Cabinet Pushes The SEC to Develop Southern Economy.
21-1-2019– Cabinet pushes the SEC to develop the southern economy with a capital investment of 100 billion baht, the development of both the double-track railway, the airport, seaport, encourages tourism. Hope it to be the center of the Gulf of Thailand andAndaman Sea, more convenient to ship to South Asia
Mr. Natthaporn Jatusripitak adviser to the Minister of the Prime Minister Office revealed that the cabinet meeting today approved the study of the
appropriateness of the development of Chumphon-Ranong provinces and Surat Thani-Nakhon Si Thammarat areas. According to the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) plan 2019-2022 to develop the Southern Economic Corridor (SEC) , to determine the total 116 projects with a total amount of 106,790 million baht investment for the project to be ready to proceed immediately in the fiscal year 2019 (Quick-win), there are 8 projects with a total budget of 2.677 billion baht using the mid-year budget.
Establish 4 development frameworks: (1) Development of the Western Trade Gate. (2) Development of the gateway to the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman.
(3) Development of the biological base industry and high value agricultural processing and (4) Conservation Natural Resources and Cultural promotion
and livable city development.
The cabinet assigned the relevant departments to carry out the project and request the budget allocation in accordance with the development framework. There are 5 urgent projects (Quick-win), covering 448 million baht budget to start this year (2019), such as PaNgan,PaYam Island and Mangrove Forest in Ranong Province.
Aiming for the SEC to be a new economic area and a model for the development of civilization centers in each region of the country, after passing the approval from the official cabinet meeting on the 21 August 2018 at Chumphon province, therefore excellerated the implementation of concrete results.
SEC is including the development of deep-sea ports in Ranong Province, a double-way railway into the southern region, motorways, livable city development, tourism promotion, secondary cities The development of the airport in Chumphon Province, accommodates 10 million passengers per year.
It is expected that no less than 200 billion baht of the investment from the industrial sector will be follow into SEC, increase 1.2 million tourists per year. No less than 5 % of GDP will be contributed to th South, during the first 10 years connecting travel, transportation of goods from the Gulf of Thailand, Andaman to The South Asia In India that used to take 9-15 days for goods transportation,as they had to go around the Malacca Indonesia, after the sea port in Ranong and the surrounding facility in SEC was developed, it will take only 4-7 days for goods transportation from The Gulf of Thailand or Andaman to The South Asia , it will be a key factor that will help the southern economy grow.
