to 20 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU) per year, according to the presentation.
One TEU represents the volume of a single, standardised 20-foot shipping container.
Another meter-gauge rail line will link the cargo flow to the existing national railway network. The corridor would also be supported by multi-lane highways and local roads, all integrated with Thailand's broader transport network.
According to Thai estimates, about 80 per cent of all container traffic handled at major regional ports along the Strait of Melaka, including Singapore, consists of trans-shipment cargo awaiting transfer between vessels rather than goods destined for local markets.
"We want to capture some of this 80 per cent market, particularly the feeder segment," said Thailand's Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning's director-general Jiraroth Sukolrat, referring to freight ships with 12,000 TEU capacity or lower.
Overall, feeder-to-feeder cargo movements from the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea — or vice versa — could be around 10 per cent cheaper and six days faster than comparable routes through Singapore, largely because of lower congestion, according to the internal government presentation.
"We are not targeting giant mainline vessels," he said.
Diplomatic balancing act
A Thai government-appointed panel, currently reviewing the projects and their previous impact assessment reports, is due to submit its findings before the end of July.
The Land Bridge plan, first floated around 2020, is a successor to a series of infrastructure schemes pursued by different Thai governments over two decades that did not materialise due to shifting policies and a lack of continued investment support.
Unlike earlier iterations, the current version of the project excludes petrochemical complexes and oil refineries, focusing instead on ports, railways, and light industries.
"The concept has not really changed. What has changed is the packaging. In the past, they openly talked about industrial estates and petrochemicals, which people opposed.
"Today, the project is framed as transport infrastructure and logistics because that language is easier for the public to accept," said independent researcher Wipawadee Panyangnoi, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on the Land Bridge proposal.
ISEAS' Mark added that the government faces an uphill effort to convince cargo liners to bear the financial and time costs of unloading, moving goods overland, and reloading them onto another vessel.
"Proving that this double-handling model can genuinely compete with the seamless transit through the Strait of Melaka remains a major hurdle," he said.
But authorities have learned from past unsuccessful projects, with Jiraroth saying the state will play a regulatory and supporting role, while financing will primarily come from private investors.
"It has to be a consortium involving shipping lines, port operators, financiers, and land developers," he said.
Meanwhile, Mark noted that investor interest so far has been decidedly cautious and non-committal due to shifting policy frameworks and immense capital requirements.
The project also faces a tricky geopolitical situation, with neighbours watching with both cautious interest and wariness.
"Chinese state enterprises are unlikely to commit significant capital unless they secure strong operational leverage, which would trigger intense domestic political pushback in Thailand over foreign control.
"Thailand must navigate a delicate diplomatic balancing act to prevent the corridor from becoming a geopolitical flashpoint," he said.
The Singapore Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Expanding resistance
Chaiyaporn is among a dozen residents along the 90km corridor between the two seas, home to fishing and farming communities that would be upended by the project, who told Reuters that they are opposed to the plan.
In the middle of the proposed land bridge corridor in the fertile Phato district, where durian plantations and coffee farms bring in substantial income, some residents question whether this scale of industrialisation is needed at all.
"My hometown's durian industry alone generates around ฿10 billion (RM1.25 billion) a year without needing to build anything new.
"People need to understand: this is not an empty wasteland," said coffee entrepreneur Chalermchart Seekhiao, 30.
The project suffered a blow this month when regulators ordered a completely new Environmental and Health Impact Assessment due to a large discrepancy between government and private research estimates of marine-life density near the proposed ports.
"Local opposition alone rarely cancels a top-down mega-project in Thailand, but it acts as a powerful regulatory drag that compounds investor risk," Mark said.
