Priority put on raising rail system's freight capacity
The Transport Ministry will speed up the upgrade of the national railway network to boost its proportion of total shipments to 10 per cent from 2 per cent currently.
"We also target increasing marine transport to 20 per cent from 14 per cent currently, under the logistics development plan for 2012-16," permanent secretary Supoth Sublom said yesterday.
The ministry has assigned top priority to the railway-improvement programme.
Projects under the Bt176-billion budget approved by the Cabinet on April 27 last year include replacing wooden sleepers with concrete sleepers along 2,272 kilometres of the rail system, improving the signalling system at 221 stations, procuring 77 new locomotives, refurbishing 56 locomotives and freight wagons, and opening inland container depots in strategic areas across the country.
"All of the projects are in the bidding process and are expected to be completed over the next few years. New locomotives will help facilitate cargo transport by rail with speeds of 60-80km/h," he said.
When the work is finished, large companies such as SCG, a supplier of construction and building materials, and PTT, the national oil and gas company, will sign on as major users.
The ministry has set up a team to draft a strategic logistics development plan for 2012-20 to replace the one ending this year, Supoth said.
Tanit Sorat, vice president of the Federation of Thai Industries, said the country could lower the target for logistics costs to 16 per cent of gross domestic product, from 18.6 per cent currently, if it could follow the existing plan. This figure is still considered high compared with developed countries. The problem is that 83 per cent of total shipments are by road transport, which is 3.5 times as costly in energy as rail transport and seven times as much as marine transport.
Logistics development still faces speed bumps, as road transport is so dominant. The country has 7 million to 8 million twenty-foot-equivalent-unit containers in circulation, while trains can carry only 400,000-450,000 containers, or 5.6 per cent of the total.
"We need to boost the proportion of rail to 15-20 per cent of total transport in five years," he said.
An office of national logistics development and planning should be established to implement the new strategic logistics development plan, Tanit said.
