Japanese construction group to rebuild bridges in Myanmar

A bridge in Myanmar (Source: www.mmtimes.com)

 Japanese heavy equipment and infrastructure company IHI Corp. will rebuild two bridges in Myanmar to upgrade the country's transportation infrastructure along the East-West Economic Corridor stretching to Vietnam via Thailand and Laos, according to Kyodo News.
Under a contract signed last week with the bridge department of Myanmar's Ministry of Construction, IHI Infrastructure Systems Co., IHI's subsidiary, will dismantle three existing bridges along the economic corridor and replace two of them with new ones by July 2023, the news agency citied a recent IHI statement.

The two four-lane bridges to be built are the 480m Atran Bridge and the 797m Gyaing Zathabyin Bridge that cross the Gyaing River in southeast Myanmar near the Thai border.

The other bridge to be demolished by IHI is the Gyaing Kawkareik Bridge, with its replacement bridge under construction by Hazama Ando Corp. and P.S. Mitsubishi Construction Co.

The replacement of the three bridges is being promoted under a 33.9 billion yen (308 million USD) low-interest loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Japan decided to finance the bridge replacement project because the existing ones are not suitable for heavy vehicles, hindering the smooth flow of transportation in the East-West Economic Corridor.

Construction of the existing bridges began in the late 1990s by Myanmar's Ministry of Construction, but an inadequate level of technology and budgeting resulted in maintenance issues and a weight limit of 20 tonnes for crossing vehicles, according to JICA.

VNA