Logistics industry sources in Thailand have reacted sceptically to the news that Thailand and Japan are trialling small, 12-foot containers. 

Adding to the puzzlement are the plans for such a service to be commercialized, possibly as early as this year according to one source, and for them to be part of the country’s improved rail service.

“During the test period, small containers are being transported across various routes such as Kanchanaburi-Bangkok, Bangkok-Chachoengsao-Aranyaprathet and Bangkok-Chachoengsao-Laem Chabang,” Thailand’s official NNT news bureau said.

Press reports have added that the containers might be used as far afield as Dawei in Myanmar, a port which is expected to be linked to Thailand’s rail system under proposed plans. More intriguingly still, reports indicate the rail link to Poipet in Cambodia could be finished in early 2017, leading to the prospect of the containers connecting three countries.

Officials, though, were keen to stress this is just a test run, although there is the option for it to be commercialized.

“The report should be finished by June. Right now it’s studying the process,” Pichet Kunadhamraks, a senior civil engineer at the Ministry of Transport’s Office of Transport and Traffic Policy, told Asia Cargo News. “Its details are not decided,” he added.

Small containers have the advantage of being more movable as they can be put onto a smaller truck thus giving more and prompter access to the urban areas, Kunadhamraks explained. As services go, it’s the kind that congested Bangkok would relish.

It is this which the partners hope to turn into a business, although the precedents for such are few and far between. “It is in our plans [that] we will set up a company to run at the end of this year,” Kunadhamraks told Asia Cargo News.

Both Japanese and Thai investors would be involved with the company being set up as a special purpose vehicle, he said, adding many Japanese firms were interested in investing.

Such has been received sceptically by the local cargo industry. One source said he had never heard of it, but another, John Quarmby, a consultant at the Greater Mekong Subregion Business Forum, told Asia Cargo News that “it was not impossible.”

By Michael Mackey

Southeast Asia Correspondent | Bangkok