The poor and landlocked Southeast Asian nation of
The railway is part of a broader plan to connect
The country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Somsavat Lengsavad, told a conference in
“To free our country from the least developed status … our government has invested much in communication infrastructure development in order to complement both intra-ASEAN and ASEAN-China integration,” he said.
“We believe that this project will contribute significantly to the socio-economic development of
The railway will also help with “the masterplan for ASEAN connectivity and the implementation of the ASEAN-China free trade area”, he said. It would be a “high speed” line, Lengsavad added, without elaborating.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups
A China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement came into effect in January, forming an economic bloc of 1.9 billion people.
Chinese companies are increasingly involved in logging and hydropower projects in
Bilateral trade between
Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-53396820101207