Myanmar, Thai govts to gear up Dawei special economic zone

Published on Sunday, 16 September 2012 14:06

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Photo shows the developing project area of Dawei Special Economic Zone

Myanmar and Thai governments will make ‘contract modification’ on the Framework Agreement to accelerate the construction of Dawei Special Economic Zone Project, an official of the Supporting Working Body of the project said.

The Framework Agreement was signed on  November 2, 2010,  and that granted Italian-Thai Development Pcl (ITD) the right to develop and operate over 75 years land lease period for the Dawei Project with an associated deep sea port, industrial estate, trans-border corridor link and supporting infrastructure.

The new contract with amendments will be revised and modified the policy agreement by two governments and ITD.

“Italian-Thai Development Company was hired for a project developer initially. Now both Myanmar and Thai governments will be involving as project developers,” said the official.

Two governments are mainly joining the project as developers to assist the project financially.

The preparation works are expected to complete by the end of 2012 to be able to resume the project urgently.

After completion of project preparation, investment companies involving in the project will sign the contract with relevant government ministries.

Myanmar government on March 2012 permitted a total of 50505.0233 acres of land in Dawei district of Tanintharyi Region to establish the Dawei Special Economic Zone.

President U Thein Sein and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra signed three MOUs on his visit to Thailand last July, including  the Dawei Deep Seaport and Special Economic Zone project.

Myanmar Port Authority as authorized implementing agency and ITD on June 12, 2008 signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MOU ) relating to the implementation of a feasibility study and comprehensive project site for the Dawei Deep Sea Port and Industrial Estates Development Project.

The project contents will be for the development of a deep sea port, an industrial estate divided into six industrial zones including a residential/commercial zone with related infrastructure within the industrial estate, a connecting road and rail link to Thailand as well as oil and gas pipeline from the Gulf of Muttama to the Myanmar and Thailand border along the road and rail link.

Stop Patronizing Dawei Project, Stop Public Debt Hikes

uesday 18 September 2012 

10.30-11.30 am 

At the meeting room on 2^nd floor | Student Christian Centre

The Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited (ITD) has been in difficulty re: the Dawei Deep Sea Port and Industrial Estate Project (Dawei Project) since it was contracted to develop this project in 2008. Apparently, it has since failed to make a significant progress as planned. For instance, it is incapable of building infrastructures other than the temporary Thai-Myanmar road link. Or it is unable to secure long-term funding for the entire project development.

 












Thai government now plans to support the ITD in the development of the Dawei Project. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has scheduled to visit Myanmar from 19-21 September 2012 to follow up progress of the joint development of the Project following the Thai-Myanmar MoU signed during Myanmar President Thein Sein’s visit to Thailand in last July.

The Dawei Project is in certain ways comparable to Thailand’s Map Ta Phut industrial estate which has over the last many years been in deep trouble in term of environmental pollution. Given that the scale of Dawei Project is 8-times larger than Map Ta Phut industrial estate, the extent of its environmental consequence is unimaginable. Moreover, in Myanmar context, there are complicated social issues associated with the Dawei Project such as non-transparency, lack of local participation and human rights violation. Even in context of Thailand, the government’s decision to support the Project poses a serious question about legitimacy for spending public money to shoulder risks associated with this massive investment.

Concerned Thai civil society groups that have monitored the Dawei Project see Thai PM’s visit to Myanmar next week for talk on Dawei Project as inappropriate and unethical. Environmental problem associated with the Project will be massive while the host country lacks legal and institutional mechanisms to cope with it. Besides, exploiting public resources in what can be seen as patronizing private investor is fallacious and will put more burdens on the public in the long run.

In light of the above, concerned Thai groups will hold a press conference on 18 September 2012 from 10.30-11.30 am, at the meeting room on 2^nd floor of Student Christian Centre. The panel speaker will be;

• Mr. Veerawat Dheeraprasart: Chair of Foundation for Ecological Recovery (FER)
• Ms. Penchom Tang:  Director of Ecological Alert and Recovery, Thailand (EARTH)
• Mr. Sulak Sivaraksa: Social Thinker and Public Intellectual

Thai-English translation will be provided.

For more information please contact:

Montree Chantawong (TERRA/FER) 08 1950 0560

Luntharimar Longcharoen (TERRA/FER) 08 9489 9489

Foundation for Ecological Recovery (FER) /

Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA)

Website: www.terraper.org

Email: fer@terraper.org

  



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Links : http://www.inebnetwork.org/news-and-media/8-news/387-stop-patronizing-dawei-project-stop-public-debt-hikes

Academics call for Dawei port plan rethink

ITD project seen causing health, environment hit

 

• Published: 28/08/2012 at 01:36 AM
• Newspaper section: News

Civil society and academics have called on the government and contractor Italian-Thai Development Plc (ITD) to review the Dawei deep-sea port plan and listen to the views of residents who stand to be affected.

While the development is in Myanmar, Thais will also be affected by proposed highways to be built to link Dawei to Thailand by road.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is to lead her economic ministers on a visit to Myanmar on Sept 19-21 to follow up on progress in Dawei since leaders of the two countries agreed last month in Bangkok to clear any obstacles to the multi-billion-baht project.
Pojanee Artarotpinyo, director of the National Economic and Social Development Board's spatial development planning and strategy office, said the Council of State has yet to complete a draft bill on a special economic zone in Kanchanaburi to accommodate the development of the Dawei project.
Ms Pojanee added that the Finance Ministry is looking at ways to help ease the financial burden ITD faces with the massive venture.
"Since the Thai government has already pledged strong support for the project, all agencies are now coordinating closely with their Myanmar counterparts to finalise the project," Ms Pojanee said.
Speaking at a recent seminar titled "Thai-Myanmar Relations: From Map Ta Phut to Dawei", organised by Mahidol University's faculty of environment and resource studies, she said issues the two governments have continued to negotiate include the project's specific location, features or characteristics and financing models.
She said the Dawei project should consider lessons learned from Thailand's Eastern Seaboard industrial area development, including those relating to environmental and health problems.
Somsak Boonpratanporn, head of the Highways Department's assessment working group for Dawei, said the department has two Dawei-related highway projects to develop.
The first is the 98km Bang Yai (Nonthaburi)-Nakhon Pathom-Kanchanaburi highway that will help connect Dawei to the GMS Southern Corridor, which runs from the western border of Thailand to the eastern coast of Vietnam.
The highway will cost 45.88 billion baht, of which 4.85 billion baht is set aside for land expropriation.
This motorway could link to another 70km highway, which is currently undergoing a feasibility study, from Kanchanaburi to Ban Phu Nam Ron, the border village in Ratchaburi province, to connect with the 160km Dawei-Ban Phu Nam Ron highway being developed by ITD.
Veerawat Dheeraprasart, chairman of the Foundation for Ecological Recovery, said post-Dawei development problems would be 10 times more serious than those seen in the Map Ta Phut industrial area and Laem Chabang deep-sea port.
He added that the lack of efficient environmental and health regulation enforcement in Myanmar put the communities around Dawei at risk of being compromised in the name of foreign investment.
"The ITD-developed project has yet to take into account core principles mentioned in the Asean Charter, including respect for human rights, cultural identity and diversity and sustainable development and environmental conservation goals," Mr Veerawat said.
He also called for the Highways Department to conduct a new environmental impact assessment on the planned motorways.
He urged both the Thai and Myanmar governments to review the project to show that the two Asean members are concerned not only with the economic benefits but also want to look after the socio-cultural front.
Khanat Kruthkul, a doctor at Ramathibodi Hospital, said there should be a serious study into the potential health and social impacts of freer cross-border movement, industrialisation and environmental depletion.
The consumerism that inevitably emerges from industrialisation would change local people's way of life, Dr Khanat said.
People could grow fatter as they become more wealthy, he said, while communicable diseases and parasites would become more resistant to medication.
Suphakit Nuntavorakarn, a researcher from the Healthy Public Policy Foundation, said Thai civil society organisations do not oppose development. They merely want to see the promotion of industries that best match the environmental and cultural characteristics of the Dawei region as well as Kanchanaburi, he said.
"Myanmar's greenhouse gas emissions will increase by five times after the Dawei project is complete," Mr Suphakit said.
He said water consumption would be greater at 5.9 million cubic metres a day, with more waste water, industrial waste and household and industrial garbage.
"Therefore, the investing company needs to look at the overall picture as there will be an enormous impact on the people and the environment on both sides of the border," he said.

LINK: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/309643/academics-call-for-dawei-port-plan-rethink

 

Thai Environmentalists Expresses Concerns On Dawei Project

In the seminar on 24th August of Friday in Thailand’s Mahidol University, ‘the relationships between Thailand and Myanmar – From Ma Ta Put to Dawei (Tavoy in Burmese)’, three Bangkok based civil society organizations, working on environment and health issues expressed their grave concerns on environmental and health impacts from Dawei deep seaport and industrial estate development project to Thai people near Thailand-Burma border and Burma’s ethnic fishing and farming communities.

A half-day seminar was arranged by academics from Environment and Resources Studies department of Mahidol University (Salaya Campus) and three civil society organizations, Ecological Alert and Recovery – Thailnd, Healthy Public Policy – Thailand, and Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA).
Chairman of TERRA, Mr.. Virawat Thiraprasat, said in the panel discussion, “the local people have a very simple economy, fishing and farming. Why we should not promote these economies, and why Thai investors put heavy industries like steel factories, petrochemical industries, which are never benefiting to the local people”.
He and other panelists on the environment have pointed out that the Thai investors have chosen the Dawei Project to avoid strong local opposition to expansion of industry zone, especially petrochemical industries zone, in the South and in Map Ta Phut, southeast of Thailand.
However, a Thai authority from National Economic and Social Planning Department, Mrs. Potjanee Untarokuenyar confirmed in the panel session that ‘Thai investors especially Italia-Thai Development (ITD) Company will continuously invest billions of dollars in Dawei project for the benefits of both Thai and Burmese (Myanmar) people’.
She also said that the Thai government will support the ITD as a Thai investor, which received a great contract from Myanmar government as a main developer in Burma. He also added Thai and Burmese government agreed to set up ‘temporary border point’ at Puu Nam Ron, from which ITD has been building a road to Dawei deep seaport and industry zone.
But the environmentalists have expressed that the dam construction and dirty petrochemical zones will seriously impacts the livelihood of the local people, wildlife, forests and water resources in the area. They said that the Burmese people have no strong environment laws to protect their resources and health, and the investors may take advantages to invest dirty and heavy industries in the country like Burma.

A road by ITD in Dawei Project site

Kanchanaburi and Nonthaburi district residents in central and western part of Thailand, also questioned the impacts of motorways from Bang Yai, near Bangkok, which pass through Kanchanaburi Province, reached to Puu Nam Ron border point. The resident worried for their communities because their properties on the route of motorways will be taken with compensation costs, but they have more concerns on the transports of toxic materials by trucks passing near their houses. They also said that there will be a serious pollution on these roads.
Thai government’s Transport Department plans to build a 170 kilometers long motorway from Bangkok to the border with Burma, and then ITD is building 160 kilometers long road from the border to Dawei project site.
The Thai government and Burmese government led by President U Thein Sein re-affirmed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) when the Burmese president paid for a 3-days visit in the 3rd week of July to Bangkok. He was also shown the Laem Chabang Port and Laem Chabang Industrial Estate in eastern Chon Buri by Thai authorities to inspire him into extending full political support to the Thai-invested Dawei project in Myanmar’s southern town of Dawei.

Link : http://www.bnionline.net/index.php/news/imna/13597-thai-environmentalists-expresses-concerns-on-dawei-project-.html

Activists Demand Transparency for Dawei

By LAWI WENG / THE IRRAWADDY| July 26, 2012 | 

 

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Artist’s impression of how the finished Dawei project will look. (Photo: daweidevelopment.com)

Transparency and accountability are crucial to ensure the Dawei (Tavoy) deep-sea port project in southern Burma does not adversely affect local people or the environment, claim human rights activists.

The US $8.6 billion project has been on shaky ground recently with Naypyidaw blocking a coal-fueled power plant in January and major investor Max Myanmar pulling out earlier this month, but the signing of three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between Thailand and Burma has put the scheme firmly back on track.

The agreements took place when Burmese President Thein Sein met Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in Bangkok this week, but people living around Dawei have complained that their views are still not being take into account.

“To have transparency and accountability are very important. It is not a matter of national security to let us know what is happening,” Thant Zin, a coordinator for the Dawei Development Association (DDA), told The Irrawaddy at a conference in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, on Thursday.

“Even in our small organization, we let people know what we are doing. The Dawei project is huge and it is going to displace 30,000 people where they build the special economic zone. The government should let us know what is in the agreement.”

Photos of the natural landscape, beaches and wildlife were shown at the conference which was attended by more than 300 people. Activists also posted photos of the devastation caused by the scheme and how much the environment was due to suffer from construction work.

“If our president respects our people, he will not destroy our livelihoods and environment,” said Ko Lay Lwin, another coordinator of DDA. Development should mean helping the prospects of local people first rather setting up a foreign-backed project that will ruin their livelihoods, he added.

Activists said that instead of allowing Italian-Thai Development (ITD), Thailand’s largest construction firm, to build Dawei, the Burmese government should implement a local project instead.

Residents also complained that Dawei is a project which Thailand would not permit on its own soil. The scheme is due to contain a huge petrochemicals center similar to the controversial Map Ta Phut plant, in Thailand’s Rayong Province, which exploded in May claiming 12 lives.

“We feel like Map Ta Phut is a toilet from Thailand that came to settle in our Dawei,” said Ko Lay Lwin.

ITD intends to construct a special economic zone by Nabule village in Dawei as part if the megaproject which involves displacing local people from 50,536 acres of land.

“Without Nabuledaw, there will be no Dawei. This is how the people are feeling,” said Ko Lay Lwin. “If the project forces people to leave their homes, there will be a strong reaction.”

Activists called on the Burmese government to talk directly to local people about the project and warned that tempers were becoming frayed over the unfair compensation being offered by the local authorities for land being used.

“There is no reason to blame local people if some violence came out or they attack the project as the government has no transparency or accountability,” said Thant Zin.

ITD is not offering equal compensation to local people affected by the construction work, according to rights activists. While Karen people on the east side of the project were reportedly paid 300,000 kyat ($340) per rubber tree lost, those who stay on the west side only receive 150,000 kyat ($170).

ITD was first granted a 75-year concession to use land for Dawei in a deal struck with the Burmese government in 2008. Thailand then approved a 33.1 billion baht ($1.1 billion) budget for infrastructure to link up with the project in May.

However, things have not all gone smoothly as ITD was already thought to be struggling to find financial backing for the 250-square-kilometre complex that was planned to include a deep-sea port, steel mills, refineries, a petrochemical complex and power plants. These financial woes were exacerbated by the loss of Max Myanmar which was due to contribute 25 percent of capital, with 50 percent coming from ITD.

 
Original Link  : http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/10130

Dawei residents worry over port project

• Published: 25/07/2012 at 01:44 AM

Residents in Dawei are worried about a deep-sea port project which Myanmar President Thein Sein has promised to push along.

Coordinator U Bo Bo Aung of the Dawei Development Association urged the Thai and Myanmar governments to disclose details of the three memoranda of understanding they signed on Monday to reaffirm their economic cooperation on the project.
"We do not know about the structures and components of the ministerial-level working group which was appointed by the two countries and which will implement the economic cooperation plans, particularly on achieving progress on the Thai-invested Dawei seaport and economic zone," U Bo Bo Aung said from Dawei.
He said there had not been adequate consultation and information-sharing with local people to keep them up to date on the development and its long-term impact on their livelihoods.
"Also, the project's costs and benefits and explanations on who will win or lose from the deal need to be more transparent," U Bo Bo Aung said.
Soe Aung, of the Forum for Democracy in Burma, doubted whether the projects supported by the MoUs would indeed help the people in the area.
"It is alarming that people's property, including farmland, is being confiscated by the government and its cronies, and people are being forced out of the area without proper compensation and consultation," said the Mae Sot-based activist.
Italian-Thai Development has committed to investing at least 300 billion baht in the first phase of the project, which would provide Thailand with a short cut to the Indian Ocean and Myanmar with a gateway to mainland Southeast Asia and Pacific Ocean trade routes.
The company is leading a consortium, which won the concession to develop the port.
The consortium was dealt a setback earlier this month when its main local partner, Max Myanmar, withdrew after it was unable to come up with its share of the capital.
U Bo Bo Aung said while the two governments' backing of the Dawei project should guarantee that international financial institutions would soon come to Italian-Thai's rescue, he still hoped that his government would also look at realities on the ground.
"People talk about positive impacts like job opportunities, but the local people here are more skilled in farming than in working at deep-sea ports and industrial estates," U Bo Bo Aung said.
"They should be trained in skills that will enable them work in the new business environment before imposing the projects on the local people."
Thein Sein's visit to Thailand was widely reported by the media, although political observers commented that his delegation to Thailand was different than the one he had taken to other countries such as Singapore and China, where he was accompanied by more businessmen.
Thein Sein's visit to Thailand is aimed at strengthening Myanmar's bond with Thailand, its second-largest trading partner after China.
Ko Maung, an Asean expert based in Yangon, said the visit is also important as Thailand is accommodating millions of Myanmar migrant workers and refugees.
The analyst said Thein Sein's ability to deliver political and economic reform in Myanmar was being hampered by unpopular ministers, five or six of who would need to be changed.
"When he returns home, he has to deal with his new vice-president [Myint Swe], who is supported by the wife of former president Than Shwe," he said.
"Thein Sein has several battles to fight [at home] while he makes promises outside the country."


Original Link :  http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/304104/dawei-residents-worry-over-port-project