India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway to be operational by 2019

India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway (TH) is likely to be operational by December 2019.

India, Thailand and Myanmar are working on about 1,400 km long highway that will link India with Southeast Asia by land. Once the highway becomes operational it will give a boost to trade, business, health, education and tourism ties among the three countries.

Connectivity of projects such as the India-Myanmar-Thailand TH, extension of TH to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport project are being planned and they are at different stages of implementation.

The India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway is under India's Look East policy that will connect Moreh, India with Mae Sot, Thailand via Myanmar.Imphal-Mandalay-Bangkok 1,980 km (1,230 mi) route, consisting of Imphal-Mandalay 584 km and Mandalay-Bangkok 1,397 km. 

The road is expected to boost trade and commerce in the ASEAN–India Free Trade Area, as well as with the rest of Southeast Asia. India has also proposed extending the highway to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The proposed approx 3,200 km  route from India to Vietnam is known as the East-West Economic Corridor (Thailand to Cambodia and Vietnamn became operational in 2015).

India and ASEAN have plans to extend this route to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam as this connectivity will generate annually, an estimated US$70 billion in incremental GDP and 20 million in incremental aggregate employment by 2025, and India has offered US$1 billion line-of-credit for the India-ASEAN connectivity projects (c. Dec 2017).

source : Projectstoday.com | Livemint.com