I was gonna comment and ask "does this mean ECRL won't be a white elephant and there will actually be enough cargo hauling on it to make it viable?"
But then based on your answer on Kra Canal I guess you'd say no?

I've been to Rotterdam before and the port area is MASSIVE. Its surprising that Port Klang managed to handle more tonnage.

But if this is the case wouldn't they support the ECRL also?

I remember reading about how the ECRL while is being built by chinese construction companies using loans from China, actually doesn't have any concrete commitments from any shipping companies including Chinese ones that they will actually use it once its built.

Ah, that makes sense.

I'd disagree, in Thailand its rather the military and political parties that have the power. Both sides only use the royalty as an excuse to beat down the other.

You could see this in what has happened recently with the Move Forward Party where the military and established incumbent parties worked together to kick them down so that the status quo is not disturbed. Royalty didn't get involved much even though lese majeste was weaponised against them, although I suppose the royalty would have also seen them as a threat.

But aaaaaanyway, I guess that doesn't detract much from your point that with Thailand its still just thailand but if you go south to Malaysia/ECRL you'd sort of have to worry about Indonesia as well, though I would say even if you have to go through the straits to Port Klang you can do so while entirely within Malaysian sovereign waters.

So I'd have to say I'd agree with Stigonboard in that between these two projects ECRL is likely the one to have more use and that's if either of those two actually end up being anything more than white elephants in the first place.

This post has been edited by RViN: May 26 2025, 05:22 PM