By Li Hongmei
Like most of his 6.5 million countrymen, Mr. Galong Vue has never seen or set foot on a train.
However, the 53-year-old farmer knows all about the high-speed railway from China that will run through his village in north-west Laos.
"We first heard that the railway would come through here in 2010," he said.
"Then the Chinese came to survey the land last year. They told me the railway will happen for sure and a train station will be built here."
Some time this year, Mr Vue's village will be gone, replaced by a state-of-the-art railway station capable of accommodating trains that cruise at 193 kph.
China has long dreamed of a high-speed railway connecting it to South-east Asia, enabling more accessible communication and more constant trade contact between China and ASEAN neighbors.
Last year, the leaders of Laos met Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. They described the project as a priority and called for the formal agreement to build the railway to be signed soon.
Starting from Kunming in Yunnan province in south-west China, the railway will travel south through neighboring Laos and then into Thailand.
Ultimately, it will extend all the way to Singapore, via Malaysia. Other branches of the network will reach into Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Constructing it will be a mammoth engineering task. It will require 154 bridges and 76 tunnels, as well as 31 train stations, just to connect the 418-km line from Boten on the Laos-China border to the Laotian capital, Vientiane.
An estimated 20,000 Chinese workers will be needed to build it, with the completion date set for 2019.
Landlocked Laos will be transformed by the railway. A largely agricultural nation where the average annual income is only $1,500 and many people live without running water or electricity, Laos lacks both industry and infrastructure.
Currently, the country boasts only 3 km of functioning railway track.
The rail link under discussion will definitely upgrade Laos' economic status in many aspects. "To get rich, to build the road first," as a popular Chinese saying goes, common good will follow as a path to it is in place.
