Myanmar will call a tender to buy a signal system and new carriages with an incoming loan from Japan for the upgrade of the Yangon circular railway system, according to a senior official from Myanma Railways.
“We haven’t bought the new carriages yet. We asked the Japanese to confirm the loan. We hired a Japanese company to advise us. The signal system and the new carriages will be bought with an official development assistance fund from Japan,” he said.
“The upgrading of the railway system will begin in October, after which more people will have to use the Yangon Bus Service,” said Dr Maung Aung, secretary of Yangon Region Transport Authority on July 11.
“The renovation project was drafted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and is estimated to cost US$206 million. We will upgrade the old circular railway. Traffic will be more congested when the upgrading work starts. Around 100,000 commuters use the train system daily. About 2.8 million commuters use the Yangon public transport system. JICA said around 600,000 commuters will be able to use the railway system daily after it is upgraded. We are not satisfied with that. We are expecting the railway system to serve for more than one million commuters, like in other countries. If we cannot do it, we will have to depend on the bus system,” the secretary said.
More than two million commuters use public bus services daily.
Source : Eleven Myanmar
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