MILAN, Feb. 23 (Class Editori) -- The European Investments Bank is committed as concerns infrastructures in Laos: in fact the Board of Directors of the Luxemburg-based institution will examine the 70-million-euro worth funding, part of a bigger 140-million-euro project to secure almost 200 kilometers of the National Road 13. The project will be divided into four sections, each financed by EIB, the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The infrastructure is one of the backbones in the North-South axis, however its Southern part, from the Laotian capital Vientiane to the boarder with Cambodia, has been damaged by 2018's floods and thus marked by occasional maintenance. The modernization measures will improve the connectivity of the Mekong Subregion with the other ASEAN countries, enhancing the resistance of the route to the effects of climate change.
Vientiane has joined the Belt and Road Initiative and Chinese investments in the country have been huge.
In late September, a Chinese railway engineering company drilled the Ban Phoukeu tunnel, the latest major tunnel of almost 9,000 meters along the China-Laos railway.
This event marked an important milestone in the construction of the cross-border railway and provided a solid foundation to complete the megaproject.
The Ban Phoukeu tunnel, with a length of 8,936 meters, is not only among the ten major tunnels longer than 5 kilometers along the China-Laos railway, but also the fourth longest tunnel with high construction risks and a bottleneck project along the railway.
The tunnel in Muang Nga, in the province of Oudomxay, around 400 kilometers North of the Laotian capital Vientiane, is in a geological suture zone. The tunnel crosses seven faults, with extremely complicated geological conditions, which imply difficulties and high risks in the construction.
In addition, in 2020, the country's entire power grid was handed over to China Southern Power Grid, a state-owned company. (All rights reserved)
(Source:Class Editori)
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