A 1000 km-long high- speed road linking China and the southeast Asian country of Laos was inaugurated on Friday as part of President Xi Jinping’s hand Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global structure design.
The$ 6 billion road, connecting the Chinese megacity of Kunming with Laotian capital Vientiane was erected by a Chinese state- possessed company, with China bearing 70 of all construction costs.
While both governments have hailed the design as mutually salutary and a palm- palm action, economists have advised that it could complicate Laos’ challenges, among the poorer southeast Asian nations, in repaying external debt.
President Xi and his Lao counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith concertedly witnessed the opening of the China-Laos road via videotape link on Friday.
The construction of the design started in December 2016, and a train departing from Kunming in the morning will arrive in Vientiane in the evening on the same day, according to China State Railway Group.
With a maximum operating speed of 160 kilometers per hour, trains running on the route will take passengers from Kunming to Vientiane in about 10 hours, including customs concurrence time,” a state media report said on Friday.
There are several islands and coverts on the route.
“ The ground and lair rate is relatively high with that in Chinese section up to 87 percent and Lao section up to 63 percent, including the-metre Ban Ladhan Mekong Bridge,-metre Luang Prabang Mekong Bridge,-metre Ban SenNo. 2 Lair,-metre Ban Nakok Lair,” the state- run Xinhua news agency reported.
Laos state news agency KPL on Thursday said the design was part of the government’s strategy to convert Laos “ from a landlocked country to a land- linked bone”.
The road will “ induce veritably positive profitable returns” for China and conceivably other countries, but it’s harder to see “ exactly what the profitable benefits are going to be” for Laos, Scott Morris of the Centre for Global Development in Washington told the Associated Press.
“ This is basically a Chinese public structure design that happens to live in another country,” he said.
Chinese media, still, said it’ll profit both countries.
“ The China-Laos road will bring great convenience to trade and travel between the two countries and come an important part of the north-south roadway of the Indo-Chinese Peninsulas in prostrating land transportation difficulties and developing its frugality.”
