The Myanmar government said it was in talks to restart the 1,215-kilometer national railway between China's Yunnan province and the Bay of Bengal. The project, one of the most important in the Belt and Road Initiative, will establish the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which includes pipelines, highways, border trade zones, deep-water ports and special economic zones.

The corridor would provide China with a route to oil and gas reserves in the Middle East, bypassing the choke point of the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia. It's unclear how much the rail portion of the corridor will cost, but it was priced at $20 billion in 2011. Delayed by the pandemic, the project is divided into two parts: from Muse to Mandalay, and from Mandalay to the port city of Kyaukpyu. The Muse-Mandalay Railway is a railway planned between Mandalay and Muse in Myanmar. It is one of the flagship projects of the Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. The Muse-Mandalay Railway is expected to have a total length of 431 kilometers and a design speed of 160 kilometers per hour.

A spokesman for Myanmar's military government said that the railway project to Kyaukpyu is included in our development agreement, and the on-site inspection and report have been completed. Implementation of the recovery project is still under discussion.

A source in Myanmar's transport ministry said talks with Chinese officials had been held in the Myanmar capital Nay Pyi Taw. In June 2020, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Railway, applied for a feasibility study on the 650-kilometer section from Mandalay to Kyaukpyu. The Myanmar government and the China Railway Corporation signed a railway memorandum of understanding in October 2018.Editor/XingWentao