You’ll notice above that although I discuss a figure of 74% of GDP in the text, in the table for Year 1, this percentage is already at 68 or 69%. This reflects the combined impact of loan repayment plus GDP growth.
GDP ratios aside, I think the bigger concern is debt serviceability and impact on government revenues. As Keith pointed out, what would get cut as principal and interest payments eat into the budget?
I wrote this in response to the overly simplistic analysis that was dominating most discussions. Hope it provides a more nuanced picture.
Like it or hate it the bride is here.The Chinese will not disappear.
The comments above somtimes refer to Tackilek and Mae Sia 80km away where a 2nd Friendship is underway.
as for compensation aside from a very narrow 100m wide strip from the 1020 Asiah Hihway 3 to the bridge locals have sold willingly for huge sums by local standards.
Of course speculators and those with deeper pockets took adavantage Thailand communism and socialism are illegal.
The builders should be done in a month.
The iodine deficiency and rape of theHmong o Bokeo can be passed to USA who betrayed their allies in the struggle against communism,bowing to Beijing in 1973 and dishonouring the KMT general buried in Chiang Khong.
Despite many jinnhaw residents and former KMT fighters we are open to new trade and friendly co-operation which is one way to seduce the dragon.
Best regards from Xhieng Khong
Once again I will state that I cannot respond to your comments about the guiding hand because of 112. Your comments about the “Butcher of Bangkok” surprise me as I read shortly after the carnage that school history books were to include details of the massacre absolving Abhisit and the army. all History should take into account all documents relating to the events and not used as an excuse to distort the truth. Having said that, history is nearly always written by the victors. Abhisit is not a winner and never will be. The truth will be told eventually.
Hopefully, these middle class voters will become more tolerant of other ethnic groups and will consider fair treatment instead of favouritism as the way of dealing with multi-ethnic groups. Otherwise, as some commentators observe when the UMNO become even more inward-looking and rejecting the Chinese and Indians, racial tension will become a source of instability.
I’m looking forward to this. Such a project could mean a massive collapse of the economy. It would give a very real reason for the government to open up towards a democracy, or face uprising from the populace. Of course, it could also strengthen the economy and strengthen the Communists’ hold to power.
“The book also makes no mention of the scientist and South Vietnamese diplomat Buu Hoi’s mission to the United Nations in autumn 1963, which resulted in a seven-nation U.N. delegation to investigate the “pagoda raids” of August 1963. The delegation arrived in Saigon on October 24, and Ngo Dinh Diem allowed it to go anywhere and to speak with anyone; its report was generally favorable to the Saigon government’s handling of the Buddhist “crisis.” However, the U.S. government opposed the sending of this delegation, fearing that it might support Ngo Dinh Diem at the very moment that it was itself endeavoring to have him overthrown. Scholars have tended to ignore the U.N. mission, perhaps because it did not figure into any serious American policy calculations.”
President Diem’s permissive attitude vis-├а-vis the UN delegation may be explained by the fact that his intelligence service had employed sex workers to successfully lure members thereof into situations that rendered them particularly susceptible to blackmail. Various South Vietnamese authors have discussed this affair, but the most reliable among them is probably Trс║зn Ngс╗Нc Nhuс║нn, a former ARVN intelligence officer and senator, whose memoirs have been published in the United States in 1992.
Click on the links below to see the covers of his book as well as the relevant pages therein.
I am concerned about the debt servicing aspects of this deal, and the sovereignty issues these raise. There are also serious concerns regarding the lack of information on how this deal is structured. For example, who will benefit from the construction jobs on this project? Will it use labor from Laos, or will all the labor for the project be imported from China?
That being said, I also have to question the “75% of GDP” number being tossed about. That assumes the GDP of the Lao PDR is static. Some things to consider in making a well reasoned analysis:
-Recent WTO membership;
-ASEAN economic integration in 2015;
-Increased sales of electricity to neighbors in coming years;
-Increased exports of agricultural products in the region in coming years;
-Increased trade and movement of people throughout the region in coming years;
-Economic growth rate…let’s assume around 8% annually for the foreseeable future.
So the calculus should not be based on what the GDP was in 2011. It should start with what the country’s GDP will be in 2013 (I realize those numbers are not in yet), and then slide forward to considerations such as what the GDP will be in 2015, 2020, etc. That should shift some of the numbers in the chart above.
I’m sure it still comes out looking risky, but…and that digging and developing ‘new sources of natural resources’ is certainly a head scratcher that should cause concern.
Just for fun, I would like someone to do a comparative analysis of the financing of the Brooklyn Bridge, or another major rail project in history.
Yingluck really wants to get the railway done, Laos should ask Thailand to help pay for it because it will only benefit Thailand and other southern areas. I really wonder how much money these Lao gov’t officials are getting under the table.
The idea of ‘national cleansing’ is an interesting one, and reminds me of David Streckfuss’ argument about the 2006 coup (and others?) being viewed as a kind of ritual of cleansing and renewal.
I’m still not convinced that clean/pure politics is the key. Other regional countries have managed impressive development results (Japan etc) with all manner of ‘corruption’… the problem it seems to me lies elsewhere…
I’ve acknowledged in a previous NM piece that there is some unease re the idea of gender quotas for precisely the reason you’ve outlined: suspicion largely due to the NEP.
However, the circumstances are far from the same. With the NEP, what was originally meant to be a measure to reduce poverty and remove the identification of race in local economics soon looked to be doing the exact opposite.
In contrast, implementing quotas for women in the political realm acknowledges straight off that women specifically face a hard time advancing in politics for a number of reasons, not least because the structure of Malaysian politics today makes it an arena where men will thrive. In this context, quotas level the playing field for women.
Finally, equality should not be confused with symmetry, or erasing all forms of difference. This discussion on women representatives in parliament must kept going, lest the fewer numbers lead to a “gender blind spot” on parliamentary legislation.
Ryan’s ” …why Thai elites, or those within its minority civil society sector, harbor such a desire for a ‘people’s politics’ disassociated from political interests … unsullied by entanglement with the muck and corruption of state … mirroring their demands for ‘good men’ at the national political level, so there appears to be an insistence for ‘good men’ and pure people’s politics at the grassroots level” is misleading and is false.
Not only Thai “elites” but every Thai of whatever economic or social station harbor such desire for ‘good men in government’. But Thais, elite or not, are also common sensical and realistic about accepting doses of corruption in government and politics, whether in democracy or not. In fact that’s the universal (the whole world) thing, is it not?
But there are limits and there are such things as ‘too much’ and ‘unconscionable’. And Thaksin’s scale of corruption and constitutional abuses breached those ‘limits’.
In every country of the world, developing or developed, leaders (democratic or not) who breached ‘limits of corruption and abuses’ are ceremoniously or unceremoniously booted out of office, and, criminally prosecuted to reassert the balance of decency in government. When it happens, it is political and national cleansing, and not ‘pure politics’ Ryan.
I completely agree with you there. What can we do? some would suggest affirmative action. I’ve seen us go down that route before, I am not a fan of it – but not entirely against it.
How about a radical thought, since there’s (until we become much more liberal) only 2 genders. Have two MPs per seat, a man and a woman. This way you can’t have possibly accuse any party for discrimination. To substitute for the double up in seats, combine regions and reduce them into halves.
so 111 specifically for each gender. why not?
final thought on the matter, as long as we continue to think in terms of ethnic or gender make up, some group will always be marginalised, be it Non-Malay/Women.
ask yourselves this: why are women being marginalised? Is it because you see them as women, instead of MPs? Then ask yourself again, what does this report see that list of MPs as?
the solution cannot be born off the same root as the problem.
One wonders whether there is any historical precedent for a country to borrow 75% of GDP for a single infrastructure mega-project.
And if Laos completes the Boten-Vientiane rail link, would that make Deputy PM Somsavat Lengsavad the greatest nation builder in world economic history ?
Just need to think about where to shave off that 20% of the national budget in the first few years….
The Yingluck administration’s preliminary estimate for the hi-speed train project is a mind-blowing Baht 600 million per kilometer.
PM Yingluck said the hi-speed traings was necessary to, among other things, ‘help vegetable farmers et al to move their goods to market’. (Ugh! Beautiful Yingluck’s frequent mental lapses entertains perhaps, but and certainly embarrasses.)
If Thailand’s hi-speed rail projects could no longer be derailed, and considering its billions or near trillion spending tab, somebody in the Yingluck administration should think up ways to squeeze more ‘juice’ thereof, other than ‘speeding up Thai vegetable transport’. For one thing, the opportunity to gain rapid technology transfer in the bullet trains should not be passed up and ‘hi-speed train technology transfer’ should be a pre-requisite to foreign bidders to the project.
Some economic benefits could trickle down to the less privileged Thais and further lower the Thai poverty line … somehow maybe.
Basically the key message is get the smaller projects done correctly before rushing to do mega-projects (this applies to hydro too). Building the rail-link along the route of the NW corridor would make more sense since this is the most direct path to Thailand where China really wants to do business. The Nong Khai-Thanalaeng connection on the Mekong Plain is not exploding with activity. So will a rail through numerous mountains with hidden obstacles create more enthusiasm?
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Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
Hi Robert,
You’re right regarding the GDP issue.
You’ll notice above that although I discuss a figure of 74% of GDP in the text, in the table for Year 1, this percentage is already at 68 or 69%. This reflects the combined impact of loan repayment plus GDP growth.
GDP ratios aside, I think the bigger concern is debt serviceability and impact on government revenues. As Keith pointed out, what would get cut as principal and interest payments eat into the budget?
I wrote this in response to the overly simplistic analysis that was dominating most discussions. Hope it provides a more nuanced picture.
Cheers,
Tristan
Mekong bridge at Chiang Khong
Like it or hate it the bride is here.The Chinese will not disappear.
The comments above somtimes refer to Tackilek and Mae Sia 80km away where a 2nd Friendship is underway.
as for compensation aside from a very narrow 100m wide strip from the 1020 Asiah Hihway 3 to the bridge locals have sold willingly for huge sums by local standards.
Of course speculators and those with deeper pockets took adavantage Thailand communism and socialism are illegal.
The builders should be done in a month.
The iodine deficiency and rape of theHmong o Bokeo can be passed to USA who betrayed their allies in the struggle against communism,bowing to Beijing in 1973 and dishonouring the KMT general buried in Chiang Khong.
Despite many jinnhaw residents and former KMT fighters we are open to new trade and friendly co-operation which is one way to seduce the dragon.
Best regards from Xhieng Khong
Desiring a pure people’s politics
udd statement on 19th may:
http://thairedshirts.org/2013/05/21/udd-statement-on-may-19th-2013/
The people rise again?
not only that the green is a dirty yellow – there is another differenz to red:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/976714_468479323229455_839502544_o.jpg
Why Thailand needs its king
Once again I will state that I cannot respond to your comments about the guiding hand because of 112. Your comments about the “Butcher of Bangkok” surprise me as I read shortly after the carnage that school history books were to include details of the massacre absolving Abhisit and the army. all History should take into account all documents relating to the events and not used as an excuse to distort the truth. Having said that, history is nearly always written by the victors. Abhisit is not a winner and never will be. The truth will be told eventually.
Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
Anouvong:
You’re not really narrowing down your analysis of the scope of potential impacts from this project…
Middle Malaysia has arrived?
Hopefully, these middle class voters will become more tolerant of other ethnic groups and will consider fair treatment instead of favouritism as the way of dealing with multi-ethnic groups. Otherwise, as some commentators observe when the UMNO become even more inward-looking and rejecting the Chinese and Indians, racial tension will become a source of instability.
Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
I’m looking forward to this. Such a project could mean a massive collapse of the economy. It would give a very real reason for the government to open up towards a democracy, or face uprising from the populace. Of course, it could also strengthen the economy and strengthen the Communists’ hold to power.
Review of Misalliance
Professor Taylor writes:
“The book also makes no mention of the scientist and South Vietnamese diplomat Buu Hoi’s mission to the United Nations in autumn 1963, which resulted in a seven-nation U.N. delegation to investigate the “pagoda raids” of August 1963. The delegation arrived in Saigon on October 24, and Ngo Dinh Diem allowed it to go anywhere and to speak with anyone; its report was generally favorable to the Saigon government’s handling of the Buddhist “crisis.” However, the U.S. government opposed the sending of this delegation, fearing that it might support Ngo Dinh Diem at the very moment that it was itself endeavoring to have him overthrown. Scholars have tended to ignore the U.N. mission, perhaps because it did not figure into any serious American policy calculations.”
President Diem’s permissive attitude vis-├а-vis the UN delegation may be explained by the fact that his intelligence service had employed sex workers to successfully lure members thereof into situations that rendered them particularly susceptible to blackmail. Various South Vietnamese authors have discussed this affair, but the most reliable among them is probably Trс║зn Ngс╗Нc Nhuс║нn, a former ARVN intelligence officer and senator, whose memoirs have been published in the United States in 1992.
Click on the links below to see the covers of his book as well as the relevant pages therein.
http://imageshack.us/f/600/bookcovers.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/f/547/blackmaila.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/f/692/blackmailb.jpg/
Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
I am concerned about the debt servicing aspects of this deal, and the sovereignty issues these raise. There are also serious concerns regarding the lack of information on how this deal is structured. For example, who will benefit from the construction jobs on this project? Will it use labor from Laos, or will all the labor for the project be imported from China?
That being said, I also have to question the “75% of GDP” number being tossed about. That assumes the GDP of the Lao PDR is static. Some things to consider in making a well reasoned analysis:
-Recent WTO membership;
-ASEAN economic integration in 2015;
-Increased sales of electricity to neighbors in coming years;
-Increased exports of agricultural products in the region in coming years;
-Increased trade and movement of people throughout the region in coming years;
-Economic growth rate…let’s assume around 8% annually for the foreseeable future.
So the calculus should not be based on what the GDP was in 2011. It should start with what the country’s GDP will be in 2013 (I realize those numbers are not in yet), and then slide forward to considerations such as what the GDP will be in 2015, 2020, etc. That should shift some of the numbers in the chart above.
I’m sure it still comes out looking risky, but…and that digging and developing ‘new sources of natural resources’ is certainly a head scratcher that should cause concern.
Just for fun, I would like someone to do a comparative analysis of the financing of the Brooklyn Bridge, or another major rail project in history.
Desiring a pure people’s politics
Ryan, do you remember how thailand was like when japan attacked Pearl Harbour?
Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
Yingluck really wants to get the railway done, Laos should ask Thailand to help pay for it because it will only benefit Thailand and other southern areas. I really wonder how much money these Lao gov’t officials are getting under the table.
Desiring a pure people’s politics
The idea of ‘national cleansing’ is an interesting one, and reminds me of David Streckfuss’ argument about the 2006 coup (and others?) being viewed as a kind of ritual of cleansing and renewal.
I’m still not convinced that clean/pure politics is the key. Other regional countries have managed impressive development results (Japan etc) with all manner of ‘corruption’… the problem it seems to me lies elsewhere…
Malaysian women parliamentarians: why the different numbers?
Hi Anon, thanks for your feedback.
I’ve acknowledged in a previous NM piece that there is some unease re the idea of gender quotas for precisely the reason you’ve outlined: suspicion largely due to the NEP.
However, the circumstances are far from the same. With the NEP, what was originally meant to be a measure to reduce poverty and remove the identification of race in local economics soon looked to be doing the exact opposite.
In contrast, implementing quotas for women in the political realm acknowledges straight off that women specifically face a hard time advancing in politics for a number of reasons, not least because the structure of Malaysian politics today makes it an arena where men will thrive. In this context, quotas level the playing field for women.
Finally, equality should not be confused with symmetry, or erasing all forms of difference. This discussion on women representatives in parliament must kept going, lest the fewer numbers lead to a “gender blind spot” on parliamentary legislation.
Desiring a pure people’s politics
Ryan’s ” …why Thai elites, or those within its minority civil society sector, harbor such a desire for a ‘people’s politics’ disassociated from political interests … unsullied by entanglement with the muck and corruption of state … mirroring their demands for ‘good men’ at the national political level, so there appears to be an insistence for ‘good men’ and pure people’s politics at the grassroots level” is misleading and is false.
Not only Thai “elites” but every Thai of whatever economic or social station harbor such desire for ‘good men in government’. But Thais, elite or not, are also common sensical and realistic about accepting doses of corruption in government and politics, whether in democracy or not. In fact that’s the universal (the whole world) thing, is it not?
But there are limits and there are such things as ‘too much’ and ‘unconscionable’. And Thaksin’s scale of corruption and constitutional abuses breached those ‘limits’.
In every country of the world, developing or developed, leaders (democratic or not) who breached ‘limits of corruption and abuses’ are ceremoniously or unceremoniously booted out of office, and, criminally prosecuted to reassert the balance of decency in government. When it happens, it is political and national cleansing, and not ‘pure politics’ Ryan.
Malaysian women parliamentarians: why the different numbers?
are you actually suggesting that we should not refer to the individuals in the table as “elected” representatives???
“Contested Seputeh MP Teresa Kok in her victory speech thanked….”
??????
Malaysian women parliamentarians: why the different numbers?
fact: there is a lack of woman MPs.
I completely agree with you there. What can we do? some would suggest affirmative action. I’ve seen us go down that route before, I am not a fan of it – but not entirely against it.
How about a radical thought, since there’s (until we become much more liberal) only 2 genders. Have two MPs per seat, a man and a woman. This way you can’t have possibly accuse any party for discrimination. To substitute for the double up in seats, combine regions and reduce them into halves.
so 111 specifically for each gender. why not?
final thought on the matter, as long as we continue to think in terms of ethnic or gender make up, some group will always be marginalised, be it Non-Malay/Women.
ask yourselves this: why are women being marginalised? Is it because you see them as women, instead of MPs? Then ask yourself again, what does this report see that list of MPs as?
the solution cannot be born off the same root as the problem.
Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
One wonders whether there is any historical precedent for a country to borrow 75% of GDP for a single infrastructure mega-project.
And if Laos completes the Boten-Vientiane rail link, would that make Deputy PM Somsavat Lengsavad the greatest nation builder in world economic history ?
Just need to think about where to shave off that 20% of the national budget in the first few years….
Desiring a pure people’s politics
The Yingluck administration’s preliminary estimate for the hi-speed train project is a mind-blowing Baht 600 million per kilometer.
PM Yingluck said the hi-speed traings was necessary to, among other things, ‘help vegetable farmers et al to move their goods to market’. (Ugh! Beautiful Yingluck’s frequent mental lapses entertains perhaps, but and certainly embarrasses.)
If Thailand’s hi-speed rail projects could no longer be derailed, and considering its billions or near trillion spending tab, somebody in the Yingluck administration should think up ways to squeeze more ‘juice’ thereof, other than ‘speeding up Thai vegetable transport’. For one thing, the opportunity to gain rapid technology transfer in the bullet trains should not be passed up and ‘hi-speed train technology transfer’ should be a pre-requisite to foreign bidders to the project.
Some economic benefits could trickle down to the less privileged Thais and further lower the Thai poverty line … somehow maybe.
Fiscal folly or essential infrastructure
Basically the key message is get the smaller projects done correctly before rushing to do mega-projects (this applies to hydro too). Building the rail-link along the route of the NW corridor would make more sense since this is the most direct path to Thailand where China really wants to do business. The Nong Khai-Thanalaeng connection on the Mekong Plain is not exploding with activity. So will a rail through numerous mountains with hidden obstacles create more enthusiasm?