PM ends China tour with visit to flood centre

The flood centre was set up in 1950 to help agencies tasked with preventing floods across the nation. Its duties also include dealing with urban flooding and managing other disasters. The centre also has authority to control and adjust water levels in lakes.

Additionally, the centre has authority to allocate budgets for flood and drought management, according to a briefing given to Yingluck by a Chinese official.

After touring the centre, Yingluck took a high-speed train from Beijing to Tianjin, 140km from the capital.

Thailand and China plan to jointly develop a high-speed rail link between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Yingluck concluded her visit to China with a visit to Tianjin’s city planning museum, before leaving for Tokyo, where she will attend the Mekong-Japan summit.

Yingluck will be in Japan until tomorrow for the summit, where she will meet with leaders from Japan, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Yingluck told reporters that Thailand would be a strategic partner with Japan in the sustainable development of the Mekong basin. She said she would emphasise the Kingdom’s readiness to cooperate with Japan to develop infrastructure to handle natural disasters and facilitate transportation and connectivity in Asean. Japan could contribute in terms of financial and technical support to countries in the Mekong region for infrastructure development, she said.

Yingluck said she would examine Japan’s railway system as well as local Japanese products to get ideas on how to develop rail transport in Thailand, and the Kingdom’s One Tambon One Product scheme.

At the Mekong-Japan summit, leaders are scheduled to adopt the Tokyo Strategy for Mekong-Japan Cooperation as a master plan for cooperation and development over the next three years. Major components of the document include enhancement of connectivity in the Mekong region, joint development as well as human security and environmental sustainability.