Baht Beyond Borders #3 – Thai investment booming next door
Myeik Coal Plant, Myanmar
In Thailand’s continuing push to secure electricity from its neighbors, in October, 2014, Thai, Burmese and Japanese firms singed a memorandum of understanding to study a massive 2,640-megawatt coal-fired power plant in the seaside town of Myeik on Myanmar southern coast.
With a population of just over 200,000, Myeik is home to mostly fishermen and rubber and coconut plantation workers. The area, however, is not on Myanmar’s national power grid, a key motivation for the project. Local residences protested pervious coal-fired proposals dating back to 2012, fearing environmental impacts.
Among the consortium’s core partners is Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Public Company Limited (45 per cent owned by the Electrical Generating Authority of Thailand) and Marubeni Corporation (A major Japanese conglomerate). They stress they intend to construct what they term an environmentally-friendly coal-fired power plant using state-of-the-art technology. Meanwhile, government officials claim that no project will be built absent public support.
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