RANONG, Thailand ¨C Chaiyaporn Arunrasamee hunched over his fishing nets, overlooking the waters ?of the Andaman Sea, where Thailand¡¯s government is proposing an ambitious ¡°Land Bridge¡± that will ferry goods between ports on opposite sides of the peninsula.

¡°Personally, I don¡¯t want it to happen at all,¡± Chaiyaporn said of the project, which Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has resuscitated after the war in Iran and the closure of the Hormuz Strait highlighted countries¡¯ reliance on strategic maritime chokepoints.

Plans envision a 1 trillion baht ($30.45 billion) logistics corridor to offer an alternative route to the congested Strait of Malacca by connecting two new deep-sea ports: Chumphon, on the Gulf of Thailand to the east, and Ranong, along the western Andaman coast, where Chaiyaporn, 50, has fished for his entire life.

¡°This thing will be located in the area where we ?make our living,¡± he said last month in the small fishing hamlet of Baan Hat Sai Dam on an island ringed by mangrove forests. ¡°Where will we go?¡±

Reuters crisscrossed the land and communities in the path of the proposed ?Land ?Bridge and interviewed more than 15 residents, local officials, experts, planning leaders and others involved or affected by the process.

The interviews, as well as government documents, reveal ?previously unpublished details of a project with promises of savings and speedy shipments, but hampered by complicated logistics, local opposition and a staggering cost that has yet to attract major investors.

Analysts say the project currently appears economically ambitious and is unlikely to compete with Malacca as a global transit route, but it could prove viable as a smaller-scale strategic corridor for Thailand.

The 900-kilometer-long Malacca Strait is bounded by Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and provides the shortest ?sea route from East Asia to the Middle East and Europe.

¡°The land bridge may ultimately ... emerge as a modular national security asset aimed at securing local energy routes and boosting Thailand¡¯s own western export capabilities,¡± said Eugene Mark at Singapore¡¯s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

An internal government presentation?says the proposed corridor could reduce logistics costs by nearly 30% and cut transit times by up to 14 days for cargo moving between southern China and ports in the Indian Ocean serving South Asia and the Middle East.

At the core of the project is a standard-gauge railway across the 90 km?between the two deep-sea ports, which ?will be capable of handling up to 20 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) a year, ?according to the presentation.

One TEU represents the volume of a single, standardized 20-foot shipping container.

Another meter-gauge rail line will link the cargo flow to the existing national railway network. The corridor would also be supported by multilane highways...