Myanmar hands over report of land acquisition of Bangladesh-Myanmar Friendship Road

Dhaka, March 28 (BDNEWS) – The visiting financial task force of Myanmar handed over the report of land acquisition and ultimate alignment design of the Bangladesh-Myanmar Friendship Link Road to the Communication minister Barrister Nazmul Huda at a meeting in Dhaka Monday. The meting reviewed the progress of implementation as well as to find out the potential financing sources for the link road project, said a press release. The project aimed at enhancing regional cooperation and promoting socio-economic progress by strengthening economic and trade relations in the South and Southeast Asia. The friendship road will stretch from Taungbro to Kyauktaw of Myanmar via Ramu-Gundom of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh with a total cost of Tk 9334.6 million will be required for the full implementation of the project. Myanmar financial task force leader U Han Zaw with other members of the team handed over the design to the minister. Myanmar Ambassador to Bangladesh U Thane Myint was also present. Engineer Md Edris Mia, the Chief of technical task force of Bangladesh, Communication secretary Shafiqul Islam and Roads & Highways chief engineer Faijur Rahman were present in the meeting. Initially, as a mark of friendship, the government of Bangladesh will build 20km road from Taungbro to Bawli Bazar inside Myanmar with two long bridges and 90 culverts at a cost of Tk 940 million with its own resources. Bangladeshi engineers and construction firms will implement the first phase of the project, said the meeting. Besides, the road between Ramu-Gundum in Bangladesh part will be built with own resources in the first phase at a cost of Tk 691.3 million. Later, another 110km road from Bawli Bazar to Kyautaw in Myanmar will be constructed at an estimated cost of Tk 7,702.6 million. The meeting said the government has already approached the Asian development Bank (ADB) to finance the second phase while financial assistance from Chaina and other international monetary agencies will be sought to implement the project. The task force team of Myanmar will sit in several meetings with technical task force of Bangladesh government and discuss about the technical and financial matters of the project during the next two days. BDNEWS/1839 hrs