Planning Framework for International Freight Transportation Infrastructure: A Case Study on the East-West Economic Corridor in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Multinational companies have expanded their supply chain across Asia to enjoy the benefits of Free Trade Agreements and Economic Partnership Agreements. They have to manage their upstream and downstream supply chain for procurement and sale, in which various kinds of materials/parts and products are distributed with different requirements transportation costs and lead-time. It is therefore desirable for them to have international land and/or intermodal transportation options in addition to maritime transportation. However, each country whose interests are not always consistent with those of multinational companies has a responsibility to plan and finance international freight transportation infrastructure including land and/or intermodal transportation. This paper aims to review the planning practices of international freight transportation infrastructure, to identify the gap between the practices and multinational companies' logistics needs, and to propose international cooperative planning framework focusing on the benefits of less developed countries and common infrastructure financing scheme in the region, through a case study on the East-West Economic Corridor in the Greater Mekong Subregion.