More on the back door (and an official with an odd map)
The newswire is a funny old thing, the more you learn to use it the more useful information drops off it, the more you find interesting local news that the world should know about published on the websites of obscure (to me) trade magazines.
The article below, on one of my hot topics, the back door to China, was found in Fruit Transporter's Monthly, or perhaps a similar article was, anyway, those magazines covering Logisitics are abuzz with the recent treaty (actually, I think, the ratification of an old treaty) presumably because it gives them a great excuse to print photos of something other than refrigerated shipping containers. (apologies to the writers and publishers of trade magazines everywhere - I know that your publications are of great interest to their audience and provide a valuable service, back in my Engineering days I did once read a copy of Concrete Monthly from cover to cover - though only because I had revision to do!).
The reason I bring it up, however, is that I feel the story should be getting greater coverage elsewhere - though perhaps I am panicking unnecessarily as I haven't seen the 'new' agreement and I note that the Yunnan official interviewed in the piece has an odd grasp on geography - to send barges from Yunnan to Bangkok in 20 hours would require a giant canal between here (The Golden Triangle) and the navigable reaches of the Mae Ping and Chao Phraya built through mountains that even in railway's Golden Age (the late 1800's) even, for that matter during it's mountains-are-no-obstacle age (WWII), resisted the track first suggested by British surveyors and explorers. The railway would have crossed the river at Chiang Saen and headed up the Laos bank (where, 150 years later, another 'back door' road is being slowly built) to Chiang Roong and thence to China proper.
My main worry, if we assume that they won't be building a canal or re-routing the Mekong to drain through Thailand, is the all too possible claim that soon the larger boats will be able to travel all the way to Vientiane. As I understand it the only obstacle to this (Chinese Dam engineers can presumably be told not to drop the water level) is the Khong Phi Luang rapids between the Golden Triangle and Chiang Saen. Blasting these rapids would not only mean the end of a beautiful boat ride (which as a good NIMBY and enthusiastic guest sender I should complain about anyway) but it could also mean the end of an ugly but incredibly rare fish.
Everything else has been blasted to such an extent that these rapids are the only known confirmed spawning ground of the Giant Mekong Catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.
According to Zeb Hogan who is heading up National Geographic's Mega Fishes project to catch and micro-chip these fish every year during the fishing season (rapid blasting is not the only threat - the project also aims to provide alternatives to fishing) when they are traditionally caught in giant nets as they migrate upstream. Females caught in Chiang Khong are carrying eggs and those caught in Chiang Saen are not - nowhere else on their annual migration from Tonle Sap in Cambodia to places as far North as Yunnan has this been observed; aside from destruction elsewhere other contributing factors may be year round 50m deep pools (Nat. Geo. have depth sounded) over which our giant river can, during the dry season, be 5m wide and flat as a mill pond - still waters run deep.
Next year, Anantara and Four Seasons hope to be able to assist Zeb in his work and, purely selfishly, I hope to finally see one of these elusive, massive creatures from the deep.
___________________________________
Six-nation pact sets stage for upgrading Mekong river trade
By Raymond Duan
Beijing
Transport along the Mekong River, called the "The Danube of the East'', has entered a new era with the recent signing of a co-operation agreement by the six nations that the river meanders through.
Transport ministers from China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam after more than a decade of negotiations agreed to jointly build a cross-border trade and transport system.
Over 60 million people depend on the river and its tributaries for food, water, transport and many other aspects of their daily lives. The river supports one of the world's most diverse fisheries, second only to Brazil's Amazon River.
Trade along the river has been slow, but with the clearance of the blockages, the situation has improved.
By the end of the year, China will improve the channels of the course of the Mekong, called Lancang River in Chinese, to enable larger vessels to sail between China, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, said Qiao Xinmin, director of the China Lancang River Shipping Administration, based in Kunming, Yunnan province.
China now uses 350-tonne vessels to carry goods along the river compared with 150-tonne vessels previously. Last year Yunnan recorded 500,000 tonnes of outbound cargo along the river which helped reduce transport costs by 15 to 30 percent, according to Yunnan officials .
Main river projects on the Chinese side, from Jinghong Port to the No 243 boundary mark with Myanmar, have been completed. China is now constructing multi-purpose berths at Guanlei along the Chinese border to boost trade.
The other signatories of the agreement have also been investing in the upgrading of river transport. Myanmar moved a small border village to make way for berths, Thailand expanded its Chiang Saen river port while Laos is building berths and upgrading road links to the river.
China and Myanmar have agreed to set up a river-road joint operation while Vietnam and China will chart a trade route along the Honghe River. China has offered financial support for the construction of bridges along the river and the railway is upgrading links with Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos.
Upgrading the river channel will commercialise shipping and make the Danube of the East a golden river with prospects of cheaper transport of goods down the river to ocean-going ports, said Qiao. "The volume of cross-border shipping is expected to reach 1.5 million tonnes annually by 2010.''
China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand started shipping commercial goods down the river in June 2001. But unsatisfactory river conditions sometimes led to accidents. The bottlenecks were cleared by early 2004. Over the past five years cross-border shipping has handled more than two million tonnes of cargo along the Lancang River with a trade value of more than US$1.25 billion.
The Mekong River deal also calls on the six countries to remove or reduce non-physical barriers at borders, such as setting up a one-stop Customs inspection centre, allowing goods vehicles to pass across borders with fewer checks.
The six nations have accelerated their infrastructure programmes. In Yunnan, "cross-border channels have made good progress and will come on stream after the opening of trunk roads,'' said Yang Guangcheng, director of the Yunnan Provincial Communications Department. By the end of the year, the Chinese sections of four trunk expressways in the region will be completed, linking Kunming with Bangkok, Hanoi, Rangoon and Chittagong.
"By that time, we can reach Bangkok by expressway in 20 hours,'' Yang said. "And ships from Xishuangbanna in Yunnan will be able to sail directly to Bangkok as well.''
Arjun Thapan, director general of the Asian Development Bank's Southeast Asia department, hailed the pact.as ''a crucial instrument for advancing trade, investment, tourism and providing access to vital services."
The article below, on one of my hot topics, the back door to China, was found in Fruit Transporter's Monthly, or perhaps a similar article was, anyway, those magazines covering Logisitics are abuzz with the recent treaty (actually, I think, the ratification of an old treaty) presumably because it gives them a great excuse to print photos of something other than refrigerated shipping containers. (apologies to the writers and publishers of trade magazines everywhere - I know that your publications are of great interest to their audience and provide a valuable service, back in my Engineering days I did once read a copy of Concrete Monthly from cover to cover - though only because I had revision to do!).
The reason I bring it up, however, is that I feel the story should be getting greater coverage elsewhere - though perhaps I am panicking unnecessarily as I haven't seen the 'new' agreement and I note that the Yunnan official interviewed in the piece has an odd grasp on geography - to send barges from Yunnan to Bangkok in 20 hours would require a giant canal between here (The Golden Triangle) and the navigable reaches of the Mae Ping and Chao Phraya built through mountains that even in railway's Golden Age (the late 1800's) even, for that matter during it's mountains-are-no-obstacle age (WWII), resisted the track first suggested by British surveyors and explorers. The railway would have crossed the river at Chiang Saen and headed up the Laos bank (where, 150 years later, another 'back door' road is being slowly built) to Chiang Roong and thence to China proper.
My main worry, if we assume that they won't be building a canal or re-routing the Mekong to drain through Thailand, is the all too possible claim that soon the larger boats will be able to travel all the way to Vientiane. As I understand it the only obstacle to this (Chinese Dam engineers can presumably be told not to drop the water level) is the Khong Phi Luang rapids between the Golden Triangle and Chiang Saen. Blasting these rapids would not only mean the end of a beautiful boat ride (which as a good NIMBY and enthusiastic guest sender I should complain about anyway) but it could also mean the end of an ugly but incredibly rare fish.
Everything else has been blasted to such an extent that these rapids are the only known confirmed spawning ground of the Giant Mekong Catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.
According to Zeb Hogan who is heading up National Geographic's Mega Fishes project to catch and micro-chip these fish every year during the fishing season (rapid blasting is not the only threat - the project also aims to provide alternatives to fishing) when they are traditionally caught in giant nets as they migrate upstream. Females caught in Chiang Khong are carrying eggs and those caught in Chiang Saen are not - nowhere else on their annual migration from Tonle Sap in Cambodia to places as far North as Yunnan has this been observed; aside from destruction elsewhere other contributing factors may be year round 50m deep pools (Nat. Geo. have depth sounded) over which our giant river can, during the dry season, be 5m wide and flat as a mill pond - still waters run deep.
Next year, Anantara and Four Seasons hope to be able to assist Zeb in his work and, purely selfishly, I hope to finally see one of these elusive, massive creatures from the deep.
___________________________________
Six-nation pact sets stage for upgrading Mekong river trade
By Raymond Duan
Beijing
Transport along the Mekong River, called the "The Danube of the East'', has entered a new era with the recent signing of a co-operation agreement by the six nations that the river meanders through.
Transport ministers from China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam after more than a decade of negotiations agreed to jointly build a cross-border trade and transport system.
Over 60 million people depend on the river and its tributaries for food, water, transport and many other aspects of their daily lives. The river supports one of the world's most diverse fisheries, second only to Brazil's Amazon River.
Trade along the river has been slow, but with the clearance of the blockages, the situation has improved.
By the end of the year, China will improve the channels of the course of the Mekong, called Lancang River in Chinese, to enable larger vessels to sail between China, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, said Qiao Xinmin, director of the China Lancang River Shipping Administration, based in Kunming, Yunnan province.
China now uses 350-tonne vessels to carry goods along the river compared with 150-tonne vessels previously. Last year Yunnan recorded 500,000 tonnes of outbound cargo along the river which helped reduce transport costs by 15 to 30 percent, according to Yunnan officials .
Main river projects on the Chinese side, from Jinghong Port to the No 243 boundary mark with Myanmar, have been completed. China is now constructing multi-purpose berths at Guanlei along the Chinese border to boost trade.
The other signatories of the agreement have also been investing in the upgrading of river transport. Myanmar moved a small border village to make way for berths, Thailand expanded its Chiang Saen river port while Laos is building berths and upgrading road links to the river.
China and Myanmar have agreed to set up a river-road joint operation while Vietnam and China will chart a trade route along the Honghe River. China has offered financial support for the construction of bridges along the river and the railway is upgrading links with Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos.
Upgrading the river channel will commercialise shipping and make the Danube of the East a golden river with prospects of cheaper transport of goods down the river to ocean-going ports, said Qiao. "The volume of cross-border shipping is expected to reach 1.5 million tonnes annually by 2010.''
China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand started shipping commercial goods down the river in June 2001. But unsatisfactory river conditions sometimes led to accidents. The bottlenecks were cleared by early 2004. Over the past five years cross-border shipping has handled more than two million tonnes of cargo along the Lancang River with a trade value of more than US$1.25 billion.
The Mekong River deal also calls on the six countries to remove or reduce non-physical barriers at borders, such as setting up a one-stop Customs inspection centre, allowing goods vehicles to pass across borders with fewer checks.
The six nations have accelerated their infrastructure programmes. In Yunnan, "cross-border channels have made good progress and will come on stream after the opening of trunk roads,'' said Yang Guangcheng, director of the Yunnan Provincial Communications Department. By the end of the year, the Chinese sections of four trunk expressways in the region will be completed, linking Kunming with Bangkok, Hanoi, Rangoon and Chittagong.
"By that time, we can reach Bangkok by expressway in 20 hours,'' Yang said. "And ships from Xishuangbanna in Yunnan will be able to sail directly to Bangkok as well.''
Arjun Thapan, director general of the Asian Development Bank's Southeast Asia department, hailed the pact.as ''a crucial instrument for advancing trade, investment, tourism and providing access to vital services."
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