Ways of approach: Thailand is interested in the Russian North–South corridor

Thailand is interested in joining the North–South international transport corridor, which connects St. Petersburg and the port of Mumbai in India. The Ambassador of the kingdom to the Russian Federation, Sasivat Vongsinsavat, told Izvestia about this. Thailand is currently working with China and the ASEAN countries to improve transport links in the region. In particular, the East–West corridor connecting Myanmar and Vietnam is actively developing. The expert community notes Thailand's historic desire to diversify trade ties, but they are confident that it will be difficult for land corridors to compete with sea routes. What are the prospects for the accession of Southeast Asian countries to the North-South ITC? In the Izvestia article.

Bangkok is thinking about participating in the North–South corridor

The North–South international transport corridor is of interest to the Kingdom of Thailand, the ambassador of this country to the Russian Federation, Sasivat Vongsinsavat, confirmed to Izvestia.

"Of course, international communication is one of the main directions of our policy, especially if it concerns transport routes that will help connect Southeast Asia with Central Asia, all the way to the Middle East," the diplomat said, answering the question whether Bangkok is interested in joining the North–South transport corridor.

This MTK was officially opened in May 2002. The 7.2 thousand km route runs through 13 countries and connects St. Petersburg and the port of Mumbai. Besides Russia and India, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Syria, Turkey, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan are participating in the project.

Meanwhile, the countries of the Middle East are also showing interest in the North–South MTK, especially against the background of the complicated situation in the region, which affected traffic in the Suez Canal. For example, earlier this year, Oman's Foreign Minister, Badr bin Hamad bin Hamoud al-Busaidi, said that his country was weighing the possibilities of connecting to this transport system. Interest in the corridor is also being demonstrated in the United Arab Emirates.

Freight traffic on the MTK may reach up to 60-100 million tons in the future. In May 2023, Russia and Iran signed an agreement on the joint construction of the 170 km long Rasht–Astara railway section, which will connect the North–South MTK overland sections and increase the economic efficiency of the trans-Caspian route. In February 2025, it became known that Russia would allocate an export loan for the construction of this section.

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the volume of traffic along the North–South corridor is constantly growing. "It is clear that access to the Indian Ocean, to the Persian Gulf, is highly interesting from an economic point of view for many senders, because it is a direct seamless movement of goods directly from the Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg and to the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean," the head of state said in December 2024.

Sasivat Vongsinsavat stressed that everything depends for his country on how it can participate in the development of routes such as the North–South corridor.

— We are currently working with our friends in the region to promote the message in Asia. These are China, all neighboring countries, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia — friends from ASEAN," he added.

We are talking, in particular, about the East–West Economic Corridor (EWEC). The idea of creating a route with a total length of 1.3 thousand km between the South China Sea in the east and the Andaman Sea in the Indian Ocean was approved in 1998. Its first sections were commissioned in December 2006.

— This corridor will connect the westernmost part of Thailand, which borders Myanmar. We have a highway in the east of the country that will connect to Laos, and there should be another highway from Laos that will reach Vietnam. The route will end at one of Vietnam's deepwater seaports, Da Nang. Thus, after the completion of the construction of this corridor, the two oceans — the Pacific and the Indian — will connect," he stressed.

Why does Bangkok need new transport routes

Historically, Thailand has sought to balance between different poles, joining the strongest, explains Kirill Kotkov, an orientalist and head of the MAIS Center for the Study of the Far East in St. Petersburg.

Thailand, known as Siam until the late 1930s, has never been a colony of anyone. But it was noticeable that he focused on Great Britain before the Second World War. After the war, they gravitated towards the United States. Now we see a desire to diversify relations, as indicated by the country's membership in BRICS as a partner. It is not surprising, therefore, that Thailand is showing interest in the North–South MTC," he added.

An example of Thailand's desire for a variety of transport links is the China-Thailand railway, which is supposed to reach Singapore and improve logistics in Southeast Asian countries. According to Kirill Kotkov, Bangkok is also pushing for such diversification because Thailand cannot fulfill its long-held dream of building a canal across the Kra Isthmus, which would shorten the sea route from East to South Asia bypassing the Strait of Malacca.

"Such a channel would raise Thailand's role in international transportation, but they cannot do this, because then they will spoil relations with the United States, which wants all goods to pass through Singapore and the Strait of Malacca," the orientalist noted.

At the same time, the expert stressed that India is also interested in developing the East–West economic corridor, since it wants to balance China's influence in Southeast Asia. At the same time, India will be able to bind the eastern separatist states more closely to itself, whose population (with the exception of Assam) is ethnically closer to the population of Myanmar. Therefore, the economic development of these states is beneficial to Delhi.

However, for example, for a country like Vietnam, it would still be preferable to transport goods to Russia by sea rather than take them along the East–West corridor to the port in Myanmar and further to Mumbai, the expert believes. "There is no cheap alternative to sea transportation, given that goods have to pass through dozens of customs offices on land, which increases the cost. The Great Silk Road ceased to exist precisely for this reason. The goods transported on it became too expensive," he concluded.