Vietnam invests in new rail line to connect with China-Laos railway
Vietnamese infrastructure investor DEOCA Group and Laos oil trading company PTL have signed a joint venture agreement to conduct a study on constructing a railway between Vietnam-Laos. The main target of this agreement is to link a Vietnamese port to the growing China-Laos railway.
According to the agreement, the railway will connect Vientiane in Laos with Vietnam’s Vung An port (Ha Tinh province). The line will be standard gauge (1435mm) and cover a distance of 554,7 kilometres. Trains will be able to operate with a top speed of 150 km/h, and the total investment will cost approximately 4,38 billion Chinese Yuan (roughly 582 million euros).
The planned new railway line will connect to the China-Laos Railway. Most importantly, it will provide rail access to the Vietnamese port of Vung An so that goods arriving there can be shipped directly to markets such as Thailand, China, South Korea and Japan via sea services. The agreement is still at the feasibility stage, and the DEOCA group has not mentioned a specific timetable for the project.
A circular transport corridor
The China-Laos Railway opened on 3 December 2021, connecting Vientiane, the capital of Laos, to Kunming, China. If the Vietnam-Laos rail line is constructed, it will connect to the China-Laos railway and access the inland Chinese hubs of Chongqing and Chengdu. The latter two already have rail connections with ports at the Beibu Gulf in southwestern China. Consequently, Vung An’s positioning will create a circular transport corridor, including rail and sea connections.
China-Laos Railway
It has been almost a year and a half since the China-Laos Railway opened. The railway opening has resolved a logistical bottleneck for Laos as a landlocked country and saw multiple new services launched in this timeframe.
One of the most recent commenced on 11 March, linking the Chinese city of Changsha to Laos. The train departed from Luang Prabang, Laos, and went directly to Changsha, Hunan Province, after clearing customs through the Mohan border crossing. The train arrived in Changsha on 19 March, after nine days, saving more than one-third of the previous one-month transit time for sea-rail transport.
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China-Laos Railway: new fruit service to celebrate first anniversary
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Thailand could join the railway connection to China in 5 years
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