I think land bridges are more feasible, at least less environmentally damaging than canals. And the canal can only be used by cargo ships. But land bridge railways can operate passenger trains, highways can be used by the general public, which is more positive to the local economy and residents' lives.
In a completely free world, devoid of political considerations, the answer would be unequivocally, "Yes, build the Kra canal!" But back in the real world, Thailand does not dare take the political risks of upsetting their friends and benefactors. Alas, there will be no canal.
Oops and also Dubai port would intersted as well 😌🤔 Thailand have a car factory from China like BYD and all Japanese car brands so it go food them to shipping from this landbridge
exactly cargo damage/lost/jugglery/theft/frieght-laws/custom-clearance etc and this land bridge will kill purpose and the time this offloading jugglery will take; the ship will prefer to take 3 extra days to travel intact and avoid cargo damage/lost/jugglery this land bridge way... just for going alone (without china) if they use rivers system although will not be linear but as i see a google image for thailand rivers system; i see 2 rivers at Trang and Nakhon Si Thammarat very suitable for going across. Ranong and North of Surat Thani also is good candidate ... For china if some NATO like federation could be established between China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh then china will not much need this thailand passage. I believe chicken-neck-corridor is more of a buffer zone than a land and india can live like east and west india without that. Where China can connect to sea through Bangladesh rivers system and/or canal.
going alone if they use rivers system although will not be linear but as i see a google image for thailand rivers system; i see 2 rivers at Trang and Nakhon Si Thammarat very suitable for going across. Ranong and North of Surat Thani also is good candidate ... For china if some NATO like federation could be established between China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh then china will not much need this thailand passage. I believe chicken-neck-corridor is more of a buffer zone than a land and india can live like east and west india without that. Where China can connect to sea through Bangladesh rivers system and/or canal.
Every country maga builds projects almost worried if it's going to get done. In my opinion, if it's going to improve trade in the area for literally everyone... including Thailand's businesses. Money and time shouldn't be a problem. As long as there's progress like every month no matter how small or big it is. Time and money to build it shouldn't be a problem. As for the US and friends army bases, they can soon do that with Thailand permission to do so of course. With that said though, that part shouldn't be a problem as well. Being those waters are protected by Australia anyway, US and friends have full right to do so anyway.
The time it would take to unload a ship, load the cargo on trains, ship it across by rail, unload the train, and finaly load it back on a ship would cost more than the free route. The only value is the ports for goods going into or out of thailand.
@timothysmith1844 Those costs were not in the story. He did say 3 days to go around. How long, on average, does it take to come into port , unload, transport, schedule another ship on the other side, and reload the carge. Look at the number of ships going around. How big would a port have to be to handle that many ships? I like the channel idea. No stopping is needed.
I would think that the idea is less to facilitate the movement of goods than to attract more investment in factories and warehouses for logistics. Thailand can set itself up as an alternative manufacturing center. Raw materials will come in, and finished goods will come out. This creates more economic opportunities for the local population, and would enhance cooperation possibly with Myanmar and Malaysia.
exactly this land bridge will kill purpose and the time this offloading jugglery will take; the ship will prefer to take 3 extra days to travel intact and avoid cargo damage/lost/jugglery this land bridge way... just for going alone (without china) if they use rivers system although will not be linear but as i see a google image for thailand rivers system; i see 2 rivers at Trang and Nakhon Si Thammarat very suitable for going across. Ranong and North of Surat Thani also is good candidate ... For china if some NATO like federation could be established between China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh then china will not much need this thailand passage. I believe chicken-neck-corridor is more of a buffer zone than a land and india can live like east and west india without that. Where China can connect to sea through Bangladesh rivers system and/or canal.
The reasoning behind a land bridge wouldn't damage the local landscape apartually. The cost will be the same, but I see the problem there too, yes it would take time to unload and reload to another ship, which can take the 3 days just going the national way round. Which is the point of this project to reduce travel time.
@@wildstorm74 I suspect that's why they canned the canal idea. A canal 400m wide is definitely going to separate the ecologies on both sides of the canal. Plus the added increased risk of separatism of the south. 400m is a long way to cross over water.
Back in the day, mega projects were constructed as an answer to challenges faced by multiple countries, now, most mega projects are constructed as an answer to geopolitical challenges or as a geopolitical tool.
@@gomahklawm4446 They can build bridges over canals. Nobody complains about the Mississippi river cutting the US in two or the Yangtze cutting China in two. Like a canal they're just large navigable waterways and they have lots of bridges over them.
Mexico was thinking land bridge as well, and now Panama is dry it might be considered even the US were looking to help fund that. its the same as the prospects of Thailand, how many freight trains can a container ship hold? roll on roll off and be split into destinations reducing costs more just a thought ship train's have excysted in the early 1900s..
It's not just about goods. It's also about marine bunkering, Singapore is the largest bunkering port in the world (partly due to being one of cheapest places to refuel dueto competitiveness). It sells 5x more fuel to ships than 2nd place Rotterdam.
The whole thing is impractical. Singapore and specifically the Strait is a convenience between South China Sea, Indian Ocean and Australia, serving everyone in the region. Not a route like Cape Horn and Good Hope. A lot of wasted money and environmental damage and cutting off half the regional markets (which is not small) just to save 3 days journey. Do they think people did nothing with that 3 day journey? It only make an even bigger mess of regional geopolitics while adding nothing. It's as dumb as the Line or CANZUK.
@@EllieMaes-Grandad What negativity? The whole video acts like the line below that imaginary canal is some undeveloped obstacle to be by pass. When the region is one of the most populous markets in the world. You think ships travel thru the Straits did nothing? Those few days the video claims would save are some of the most busiest days of those travels. What fraudulent positivity do you want me to write? The whole con is as fraudulent as "Brexit benefits."
This only make sense if that cargo was going to be reloaded on diffrent ship anyway. In any other situation its not economical. Ships are way more economical than even trains.
Suez & Panama canal able to cut 1-2 month at sea, which is very efficient on budget. While thai canal, either choose to paying a toll gate via thai canal for 10 hour or take 3-5 day at sea via malacca strait.
Thailand has also said they will get rid of all drugs by Sep 30th, turn Pattaya into a family friendly town, build a high speed rail for 20 years and attract high end tourists. In other words - Take anything Thai govts say with a grain of salt.
Yes, the current political situation there is very unstable, with many parties unable to agree and needing to try to form big coalitions. They just ended military rule a couple of years ago and are now having to pay for Chinese subs ordered back then.
They can't get rid of Pot, that's here to stay, too much money has been invested by normal Thai people to reverse that decision. Pattaya will and should never be family friendly, there are tons of other places in Thailand that don't have a bar in sight, there are plenty of high-end tourists in Thailand, my guess is they stay at better hotels than yours, and the High-speed train proposal has already been approved. Next.
@MegaBuildsYT As a westerner living in Thailand for a long time, one of the things I realized is that promised construction, can only be assumed to be real AFTER it is finished. That and Chumphon is pronounced chum-pawn. Thanks for the videos. They are much appreciated.
It's a pointless project, the video barely convey how pointless it is. The Strait is the strait because it already is a natural by pass. It's not an obstacle. Suez and Panama exist because the major powers of their time, want to by pass 2 underdeveloped continents and dangerous capes. This pointless thing wants people to by pass some of the worlds most populous markets, including Australia? For what? Because Thailand thinks it can supplant Singapore? The whole think benefits no one other then the stup!d people who suggests it.
And even the canal is a long shot idea. Why would people want to use the Kra canal if built when they can use the free transit through Malacca Straits? No one is collecting toll there but if people used the canal, they'll have to pay.
One of the biggest advantage Singapore has over any other nearby competing ports is that it sells a shit ton of fuel to ships. One of singapore's largest industries is refining crude oil. They are able to buy crude oil from gulf nations for cheap and refine it and sell it as fuel to ships that stop by. This took decades of investments and development to set up. I sincerely doubt any nearby country has the capital or the political will to set up such a large scale industry to compete with singapore, which is the largest bunkering port in the world. Thailand opening a port attempting to compete would just be a terrible decision from the start as a shorter route alone isnt enough to compete with Singapore's port.
I did some checking up on Thailand and Singapore's oil refining rates. They are similar but Thailand has them scattered over 4 provinces while Singapore is concentrated in a single city so while capacity is similar, accessibility is a lot better in Singapore since all of the oil is in one location.
@@TF-cc5zp Ships would sail one by one in one direction through the canal, which can kill any time savings because the only way I think they can do 2 way traffic control would be to go one direction on one day, then the other on the next, so for a 14 hour savings, you might have to wait up to 24 hours. So it really is questionable if there is any savings in time at all.
I think the original idea of blasting through the kra canal seems more logical. The effort to transport cargo via land will just make the logistics more complicated. We are not certain if this land route will really be faster or cheaper in the end as well. I hope that Thailand is not risking all their money on this project.
China have a way of bankrupting Asian countries with the debts of infrastructure the people didn't need, vacant ports in Sri Lanka a case in point. If the shipping companies refuse to use the land bridge - this infrastructure just becomes an abandoned white elephant with a debt burden placed upon all Thai people.
I’d like to point out, the newspaper you used to say that Singapore got independent from the British is actually wrong. That was the newspaper when Singapore got independence from Malaysia.
It seems China comes up with all kinds of crooked mega development + the Himalayas Super Dam to fleece the investors ending up with rotten tail projects. China is getting desperate from the decoupling. Evergrande 2.0 ?
It seems China comes up with all kinds of crooked mega development + the Himalayas Super Dam to fleece the investors ending up with rotten tail projects. China is getting desperate from the decoupling. Evergrande 2.0?
So what! Thai should've done it long time ago. there are annually 90K vessels and $350K each saving. Say u take 50K pass thru and charge $340K, there is $17B earning PA, not even include thousands of jobs created and taxed.
I'm not a fan of that land bridge and doubt it will ever be a better option than just usual extra 3 days naval route via Singapore. All the time required to unload the ship, put it on trains/trucks, then transport it to the other side and again unpack it and load on another ship will add so much time and labor cost it won't be worth it. Also, you would have to coordinate and plan 2 separate ships and crews instead of just one...
It's a pointless project. The whole region below that imaginary line are developed markets, including Australia & NZ. The whole video acts like the whole place is an undeveloped obstacle waiting to be by pass.
I did some checking, the time to get to Singapore is not 3 days, it's only 14 hours. The whole plan is a mess of questionable logic and wishful thinking.
@@danielc2701 I think the estimation of 3 days is factor in the time of freighters loading/unloading goods off Singapore. *Which is the whole point.* The project aims to capture a share of, if not outright replace Singapore as a regional hub, that's where the profit is. But it wouldn't work. Putting aside that it wouldn't save much time at all (panama is a 10 hr crossing), because Singapore have more then a centuries worth of investment towards being a Hub, all the amenities that comes with, and still a more practical location. It would be akin to building a small gambling town down the road of Vegas hoping it would replace Vegas as the next big thing. It will get maybe some tiny amount of business, but limited at best.
That land bridge thing is idiotic. Who's going to unload and reload boats just to avoid a couple hundred mile diversion? Plus it's too far north - which demands a diversion of its own. The original canal proposal was in a pretty ideal location. And as far as the canal dividing anything - you can put bridges over canals. Every major road that crosses it would get a bridge. With that said, Thailand probably would benefit from a west coast port with railway connections but it doesn't need to be part of a land bridge system.
It's only 2 days and 1800km if you're sending something from Phuket on Thailand's west coast to Patani on the other side of that isthmus. For traffic travelling between the middle east and far east, you save only only around 1050km because ships will just cut diagonally across instead of tracing the coastline of Malaya. That 1000km is 1 day of sailing for a normal container ship, or 1d + 6h for slow-steaming ships trying to save on fuel. That time would is less than what you'd lose queuing for the canal, or unloading/reloading to use a land bridge. Even if the canal was free, nobody would use it. That isthmus is pretty narrow, and the amount of existing traffic does not justify building a $28b canal. More importantly, the freight between Phuket and Patani is NOT being shipped on container ships running the 1800km distance right now. They're simply being hauled around on the back of lorries. The amount is small, and the isthmus being so narrow, the distance is short. A lorry will cover that distance in an hour or two.
So it's a balance of how much their 1800 km, 2 day operational expense would be versus the transit fee for using the canal. And there will definitely be waiting and transit times too for using the canal.
anyone would take the safer newer path that saves 2 days and 1800km but you forgot that Sing is profiting from that struggle so its gonna be a hard fight.
The land bridge is definitely not a viable proposal due to the inconvenience and delay in loadings and unloadings of goods. Besides costs will also increase and the cost benefit is greatly reduced. As to the division of the land into 2 parts it can be regarded as a small river running through the land and can be reconnected by land bridge and the canal is not very wide. Other disadvantages can also be solved with proper and feasible solutions with special considerations and attentions for the environment and human relocations. If humans want and decide to undertake a project nothing is impossible just like going to the dark side of the moon and building a base on it.
You forgot to mention piracy in the Straight. Land routes are not viable simply because the volumes are too high for trains versus ships. The better solution is a canal at sea level, but as you pointed out, there are environmental and political ramifications.
All construction has environment effects . Everything , everything in life has political implications ,. - Doing nothing is just as bad or even worse . - I guess , it sound pretty much like real life , everyday & everything. - Let's just do karaoke , QUE SERA SERA , What will be will be , No Microsoft No Amazon's
@@kenbell8752 , environmental problem, Let's start with you to stop eat hamburger and tomahawk steak. Political repercussions ,, Would that means you are ON the losing side ? Piracy ? The biggest thieves in the world are the western bank , Just 1 topic ,, forfeiture of Russian deposits in their banks . That's robbery .
People will bypass the Ismus of Kra and continue taking the Straits of Malacca due to cost considerations. As shipping times are not a prime consideration, given that urgent shipments can go by air, the land pass is likely to fail.
Every time a person can get money out of somtning or someone in Thailand they do it. Thailand is ranking as number 108 out of 180 countries in the corruption index, nothing to be proud of and it keeps people poor.
A canal makes a lot of sense. The cost of shipping is borne by the consumer of every product shipped and the shipping time saved is valuable, The one-tjme ecological damage from construction can be mitigated by replacing forest and needs to be compared with the long term ongoing ecological benefit of fuel savings from use of the canal; ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system.; the fuel used in ships in international waters is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is basically the same as asphalt and is the cheapest and most polluting fuel available, A large container ship can be figured to burn around 350 tons of fuel a day,
It's a pointless BS project. The whole region below that imaginary line are developed markets, including Australia & NZ. The whole video acts like the whole place is an undeveloped obstacle waiting to be by pass. The whole tanker fuel thing is BS. And who told you it's a one-time ecological damage??? The whole point of ecological damage is it's permanence. This is as bad as fantasy likes Brexit, CANZUK and the Line.
The canal does NOT make a lot of sense. Shippers using the canal will have to pay transit fees while the Straits of Malacca and Singapore are natural straits that are free to use. Also, I did a check. The time needed to get through the Straits of Malacca is 14 hours, not even a day. Cost wise, it does not make sense to use a canal.
This channel save ships a thousand mile of wasted fuel going thru Singapore, which has a major US military base to contain China. It also helps to reduce pollution within the Straits of Malacca.
The money shipping companies save by using the proposed canal would be offset by the charges for using the canal. Apparently the Panama canal is charging something like $350,000 for cruise ships to pass through.
The land bridge could only hold the equivalent of one big container ship. The land bridge will be full. So it had to be cancelled. The canal will be built. And it'll be a game changer for the region.
Do both, land bridge should be finished ahead of the canal starting shipping companies use of the new deep sea port, so that when the canal is completed more infrastructures to support the boom in commerce and traffic are there
You will need some kind of land bridge in order to build such a canal, simply for access during the construction, and then for maintenance and servicing of ships transiting the canal. They would need major roads there to police the canal zone and to deal with stuck ships, etc. They might not need the railway, but even that would be useful in the long run as an alternative.
yeeep, they ened to build a regular highway alogn the side fo where the canal will go, so road cargo can flwo first, and construction vehcles can also work easier to and from location, and by the time the canal is dug, there is also be a fast form of transport both in and out of river, and when there is a highhway there will also be offshoots and increased access so mroe citys will also pop up, and since its all sea level, tyhey could easily dig lagoosn and ports off the sides where rivers and steams flow in and make miniports for internal traffic
The two projects do not seem very comparable. The canal is a traffic route, ships sail across it without any mods on the cargoes. The land bridge sounds to be more of a region revitalization project. Goods have to enter Thailand first. This will certainly attract some manufacturers who needs to process their good in a low labor cost country, with the added benefit of bypassing the Malaka strait after the processing. The Land Bridge is not going to be successful on their own - but also need a thorough planning of the region to attract foreign factories. I can see how it could bring much more benefits than the canal, and at the same time there are more hoops to jump through.
This project costs much less than what the West has invested at least in terms of money in the war in Ukraine!! No one has benefited from this, and the whole world has been in financial trouble. I think it's time to give other countries that have been struggling for centuries a chance to provide themselves with solid living conditions. The biggest problem today is that money is concentrated on a very small number of people and countries.
Troll...any reason to mention how insignificant it is , and should be ignored, that Russia are invading another country, and are actively doing etnic cleansing, and terrorism on the Ukrainian population....listen to you....why bother with it, its not important....right...?..you have a Russian TV brain.
Is it really worth the $28 billion cost to save just a couple of days sailing? I feel like there are better things the Thai government could spend that money on and China would be better off improving relations with SE Asian nations rather than trying to bypass them with an expensive canal. Plus even though it bypasses Malacca the shipping routes would still pass by the Andaman islands where India is building up military bases and then either through Suez or all the way around Africa so I don't see how China gains that much geopolitically. The Central Asian routes are probably more important for China.
i think you underestimate how much money shortening a route saves just in fuel let alone anything else, it looks small on a map but it is a noticeable change in distance for a ocean going trade route, also it does bring in a fair amount of geopolitical power so to say to the Thai, yes there is also a lot of downsides refer to the video. But it definitely has legitimate reasons to make this project into a reality.
It's worth it. You apparently didn't notice that each oil tanker would save about $350K each way. It's also 3 days, not 2. Canal fees would be a huge source of income. It's also worthwhile because with only the Malacca Straight, there's single point of failure. The $28 billion also doesn't just disappear. A chunk of it goes into the Thai economy. $28 billion for big projects isn't that much.
That canal will earn Thailand the revenue which will break even in few years time and make it a major shipping transit hub just like Egypt and Panama have benefitted from their canals.
Well, if it costs 10% less than the current route, and 10% of the traffic shifts over, that's 1% or $4.1T per year which is already $41B dollars so yah, it seems like it could be worth it.
FYI: The land bridge is going to be built 50km south of Chumphon to about 30km south of Ranong in Andaman Sea. Detailed plans are visible almost weekly in "Bangkok Post“.
How many spots around the world has the US decided its okay for them to set up a base and do anything else and you must say OK to it, unless if its done by China.
I've been in logistics for more than 3 decades.....the potential risks seem to outweigh the potential benefits by far. 4 days transit and an alleged 330K cost saving on fuel vs redesigning vessel and loop schedules, rework at two ends of the rail/road belt, congestion, port failures, IT failures etc etc etc. A Panama Canal crossing sets carriers back around 200-300K depending vessel size etc....there will be capacity limitations......4 days saving is a nice-spring-weather-walk-in-the-park scenario....minmised or wiped out very easily. I can see BCO's demanding no Thai Landbridge.... Maybe I am being negative here.
The land bridge might make sense for the domestic market if it was accompanied by an efficient road or rail system running the length of the country. Is that already in place? Bangkok doesn’t currently have shipping access to the country’s west coast (Kuala Lumpur does). But I really don’t see it being used as transit for foreign container ships (off-load, haul containers, reload on a different ship). Would that actually save 3 days? For the same $28B, the wide canal would accomplish the same thing AND collect transit fees from foreign vessels. China alone would generate huge revenue. Time and money saved, and the congested Malacca Straits avoided. Why would a 400-meter wide ditch divide the country? Bridges, tunnels, ferries, water-taxis…hell, you could swim that. I do appreciate the enviro issues and 60k people would need to be displaced into housing that’s BETTER than their current situation. Was that factored into the $28B estimate? And we didn’t hear much about the terms the Chinese offered, except they want to manage it. Hmm. So…my vote would be for the canal , if Thailand has the run of it. But I don’t live there.
A Mexican canal would be tough because you'd need many locks and lots of water to run them. The landbridge might be the only option (albeit not a good one). The Thai canal won't have locks. So it will be cheap to both build and operate.
The roadway portion of the land bridge boondoggle has already been built. It's called Highway 44 and runs from Surat Thani to Phang Nga Bay. It's the only place to cross the peninsula that makes sense. Unless you want to blast through the limestone karsks of the Tenasserim Hills.
That road is amazingly good and empty compared to other highways in Thailand. What you wrote, combined with all the construction I saw a few years ago in the Chumphon area make me wonder if you are correct, and much of this idea for a land bridge is available already.
China also has other alternate routes. One is via Pakistan, another via Cambodia, and and another via Myanmar. Further China and others are developing rail and pipeline routes via Central Asia from the Middle East.
Say, if auto parts arrive on one of the ports then get assembled at a factory there, then shipped out to its destinations from the port on the other side, it kind of makes sense.
In my opinion as someone who from Thailand Thai land bridge and Thai canal projects are totally waste of time and not worth anymore in nowadays If Thai government want to do something like this, i recommend that they should to build western area harbour is really worth more than such a daydreaming project like these
Thailand should do its due deligence and weigh its option regarding the Mega Canal down South. Ask itself. For better or for worse?! In conclusion, for the better good, go ahead otherwise forget it forever. 😇
I'd love to see a canal built. China and ASEAN countries have great relations already, so it would just boost this partnership. Furthermore it would create an economic boom in Thailand so they can become as stable developed country as they dream of. Love my second home of Thailand ❤
As a Singaporean, I personally oppose this canal for obvious reasons but there's nothing we can do. I just wish this whole project gets cancelled or smth cause Singapore has worked so hard to become what it is today.
Panama Canal is a "must-built"; because without it, it'd be a 15,000km detour through treacherous waters. The choice between Malacca or the proposed Thai canal, it's only a 1500km difference. So the project will have a very unpredictable biz risk, all dependent on the market or the users' choice. It's a lot of money to build the mega-infrastructure. They'll of course have to collect reasonable amount of fees; and likely for a long time to recover cost... The land bridge option will have higher operating or running costs. So, it's hard to say will it really be cheaper than running Malacca (for the shippers)? Regardless, politicians love mega projects. They'll be happy to pocket all the money, and be long gone before any liabilities.
Singapore does not even care and never talks about it. In fact, Singapore is so confident this project is unfeasible that Singapore is EXPANDING its port handling capacity as we speak. For a small country with limited land, that is a big commitment.
Singapore does not talk about what it fears. Although Singapore would be smart about creating a new revenue stream, Thailand is a bigger nation with more foreign investments pumped into their economy. After all a Singapore company itself might invest in the canal project. Singapore has to increase handling capacity cause PSA still has a good 15 years in their hands to pump revenue.
@@globanxiety I hope no Singapore company would be so stupid as to invest in that insanity of a project, Kra Canal OR land bridge. The whole thing is all promises but no way to deliver. Anyone investing in it is sure to lose their money. Thai politicians can be seriously delusional.
@@danielc2701Dubai port world and many investors from the west already working on process possibilities, they know what they do if the project is not worthy, it’s not gonna happen.
Just 200-300km south of that "mega canal," Malaysia is already building a $10b cargo rail between the west and east called the ECRL. The rail starts near the Thai border. It is a 700km long rail line that runs along Malaysia's east coast towards the second busiest port in Southeast Asia near the Malacca Straits.
They have already two existing deep water ports on both sides of the Penisular Malaysia. On the west coast, the ECRL will join with the Klang port that is facing the Malacca Strait and continues to the Kuantan port on the eastern coast of Malaysia that is facing the South China Sea. I think there's no need for Thailand to build the said land bridge because Malaysia is already building it's own landbridge which is the ECRL and it's almost complete and be operational in 2026.
Thailand's mainport in Bangkok will be able to absorb some traffic that have to pass through Malacca strait to load and unload in Singapore. Also goods destined for peninsula South East Asia and souther China unload in the ports on both end of the cannal will be moved to those destination faster and cheaper.
The purpose and route of these infrastructure projects has no option but to consider politics. There needs to be a commercial need, a cooperative will, resources and technical capability. The politics, is always a technical aspect that can't be ignored.
While I do agree that Suez and Panama canal are the best solution for making sea route shorter (I mean looks at how huge Africa and South American, ofc you wouldn't want to sail 'around' it), but this Thailand canal sounds stupid because it's only cuts 1200km route. Idk where you get "saving 350k cost" when it's only save 2-5 days sail time, the math ain't mathing Malacca strait isn't going to fail anytime soon. It's natural strait with kilometers wide that isn't going to be blocked by one or tens of big ships at the same time
I am Malay from the Malaysian side and still have family in Thailand's Malay region (and lost some due to the conflict). I don't support the independence movement but the "siamisation" of the local people should stop and allow them to practise their culture freely. The best thing now is for this region to stay in Thailand but with some autonomy and power, for example regarding education, language and religion.
A country must be one, you cannot allow separate cultures in one country that will always result in violence and terrorism, just look around the world, it always ends up like this, just look at countries where there is a minority of Russians, always problems, if there is to be peace in a country with a minority, the minority must conform to the country in which they live. try to study what it's like in the border area between Denmark and Germany, inwardly they cultivate the culture of their country of origin but outwardly they subsume themselves under the country they live in, that's why they live in peace with those who is the majority
I believe it does not make any economic sense due to the cost. We have two major channels, the Suez and Panama. They bypasses huge continents and saves thousands of shipping miles. The Kra channel only crosses a small peninsular. If $$ can make sense, by all means go ahead.
$28 Billion USD doesn't account for the massive amount of corruption within Thailand. You'd have to double that to $56 Billion to get a more accurate estimate.
That part is a lie. I did some checking, it only takes 14 hours to get through the Straits of Malacca. You can find some of the transit videos on youtube too and they'll show you the whole 14 hour trip.
sea level canal is a great idea. don't make it 450m wide and 25m deep, make it narrower and shallower for initial stage. once openned, then they can generator revenue, and with that money, keep expanding the canal.
I think the canal project is better than the land bridge project... The transportation of goods can be done much faster... As of the Thailand's land which will be decided into two, tunnels or Bridges can be built...
You forget that there is the biggest market of Indonesia, phillipines, and Australia that will reduce the number of ship going through those thai canal
China is the world's first economy. A starbucks sold at $10 in NY isn't more valuable than the same starbucks in Beijing at $2. In terms of industrial output China is 3x the size of usa.
This is gonna cost way more than $28 billion. The panama canal cost $10 Billion and they only had to excavate 9 miles of land that was pretty much already at sea level. Lake Gatun is what the majority of the canal is and it's massive. Then there's locks at each coast which is the area that was excavated. This would cost 5 times what they're estimating. The one benefit that would reduce cost in the long term is using the dirt to create more real estate somewhere.
Even the canal has problems. Going through a canal, you have to pay while going through the Straits is free, something people overlook. Then, unless your canal is a 2 lane canal, ships can only go through one direction at a time, maybe one day it's East to West, the next is West to East but chances are high ships will still end up waiting one extra day for transit. Then, the capacity of a canal is very small, best case like the Panama, is 14k ships a year. Assuming each ship pays about 10k (average fees for Panama transit), you need 200 years to pay off the initial costs. The Kra canal is a VERY bad deal for the Thai people, it would put the country 200 years in debt.
If this canal is ever erected, it is bound to restructure and reroute the maritime trade which works in favor of Thailand. However, astronomical amount of money has to be coughed up which is burdensome and kryptonite for the Thai public funding.
One other issue is that the Strait of Malacca is infamous for Indonesian piracy. Nevertheless, it's a blessing that China is not building a canal for Thailand across the Isthmus of Kra. "Funded, built, and managed" is absolutely correct. In many poor countries where China sponsors projects, EVERYTHING is done by Chinese, from the high-level engineers down to the humble construction workers and cooks brought in from China. The Thai economy would certainly not benefit at all; it might even get worse due to the loss of tourism caused by pollution so close to their iconic beaches and natural areas. Whilst Kra is a tempting project, the savings are only minimal compared with what the Suez and Panama canals save shippers. Thailand is wise to reject Chinese overtures to build it.
I feel you worries, but from my researches I found that the Chinese often uses local workers for their mega projects, except for management and high-level engineers, all other workers are local. The Chinese will only bring in more Chinese workers if the local workers are not up to the task and leads to project delay. If you pay attention to Chinese domestic mega projects, they sometimes even complete it before deadline. If Thai local worker's work ethic is at the same level to the Chinese, then this will given no reason for the Chinese to bring in Chinese workers.
In Australia Chinese companies totally destroyed the reef forever with their secret projects and backed by politics leaning towards communism. Only TH-camrs showing this atrocities.
@@twood2032 Yeah, a lot of African leaders have came forward to clarify that a lot of the BRI projects employed local work forces while additional amenities (schools and health clinics) were often built at no cost to the locals.
@@ronaldfranke9225 that doesn't happen everywhere. Local personnel are used on legit projects. A BOT infrastructure contract with China is a pretty good deal. (it doesn't have to be like that Sri Lankan port...comes down to governance)
I can see why land bridge will be made. People can live along roads and even have a farm. But, a giant canal wouldn't give that vibe. Because of the ship's hull, building a canal would take up too much land space that only ships can use. While a mega highway allows normal cars to take a trip along with shipping cars. So even with recent PM disqualification, this project might take shape and come to it's fruitful result.
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
What do you think, should Thailand really build such a massive canal or land bridge? 🤔
I think land bridges are more feasible, at least less environmentally damaging than canals.
And the canal can only be used by cargo ships. But land bridge railways can operate passenger trains, highways can be used by the general public, which is more positive to the local economy and residents' lives.
As a Thai Citizen, Thailand should build this
canel because it might grow its economy more and might compete with Singapore.
@@JsoahsvahjshvsvaigabI’m not Thai, living in NA for 50+ years! Just Do It ❤
In a completely free world, devoid of political considerations, the answer would be unequivocally, "Yes, build the Kra canal!" But back in the real world, Thailand does not dare take the political risks of upsetting their friends and benefactors. Alas, there will be no canal.
build the bridge is enough ,no canal no you
That land bridge is a goldmine for corruption
Why do you think the Japanese were so interested?
Oops and also Dubai port would intersted as well 😌🤔 Thailand have a car factory from China like BYD and all Japanese car brands so it go food them to shipping from this landbridge
exactly cargo damage/lost/jugglery/theft/frieght-laws/custom-clearance etc and this land bridge will kill purpose and the time this offloading jugglery will take; the ship will prefer to take 3 extra days to travel intact and avoid cargo damage/lost/jugglery this land bridge way... just for going alone (without china) if they use rivers system although will not be linear but as i see a google image for thailand rivers system; i see 2 rivers at Trang and Nakhon Si Thammarat very suitable for going across. Ranong and North of Surat Thani also is good candidate ... For china if some NATO like federation could be established between China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh then china will not much need this thailand passage. I believe chicken-neck-corridor is more of a buffer zone than a land and india can live like east and west india without that. Where China can connect to sea through Bangladesh rivers system and/or canal.
Yes. I'm Thai I can tell it's true. I like your comment
@@kiabskyway8738 thamks for let me known.
Thai here. This "land bridge" project is heavily criticized by almost everyone on how unfeasible it would be.
If this project happens, will Thailand seafood industry + the export to Europe survive due to contamination from shipping
Thanks for the insight!
Also. China. 🤔
going alone if they use rivers system although will not be linear but as i see a google image for thailand rivers system; i see 2 rivers at Trang and Nakhon Si Thammarat very suitable for going across. Ranong and North of Surat Thani also is good candidate ... For china if some NATO like federation could be established between China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh then china will not much need this thailand passage. I believe chicken-neck-corridor is more of a buffer zone than a land and india can live like east and west india without that. Where China can connect to sea through Bangladesh rivers system and/or canal.
Every country maga builds projects almost worried if it's going to get done.
In my opinion, if it's going to improve trade in the area for literally everyone... including Thailand's businesses. Money and time shouldn't be a problem. As long as there's progress like every month no matter how small or big it is. Time and money to build it shouldn't be a problem.
As for the US and friends army bases, they can soon do that with Thailand permission to do so of course. With that said though, that part shouldn't be a problem as well. Being those waters are protected by Australia anyway, US and friends have full right to do so anyway.
The time it would take to unload a ship, load the cargo on trains, ship it across by rail, unload the train, and finaly load it back on a ship would cost more than the free route. The only value is the ports for goods going into or out of thailand.
you do not know labor costs in Thailand or understand Thailand and you are not factoring in fuel and speed. have a think
@timothysmith1844 Those costs were not in the story. He did say 3 days to go around. How long, on average, does it take to come into port , unload, transport, schedule another ship on the other side, and reload the carge. Look at the number of ships going around. How big would a port have to be to handle that many ships? I like the channel idea. No stopping is needed.
I would think that the idea is less to facilitate the movement of goods than to attract more investment in factories and warehouses for logistics. Thailand can set itself up as an alternative manufacturing center. Raw materials will come in, and finished goods will come out. This creates more economic opportunities for the local population, and would enhance cooperation possibly with Myanmar and Malaysia.
No doubt the Thai planners never factored this into their detailed this into their business plan🙄
Great risk but great reward, I am Thai and agree to make a Thai canal. Go for it.
Seems to me a land bridge would be substantially less efficient than just a canal, where the cargo can stay on ships throughout the journey
Yes, but less employment for the locals.
@@RUHappyATM Thus more security, in all respects . . .
exactly this land bridge will kill purpose and the time this offloading jugglery will take; the ship will prefer to take 3 extra days to travel intact and avoid cargo damage/lost/jugglery this land bridge way... just for going alone (without china) if they use rivers system although will not be linear but as i see a google image for thailand rivers system; i see 2 rivers at Trang and Nakhon Si Thammarat very suitable for going across. Ranong and North of Surat Thani also is good candidate ... For china if some NATO like federation could be established between China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh then china will not much need this thailand passage. I believe chicken-neck-corridor is more of a buffer zone than a land and india can live like east and west india without that. Where China can connect to sea through Bangladesh rivers system and/or canal.
The reasoning behind a land bridge wouldn't damage the local landscape apartually. The cost will be the same, but I see the problem there too, yes it would take time to unload and reload to another ship, which can take the 3 days just going the national way round. Which is the point of this project to reduce travel time.
@@wildstorm74
I suspect that's why they canned the canal idea.
A canal 400m wide is definitely going to separate the ecologies on both sides of the canal. Plus the added increased risk of separatism of the south. 400m is a long way to cross over water.
Back in the day, mega projects were constructed as an answer to challenges faced by multiple countries, now, most mega projects are constructed as an answer to geopolitical challenges or as a geopolitical tool.
More spare money sloshing around the world these days . . .
"Investments".
Money, ideas, too much money we have now, nowhere to spend.
That Land Bridge is incredibly stupid. Why would ships Unload on one end and load again on the other end?
It's about them not wanting to cut the country in 2.....pretty much giving away the bottom part.....look into it. But yeah, land-bridge is dumb.....
@@gomahklawm4446 They can build bridges over canals. Nobody complains about the Mississippi river cutting the US in two or the Yangtze cutting China in two. Like a canal they're just large navigable waterways and they have lots of bridges over them.
@@gomahklawm4446give away the country ? I guess the military to protect the country doesn’t exist.
@@ISpitHotFiyaa Thailand has a complicated problem at the south. It's not like the US and China.
Mexico was thinking land bridge as well, and now Panama is dry it might be considered even the US were looking to help fund that. its the same as the prospects of Thailand, how many freight trains can a container ship hold? roll on roll off and be split into destinations reducing costs more just a thought ship train's have excysted in the early 1900s..
the idea of land bridge is just stupid
It's not just about goods. It's also about marine bunkering, Singapore is the largest bunkering port in the world (partly due to being one of cheapest places to refuel dueto competitiveness). It sells 5x more fuel to ships than 2nd place Rotterdam.
Is bunkering just refueling? Would you tell us more about what bunkering means. I'm interested. Thank you
The whole thing is impractical. Singapore and specifically the Strait is a convenience between South China Sea, Indian Ocean and Australia, serving everyone in the region. Not a route like Cape Horn and Good Hope. A lot of wasted money and environmental damage and cutting off half the regional markets (which is not small) just to save 3 days journey. Do they think people did nothing with that 3 day journey? It only make an even bigger mess of regional geopolitics while adding nothing. It's as dumb as the Line or CANZUK.
@@biocapsule7311 Who's paying you to write such negativity?
@@EllieMaes-Grandad What negativity? The whole video acts like the line below that imaginary canal is some undeveloped obstacle to be by pass. When the region is one of the most populous markets in the world. You think ships travel thru the Straits did nothing? Those few days the video claims would save are some of the most busiest days of those travels. What fraudulent positivity do you want me to write? The whole con is as fraudulent as "Brexit benefits."
@@biocapsule7311 forget to count fuel save for 3 day? $350K per trip save!!
Thailand has requested membership into BRICS+ at their annual meeting which will be held in October at Kazan, Russia.
This only make sense if that cargo was going to be reloaded on diffrent ship anyway.
In any other situation its not economical. Ships are way more economical than even trains.
Suez & Panama canal able to cut 1-2 month at sea, which is very efficient on budget.
While thai canal, either choose to paying a toll gate via thai canal for 10 hour or take 3-5 day at sea via malacca strait.
Thailand has also said they will get rid of all drugs by Sep 30th, turn Pattaya into a family friendly town, build a high speed rail for 20 years and attract high end tourists. In other words - Take anything Thai govts say with a grain of salt.
Hope they keep to their promises!!
Yes, the current political situation there is very unstable, with many parties unable to agree and needing to try to form big coalitions. They just ended military rule a couple of years ago and are now having to pay for Chinese subs ordered back then.
Separatist is shaking
@@LoganInThailand where's the guy who said that
They can't get rid of Pot, that's here to stay, too much money has been invested by normal Thai people to reverse that decision. Pattaya will and should never be family friendly, there are tons of other places in Thailand that don't have a bar in sight, there are plenty of high-end tourists in Thailand, my guess is they stay at better hotels than yours, and the High-speed train proposal has already been approved. Next.
@MegaBuildsYT As a westerner living in Thailand for a long time, one of the things I realized is that promised construction, can only be assumed to be real AFTER it is finished. That and Chumphon is pronounced chum-pawn. Thanks for the videos. They are much appreciated.
It's a pointless project, the video barely convey how pointless it is. The Strait is the strait because it already is a natural by pass. It's not an obstacle. Suez and Panama exist because the major powers of their time, want to by pass 2 underdeveloped continents and dangerous capes. This pointless thing wants people to by pass some of the worlds most populous markets, including Australia? For what? Because Thailand thinks it can supplant Singapore? The whole think benefits no one other then the stup!d people who suggests it.
The canal is a better idea than the land bridge…
but land bridge is more profitable than canal.. imo..
And even the canal is a long shot idea. Why would people want to use the Kra canal if built when they can use the free transit through Malacca Straits? No one is collecting toll there but if people used the canal, they'll have to pay.
The Kta Canal has been talked about for more than 70 years.
More than 340 years.. have been talking already.. 😂
It has been talked since King Narai of Ayutthaya.
4ever
One of the biggest advantage Singapore has over any other nearby competing ports is that it sells a shit ton of fuel to ships. One of singapore's largest industries is refining crude oil. They are able to buy crude oil from gulf nations for cheap and refine it and sell it as fuel to ships that stop by. This took decades of investments and development to set up. I sincerely doubt any nearby country has the capital or the political will to set up such a large scale industry to compete with singapore, which is the largest bunkering port in the world. Thailand opening a port attempting to compete would just be a terrible decision from the start as a shorter route alone isnt enough to compete with Singapore's port.
I did some checking up on Thailand and Singapore's oil refining rates. They are similar but Thailand has them scattered over 4 provinces while Singapore is concentrated in a single city so while capacity is similar, accessibility is a lot better in Singapore since all of the oil is in one location.
Well said… just saying if let’s say the canal is constructed, how would you cross from 1side to another side?
@@TF-cc5zp Ships would sail one by one in one direction through the canal, which can kill any time savings because the only way I think they can do 2 way traffic control would be to go one direction on one day, then the other on the next, so for a 14 hour savings, you might have to wait up to 24 hours. So it really is questionable if there is any savings in time at all.
I think the original idea of blasting through the kra canal seems more logical. The effort to transport cargo via land will just make the logistics more complicated. We are not certain if this land route will really be faster or cheaper in the end as well. I hope that Thailand is not risking all their money on this project.
China have a way of bankrupting Asian countries with the debts of infrastructure the people didn't need, vacant ports in Sri Lanka a case in point. If the shipping companies refuse to use the land bridge - this infrastructure just becomes an abandoned white elephant with a debt burden placed upon all Thai people.
I’d like to point out, the newspaper you used to say that Singapore got independent from the British is actually wrong. That was the newspaper when Singapore got independence from Malaysia.
Not so much as independent from Malaysia. Malaysia divorced Singapore.
It will cost 50% more than $28B when you include the inflation during the 10 years construction time,
Not forgetting, additional 10% for bribery too
@@wf645
Ha ha ha ,
Forgeting to factor in laundry financial service
Or financial laundry service .
It seems China comes up with all kinds of crooked mega development + the Himalayas Super Dam to fleece the investors ending up with rotten tail projects. China is getting desperate from the decoupling. Evergrande 2.0 ?
It seems China comes up with all kinds of crooked mega development + the Himalayas Super Dam to fleece the investors ending up with rotten tail projects. China is getting desperate from the decoupling. Evergrande 2.0?
So what! Thai should've done it long time ago. there are annually 90K vessels and $350K each saving. Say u take 50K pass thru and charge $340K, there is $17B earning PA, not even include thousands of jobs created and taxed.
I'm not a fan of that land bridge and doubt it will ever be a better option than just usual extra 3 days naval route via Singapore. All the time required to unload the ship, put it on trains/trucks, then transport it to the other side and again unpack it and load on another ship will add so much time and labor cost it won't be worth it. Also, you would have to coordinate and plan 2 separate ships and crews instead of just one...
It's a pointless project. The whole region below that imaginary line are developed markets, including Australia & NZ. The whole video acts like the whole place is an undeveloped obstacle waiting to be by pass.
I did some checking, the time to get to Singapore is not 3 days, it's only 14 hours. The whole plan is a mess of questionable logic and wishful thinking.
@@danielc2701 I think the estimation of 3 days is factor in the time of freighters loading/unloading goods off Singapore. *Which is the whole point.* The project aims to capture a share of, if not outright replace Singapore as a regional hub, that's where the profit is. But it wouldn't work. Putting aside that it wouldn't save much time at all (panama is a 10 hr crossing), because Singapore have more then a centuries worth of investment towards being a Hub, all the amenities that comes with, and still a more practical location. It would be akin to building a small gambling town down the road of Vegas hoping it would replace Vegas as the next big thing. It will get maybe some tiny amount of business, but limited at best.
@@danielc2701impossible
Once the railway link from Malaysia to south China is completed, the cargo also has the option to go straight to China on trains.
A land bridge is not necessary. Just build a port somewhere on the west coast of Thailand.
@@danielch6662 did they already build it? malaysia ECRL will be finished in 2026 and fully operated by 2027 🙂
That land bridge thing is idiotic. Who's going to unload and reload boats just to avoid a couple hundred mile diversion? Plus it's too far north - which demands a diversion of its own. The original canal proposal was in a pretty ideal location. And as far as the canal dividing anything - you can put bridges over canals. Every major road that crosses it would get a bridge. With that said, Thailand probably would benefit from a west coast port with railway connections but it doesn't need to be part of a land bridge system.
A great exposition, that includes economic and geopolitical issues.
You have forgotten the shipowners. They save about 2 days transportation. And. 1800 km.
Maersk has talked about it.
Nå, smid lige et link til det (mærsk)
It's only 2 days and 1800km if you're sending something from Phuket on Thailand's west coast to Patani on the other side of that isthmus. For traffic travelling between the middle east and far east, you save only only around 1050km because ships will just cut diagonally across instead of tracing the coastline of Malaya. That 1000km is 1 day of sailing for a normal container ship, or 1d + 6h for slow-steaming ships trying to save on fuel. That time would is less than what you'd lose queuing for the canal, or unloading/reloading to use a land bridge. Even if the canal was free, nobody would use it.
That isthmus is pretty narrow, and the amount of existing traffic does not justify building a $28b canal. More importantly, the freight between Phuket and Patani is NOT being shipped on container ships running the 1800km distance right now. They're simply being hauled around on the back of lorries. The amount is small, and the isthmus being so narrow, the distance is short. A lorry will cover that distance in an hour or two.
So it's a balance of how much their 1800 km, 2 day operational expense would be versus the transit fee for using the canal. And there will definitely be waiting and transit times too for using the canal.
Take Longer to ship
anyone would take the safer newer path that saves 2 days and 1800km but you forgot that Sing is profiting from that struggle so its gonna be a hard fight.
Another big project for Thai contractors to skim from yet again.
Love a good mega canal
The land bridge is definitely not a viable proposal due to the inconvenience and delay in loadings and unloadings of goods. Besides costs will also increase and the cost benefit is greatly reduced. As to the division of the land into 2 parts it can be regarded as a small river running through the land and can be reconnected by land bridge and the canal is not very wide. Other disadvantages can also be solved with proper and feasible solutions with special considerations and attentions for the environment and human relocations. If humans want and decide to undertake a project nothing is impossible just like going to the dark side of the moon and building a base on it.
You forgot to mention piracy in the Straight.
Land routes are not viable simply because the volumes are too high for trains versus ships. The better solution is a canal at sea level, but as you pointed out, there are environmental and political ramifications.
All construction has environment effects .
Everything , everything in life has political implications ,.
-
Doing nothing is just as bad or even worse .
-
I guess ,
it sound pretty much like real life ,
everyday & everything.
-
Let's just do karaoke , QUE SERA SERA ,
What will be will be ,
No Microsoft
No Amazon's
*Straits
pirate? bro this is not 19th century
@@sahkogile yeah, go tell that to the Samolis and the ones in the Straight if you want to get shot!
@@kenbell8752 , environmental problem,
Let's start with you to stop eat hamburger and tomahawk steak.
Political repercussions ,,
Would that means you are ON the losing side ?
Piracy ?
The biggest thieves in the world are the western bank ,
Just 1 topic ,, forfeiture of Russian deposits in their banks .
That's robbery .
People will bypass the Ismus of Kra and continue taking the Straits of Malacca due to cost considerations. As shipping times are not a prime consideration, given that urgent shipments can go by air, the land pass is likely to fail.
This canal would change thailand for the better in alot of ways
What? you mean more coruption or what?
@@Ikkeligeglad TF does this have to do with corruption??
Every time a person can get money out of somtning or someone in Thailand they do it.
Thailand is ranking as number 108 out of 180 countries in the corruption index, nothing to be proud of and it keeps people poor.
Tbh i dont rly like this idea but at the same time it would rly good for more products and commercial objects to sell in thailand like cars
Cars are the 3rd most exported product in Thailand.
A canal makes a lot of sense. The cost of shipping is borne by the consumer of every product shipped and the shipping time saved is valuable, The one-tjme ecological damage from construction can be mitigated by replacing forest and needs to be compared with the long term ongoing ecological benefit of fuel savings from use of the canal; ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system.; the fuel used in ships in international waters is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is basically the same as asphalt and is the cheapest and most polluting fuel available, A large container ship can be figured to burn around 350 tons of fuel a day,
It's a pointless BS project. The whole region below that imaginary line are developed markets, including Australia & NZ. The whole video acts like the whole place is an undeveloped obstacle waiting to be by pass. The whole tanker fuel thing is BS. And who told you it's a one-time ecological damage??? The whole point of ecological damage is it's permanence. This is as bad as fantasy likes Brexit, CANZUK and the Line.
The canal does NOT make a lot of sense. Shippers using the canal will have to pay transit fees while the Straits of Malacca and Singapore are natural straits that are free to use. Also, I did a check. The time needed to get through the Straits of Malacca is 14 hours, not even a day. Cost wise, it does not make sense to use a canal.
This channel save ships a thousand mile of wasted fuel going thru Singapore, which has a major US military base to contain China. It also helps to reduce pollution within the Straits of Malacca.
Thailand really needs this project but a little will cost more than normal canal
perfect for Malay people in Southern Thailand to get indepence from Thai.
@@ColoniaMurder20 goofy meleyu idealogy again those bangla wannabe cant even fighting with face to face
@@ColoniaMurder20 lol good luck. Thai government wont let that happen.
malaysia already have ecrl that build by china corporation
@@boymeetsworldx2 dont underestemate Muslim brotherhood in entire world.
The money shipping companies save by using the proposed canal would be offset by the charges for using the canal. Apparently the Panama canal is charging something like $350,000 for cruise ships to pass through.
The land bridge could only hold the equivalent of one big container ship. The land bridge will be full. So it had to be cancelled. The canal will be built. And it'll be a game changer for the region.
Krabi beach will suffer the same fate as surrounding Singapore beach...Dirty and will lost its beauty and serenity..
The canal will not be at Krabi, but further south. That is the only sensible location to make the canal.
Doesn’t matter, the waiting ships will bring pollution to the area. Keep thailand free of all pollution.
@@joyboyboy5149 agreed that pollution must be handled.
Awesome video. Thank you.
Do both, land bridge should be finished ahead of the canal starting shipping companies use of the new deep sea port, so that when the canal is completed more infrastructures to support the boom in commerce and traffic are there
i think money will be their main concern
You will need some kind of land bridge in order to build such a canal, simply for access during the construction, and then for maintenance and servicing of ships transiting the canal. They would need major roads there to police the canal zone and to deal with stuck ships, etc. They might not need the railway, but even that would be useful in the long run as an alternative.
Doing both is a waste of money.
yeeep, they ened to build a regular highway alogn the side fo where the canal will go, so road cargo can flwo first, and construction vehcles can also work easier to and from location, and by the time the canal is dug, there is also be a fast form of transport both in and out of river, and when there is a highhway there will also be offshoots and increased access so mroe citys will also pop up, and since its all sea level, tyhey could easily dig lagoosn and ports off the sides where rivers and steams flow in and make miniports for internal traffic
New Canal - right through my Home town, Krabi, the currently Most beautiful beachtown of the world
Land bridge is the dumbest idea they ever came up with. Canal was by far the best opportunity to boost its economy not just by sex tourism.
The two projects do not seem very comparable. The canal is a traffic route, ships sail across it without any mods on the cargoes. The land bridge sounds to be more of a region revitalization project. Goods have to enter Thailand first. This will certainly attract some manufacturers who needs to process their good in a low labor cost country, with the added benefit of bypassing the Malaka strait after the processing.
The Land Bridge is not going to be successful on their own - but also need a thorough planning of the region to attract foreign factories. I can see how it could bring much more benefits than the canal, and at the same time there are more hoops to jump through.
This project costs much less than what the West has invested at least in terms of money in the war in Ukraine!! No one has benefited from this, and the whole world has been in financial trouble. I think it's time to give other countries that have been struggling for centuries a chance to provide themselves with solid living conditions. The biggest problem today is that money is concentrated on a very small number of people and countries.
Ignoring Ukraine would cost far more down the line.
The West has no obligation to help Thailand or any other countries.
Troll...any reason to mention how insignificant it is , and should be ignored, that Russia are invading another country, and are actively doing etnic cleansing, and terrorism on the Ukrainian population....listen to you....why bother with it, its not important....right...?..you have a Russian TV brain.
3:33 A few KM ... thats an understatement
Is it really worth the $28 billion cost to save just a couple of days sailing?
I feel like there are better things the Thai government could spend that money on and China would be better off improving relations with SE Asian nations rather than trying to bypass them with an expensive canal. Plus even though it bypasses Malacca the shipping routes would still pass by the Andaman islands where India is building up military bases and then either through Suez or all the way around Africa so I don't see how China gains that much geopolitically. The Central Asian routes are probably more important for China.
i think you underestimate how much money shortening a route saves just in fuel let alone anything else, it looks small on a map but it is a noticeable change in distance for a ocean going trade route, also it does bring in a fair amount of geopolitical power so to say to the Thai, yes there is also a lot of downsides refer to the video. But it definitely has legitimate reasons to make this project into a reality.
It's worth it. You apparently didn't notice that each oil tanker would save about $350K each way. It's also 3 days, not 2. Canal fees would be a huge source of income. It's also worthwhile because with only the Malacca Straight, there's single point of failure. The $28 billion also doesn't just disappear. A chunk of it goes into the Thai economy. $28 billion for big projects isn't that much.
That canal will earn Thailand the revenue which will break even in few years time and make it a major shipping transit hub just like Egypt and Panama have benefitted from their canals.
Well, if it costs 10% less than the current route, and 10% of the traffic shifts over, that's 1% or $4.1T per year which is already $41B dollars so yah, it seems like it could be worth it.
China could use it to outflank a blockade
FYI: The land bridge is going to be built 50km south of Chumphon to about 30km south of Ranong in Andaman Sea. Detailed plans are visible almost weekly in "Bangkok Post“.
How many spots around the world has the US decided its okay for them to set up a base and do anything else and you must say OK to it, unless if its done by China.
I've been in logistics for more than 3 decades.....the potential risks seem to outweigh the potential benefits by far. 4 days transit and an alleged 330K cost saving on fuel vs redesigning vessel and loop schedules, rework at two ends of the rail/road belt, congestion, port failures, IT failures etc etc etc. A Panama Canal crossing sets carriers back around 200-300K depending vessel size etc....there will be capacity limitations......4 days saving is a nice-spring-weather-walk-in-the-park scenario....minmised or wiped out very easily. I can see BCO's demanding no Thai Landbridge.... Maybe I am being negative here.
The land bridge might make sense for the domestic market if it was accompanied by an efficient road or rail system running the length of the country. Is that already in place? Bangkok doesn’t currently have shipping access to the country’s west coast (Kuala Lumpur does). But I really don’t see it being used as transit for foreign container ships (off-load, haul containers, reload on a different ship). Would that actually save 3 days?
For the same $28B, the wide canal would accomplish the same thing AND collect transit fees from foreign vessels. China alone would generate huge revenue. Time and money saved, and the congested Malacca Straits avoided.
Why would a 400-meter wide ditch divide the country? Bridges, tunnels, ferries, water-taxis…hell, you could swim that.
I do appreciate the enviro issues and 60k people would need to be displaced into housing that’s BETTER than their current situation. Was that factored into the $28B estimate?
And we didn’t hear much about the terms the Chinese offered, except they want to manage it. Hmm.
So…my vote would be for the canal , if Thailand has the run of it. But I don’t live there.
A canal still makes more sense than a landbridge... Ditto for the Mexican/Guatamalan/Columbian concepts for a second canal across Central America..
No doubt the Thai and Mexican planners never factored this into their detailed this into their business plan
Yeah. A land-bridge is just dumb.....but due to speratist movements they REALLY don't want to cut the country up. Look into it.
A Mexican canal would be tough because you'd need many locks and lots of water to run them. The landbridge might be the only option (albeit not a good one). The Thai canal won't have locks. So it will be cheap to both build and operate.
Canals would cost 10 times more
Very interesting and informative!
The roadway portion of the land bridge boondoggle has already been built. It's called Highway 44 and runs from Surat Thani to Phang Nga Bay. It's the only place to cross the peninsula that makes sense. Unless you want to blast through the limestone karsks of the Tenasserim Hills.
That road is amazingly good and empty compared to other highways in Thailand. What you wrote, combined with all the construction I saw a few years ago in the Chumphon area make me wonder if you are correct, and much of this idea for a land bridge is available already.
If 28billion was to much in the canal project, it's definitely too much for a process that's less efficient
Bro just compared Suez canal’s 205 meters width to the straights of Melacca’s 65 km to 205 km width.
China also has other alternate routes. One is via Pakistan, another via Cambodia, and and another via Myanmar. Further China and others are developing rail and pipeline routes via Central Asia from the Middle East.
Say, if auto parts arrive on one of the ports then get assembled at a factory there, then shipped out to its destinations from the port on the other side, it kind of makes sense.
Love this video. Great content.
In my opinion as someone who from Thailand
Thai land bridge and Thai canal projects are totally waste of time and not worth anymore in nowadays
If Thai government want to do something like this, i recommend that they should to build western area harbour is really worth more than such a daydreaming project like these
Not possible for existing route to get get blocked by an accident like the suez canal, it's miles wide.
The scenario is Thailand build this for $28BN (or more)
Charge fee : Ships go to Singapore
No fee at all : It's free open buffet
Just built it . Panama is divided and what.s the problem
This looks good.
Thailand should do its due deligence and weigh its option regarding the Mega Canal down South. Ask itself. For better or for worse?! In conclusion, for the better good, go ahead otherwise forget it forever. 😇
Amazing ideas 💡
I'd love to see a canal built. China and ASEAN countries have great relations already, so it would just boost this partnership. Furthermore it would create an economic boom in Thailand so they can become as stable developed country as they dream of. Love my second home of Thailand ❤
As a Singaporean, I personally oppose this canal for obvious reasons but there's nothing we can do. I just wish this whole project gets cancelled or smth cause Singapore has worked so hard to become what it is today.
Panama Canal is a "must-built"; because without it, it'd be a 15,000km detour through treacherous waters. The choice between Malacca or the proposed Thai canal, it's only a 1500km difference. So the project will have a very unpredictable biz risk, all dependent on the market or the users' choice. It's a lot of money to build the mega-infrastructure. They'll of course have to collect reasonable amount of fees; and likely for a long time to recover cost... The land bridge option will have higher operating or running costs. So, it's hard to say will it really be cheaper than running Malacca (for the shippers)? Regardless, politicians love mega projects. They'll be happy to pocket all the money, and be long gone before any liabilities.
Basically, this canal will upset the US cronically as it provides competition and leverage the US doesn't have control over.
.... er.... guess someone does not know which country Thailand is allied to.
@@danielc2701 Not US Im Thai
@@golden166 Then maybe your government should tell you about the Manila Pact and U-Tapao air base. Thailand is a MILITARY TREATY ally to the US.
@@golden166 Have you heard of the Manila Pact? Or how the U-Tapau air base came about?
@@danielc2701 U-Tapau has notthing to do with US now a day
Singapore does not even care and never talks about it. In fact, Singapore is so confident this project is unfeasible that Singapore is EXPANDING its port handling capacity as we speak. For a small country with limited land, that is a big commitment.
Singapore does not talk about what it fears. Although Singapore would be smart about creating a new revenue stream, Thailand is a bigger nation with more foreign investments pumped into their economy. After all a Singapore company itself might invest in the canal project. Singapore has to increase handling capacity cause PSA still has a good 15 years in their hands to pump revenue.
@@globanxiety the Tuas expansion is targeted for completion in the 2040s, as published on Maritime Port Authority Singapore website
@@globanxiety I hope no Singapore company would be so stupid as to invest in that insanity of a project, Kra Canal OR land bridge. The whole thing is all promises but no way to deliver. Anyone investing in it is sure to lose their money. Thai politicians can be seriously delusional.
@@danielc2701Dubai port world and many investors from the west already working on process possibilities, they know what they do if the project is not worthy, it’s not gonna happen.
Just 200-300km south of that "mega canal," Malaysia is already building a $10b cargo rail between the west and east called the ECRL. The rail starts near the Thai border. It is a 700km long rail line that runs along Malaysia's east coast towards the second busiest port in Southeast Asia near the Malacca Straits.
Have they factored in the construction of deep water ports on either sides?
They have already two existing deep water ports on both sides of the Penisular Malaysia. On the west coast, the ECRL will join with the Klang port that is facing the Malacca Strait and continues to the Kuantan port on the eastern coast of Malaysia that is facing the South China Sea.
I think there's no need for Thailand to build the said land bridge because Malaysia is already building it's own landbridge which is the ECRL and it's almost complete and be operational in 2026.
Sooooo, it's just like what Mexico was planning as an "alternate" to the Panama Canal.
Thailand's mainport in Bangkok will be able to absorb some traffic that have to pass through Malacca strait to load and unload in Singapore. Also goods destined for peninsula South East Asia and souther China unload in the ports on both end of the cannal will be moved to those destination faster and cheaper.
Thanks!
This channel became a political channel for like 5 minutes
7:40
1:44 P to 10:24 P!!
IKR. Was on the loo too! Awkward.
The purpose and route of these infrastructure projects has no option but to consider politics. There needs to be a commercial need, a cooperative will, resources and technical capability.
The politics, is always a technical aspect that can't be ignored.
White people not going to let it happen with war, because they will loose money on Singapore.
What a progress have u upload bro,is the cannal ready to operate in this 2024 or we wait the new goods again, n again ,hurry up!!
This hasn’t been thought out. It will be a white elephant costing at least double what they are quoting.
While I do agree that Suez and Panama canal are the best solution for making sea route shorter (I mean looks at how huge Africa and South American, ofc you wouldn't want to sail 'around' it), but this Thailand canal sounds stupid because it's only cuts 1200km route. Idk where you get "saving 350k cost" when it's only save 2-5 days sail time, the math ain't mathing
Malacca strait isn't going to fail anytime soon. It's natural strait with kilometers wide that isn't going to be blocked by one or tens of big ships at the same time
I am Malay from the Malaysian side and still have family in Thailand's Malay region (and lost some due to the conflict). I don't support the independence movement but the "siamisation" of the local people should stop and allow them to practise their culture freely. The best thing now is for this region to stay in Thailand but with some autonomy and power, for example regarding education, language and religion.
A country must be one, you cannot allow separate cultures in one country that will always result in violence and terrorism, just look around the world, it always ends up like this, just look at countries where there is a minority of Russians, always problems, if there is to be peace in a country with a minority, the minority must conform to the country in which they live.
try to study what it's like in the border area between Denmark and Germany, inwardly they cultivate the culture of their country of origin but outwardly they subsume themselves under the country they live in, that's why they live in peace with those who is the majority
So, how's Malaysia treating its non-Malays?
A nation should have one culture. They should leave and go to Malaysia if they want to be different.
@@gomahklawm4446 Europe is slowly realizing this.
No...Thailand should be Thai. Those that don't like living in Thailand should move. Look at what Europe is dealing with.
I believe it does not make any economic sense due to the cost. We have two major channels, the Suez and Panama. They bypasses huge continents and saves thousands of shipping miles. The Kra channel only crosses a small peninsular. If $$ can make sense, by all means go ahead.
I run a logistics youtube channel and I believe this would be a great benefit for all of us in logistics .
Great 😃😃👍 video 😊😊😊😊
China has another oil shipping pipeline through Myanmar.
But there is no political stability in Burma.
$28 Billion USD doesn't account for the massive amount of corruption within Thailand. You'd have to double that to $56 Billion to get a more accurate estimate.
Go with the canal...
6:55 Funny thing is, Thailand, aside from maybe the Philippines, is the closest American ally in the region.
wow that could save 14 hours of traveling time and risk stuck forever
That part is a lie. I did some checking, it only takes 14 hours to get through the Straits of Malacca. You can find some of the transit videos on youtube too and they'll show you the whole 14 hour trip.
sea level canal is a great idea.
don't make it 450m wide and 25m deep, make it narrower and shallower for initial stage.
once openned, then they can generator revenue, and with that money, keep expanding the canal.
if they haven't done it before they'll never do it especially in this era where you get shamed for anything that touches the environment
I think the canal project is better than the land bridge project... The transportation of goods can be done much faster...
As of the Thailand's land which will be decided into two, tunnels or Bridges can be built...
Singapore says no.
You forget that there is the biggest market of Indonesia, phillipines, and Australia that will reduce the number of ship going through those thai canal
do you think your sponsors 8huawei9 would be happy with this video? Or did they stop sponsoring you?
Last i heard it was a land bridge.The only winners would be the construction companies and "friends".
China is the world's first economy.
A starbucks sold at $10 in NY isn't more valuable than the same starbucks in Beijing at $2.
In terms of industrial output China is 3x the size of usa.
Wu Mao Alert!
Bot and Sold!
This is gonna cost way more than $28 billion. The panama canal cost $10 Billion and they only had to excavate 9 miles of land that was pretty much already at sea level. Lake Gatun is what the majority of the canal is and it's massive. Then there's locks at each coast which is the area that was excavated. This would cost 5 times what they're estimating. The one benefit that would reduce cost in the long term is using the dirt to create more real estate somewhere.
land bridge is a total waste of time compared to the better idea of the canal.loading and unloading..waste of resource and time in short.
Even the canal has problems. Going through a canal, you have to pay while going through the Straits is free, something people overlook. Then, unless your canal is a 2 lane canal, ships can only go through one direction at a time, maybe one day it's East to West, the next is West to East but chances are high ships will still end up waiting one extra day for transit. Then, the capacity of a canal is very small, best case like the Panama, is 14k ships a year. Assuming each ship pays about 10k (average fees for Panama transit), you need 200 years to pay off the initial costs.
The Kra canal is a VERY bad deal for the Thai people, it would put the country 200 years in debt.
Yep, the isthmus of Kra is narrow but also mountainous. A canal there will be expensive to build but it is very "doable".
If this canal is ever erected, it is bound to restructure and reroute the maritime trade which works in favor of Thailand. However, astronomical amount of money has to be coughed up which is burdensome and kryptonite for the Thai public funding.
It's how much they profit from it or will they actually profit from it that will actually matter in the end.
One other issue is that the Strait of Malacca is infamous for Indonesian piracy. Nevertheless, it's a blessing that China is not building a canal for Thailand across the Isthmus of Kra. "Funded, built, and managed" is absolutely correct. In many poor countries where China sponsors projects, EVERYTHING is done by Chinese, from the high-level engineers down to the humble construction workers and cooks brought in from China. The Thai economy would certainly not benefit at all; it might even get worse due to the loss of tourism caused by pollution so close to their iconic beaches and natural areas. Whilst Kra is a tempting project, the savings are only minimal compared with what the Suez and Panama canals save shippers. Thailand is wise to reject Chinese overtures to build it.
I feel you worries, but from my researches I found that the Chinese often uses local workers for their mega projects, except for management and high-level engineers, all other workers are local. The Chinese will only bring in more Chinese workers if the local workers are not up to the task and leads to project delay. If you pay attention to Chinese domestic mega projects, they sometimes even complete it before deadline. If Thai local worker's work ethic is at the same level to the Chinese, then this will given no reason for the Chinese to bring in Chinese workers.
In Australia Chinese companies totally destroyed the reef forever with their secret projects and backed by politics leaning towards communism. Only TH-camrs showing this atrocities.
@@twood2032 Yeah, a lot of African leaders have came forward to clarify that a lot of the BRI projects employed local work forces while additional amenities (schools and health clinics) were often built at no cost to the locals.
@@ronaldfranke9225 that doesn't happen everywhere. Local personnel are used on legit projects. A BOT infrastructure contract with China is a pretty good deal. (it doesn't have to be like that Sri Lankan port...comes down to governance)
I wouldn'e allow shina " To build, fund or manage the building of My outhouse"
I can see why land bridge will be made. People can live along roads and even have a farm. But, a giant canal wouldn't give that vibe.
Because of the ship's hull, building a canal would take up too much land space that only ships can use. While a mega highway allows normal cars to take a trip along with shipping cars. So even with recent PM disqualification, this project might take shape and come to it's fruitful result.
For context, 38 billion is China's trade surplus for 2 weeks. It's pocket change.
You're obviously not an economist