Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith will sign the pact with his Laotian counterpart Bounchanh Sinthavong and China’s vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission Hu Zucai on Thursday on the sideline of the forum.

The memorandum will detail the framework for the three countries in relation to the railway network from southern China via Laos to Thailand.

The pact will also cover the construction of a new bridge across the Mekong River linking the Laotian capital with Nong Khai province, Vilawan Mangklatanakul, director of the Foreign Ministry’s International Economic Affairs Department, said.

China has invested in and is helping Laos build a 400-kilometre railway track from the China-Laos border to Vientiane. The construction is halfway through, while Thailand’s 3.5km high-speed railway is also making good progress.

Prayut, attending the second Belt and Road Forum from April 25 to 27 in his capacity as Asean chair, will update the forum on the Asean connectivity master plan, Vilawan said.

The junta’s brainchild – the Eastern Economic Corridor – will also be promoted at the forum to lure investors, notably from China, she said, adding that the plan is to transform the Kingdom into a regional supply-chain hub.

China’s President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 to link his country with other countries via many infrastructure development projects.

So far, 124 countries and 29 international organisations have signed cooperation pacts on the initiative with China.

The first summit on the initiative was held in 2017, while the second forum this week is expected to conclude with a joint communique to forge cooperation among regional countries.

Prayut is to meet with Chinese President Xi and his counterpart, Premier Li Keqiang, to update them about Thailand’s role as Asean chair and other bilateral issues, Vilawan said.

Connectivity has emerged as the key element of regional development, and Prayut yesterday joined Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to inaugurate a new railway link on between the two countries at the border towns of Aranyaprathet and Poipet.

The two premiers also witnessed a signing ceremony at a Thai border post before riding together to the Cambodian town of Poipet on a train donated by Thailand.

Hun Sen described their journey as “historic” and thanked Thailand for its efforts “to reconnect  Cambodia and Thailand”.

The rail link will also serve as a connection between Laos and is Southeast Asian neighbours, Hun Sen said.

Bilateral trade between Thailand and Cambodia currently stands at $6 billion (Bt190 billion).

According to Jim Melo, president of Clark International Airport Corp., the airport will be closed for 24 hours to assess the extent of its damage and ensure that everything would be safe.

Due to the quake, a portion of a mega dike in Pampanga was damaged.

In its initial earthquake bulletin, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the earthquake struck 2 kilometers northeast of this town at 5.11 p.m.

The earthquake was of tectonic origin, with a depth of 21 km.

READ: Magnitude 6.1 earthquake shakes parts of Luzon

The 57-kilometer long mega dike extends at the boundary of this city and the towns of Bacolor, Porac and Santa Rita. It is considered Pampanga’s last defense against lahar in the event of a volcanic eruption

The Santa Catalina Church in Porac town was “ significantly damaged,” according to a post by the archdiocesan committee on church heritage.

The tremor was also felt in Baguio City, Pampanga, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, and Bulacan.

Also in Pampanga, patients in a private hospital were evacuated and the electricity in San Fernando was cut off as a preemptive measure.

The crucifix on the belfry of St. Augustine Church in Lubao town, said to be Pampanga oldest church built by Augustinians, was slightly damaged.

In Bataan, power outages hit Balanga City, Mariveles, Orani and Morong towns.

The Bataan Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office has coordinated with various government agencies to respond to a fire that hit Bataan Refinery Center in Limay town.

The concrete arch that separates Bataan and Pampanga provinces had a gaping crack and was deformed due to the quake.

People were also seen rushing outside the malls in Pampanga and Olongapo City.

The glass door of a fast-food restaurant at SM Pampanga and a portion of a floor in SM Olongapo were damaged due to the quake.

In Bulacan, villagers were also seen rushing outside their houses. In Isabela, local officials said the tremor was felt in Santiago City.

Joey Apolinario, Cagayan education program supervisor, said they were having a seminar at a hotel in Zambales when the quake struck, forcing them to take the stairs and run outside of the building.

Three bodies have been pulled out of a collapsed building in the town of Porac, while an old woman and her grandchild were crushed to death by another building in the town of Lubao, provincial governor Lilia Pineda told ABS-CBN television.

“The quake has caused a blackout,” she said, hampering rescue efforts in the early evening as night closed in.

A powerful earthquake rocked the Philippines on Monday, sending thousands of people fleeing high-rises in Manila as buildings shook.

    Office workers piled out onto the streets as emergency alarms blared, AFP reporters saw, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Feliza Villanueva, 21, a business process outsourcing employee told AFP she and four colleagues were at work when the quake struck.

“This was the second strongest quake I’ve felt in my entire life,” she told AFP as she joined hundreds of others in the courtyard of an office building, waiting for the all clear.

“We were worried but we did not panic,” she said.

“We planned how to evacuate the building. There were too many people going down the stairs, so we waited for our turn. People looked in shock, but no one was shouting or anything like that,” she said.

The quake was centred on the town of Castillejos, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) northwest of Manila, local geologists said.

Scientists from the US Geological Survey logged its magnitude at 6.3, and said its epicentre was 40 kilometres (25 miles) below the Earth’s surface.

Dani Justo, a martial arts instructor, told AFP she was at her Manila home when the quake struck.

“The clothes hanging on our line were really swaying. My shih tzu (dog) dropped flat on the ground,” she added.

The Philippines is part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from quake-prone Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Cambodian premier Hun Sen and his Thai counterpart Prayut Chan-O-Cha witnessed a signing ceremony at a Thai border post before riding together to the Cambodian town of Poipet on a train donated by Thailand.

The pair — with Prayut dressed in a bright yellow shirt — stepped from the carriage in Poipet with their clasped hands held high to the cheers of waiting crowds, waving flags of both countries.

Hun Sen described their journey as “historic” and thanked Thailand for its efforts “to reconnect the railway between Cambodia and Thailand”.

The railway would also better link his country to other southeast Asian neighbours and boost economy and trade, he added.

Bilateral trade between Thailand and Cambodia currently stands at $6 billion.

Cambodia last year re-opened the final stretch of a 370-kilometre (230-mile) railway running from the capital, Phnom Penh, to the Thai border.

The Asian Development Bank bankrolled the reconstruction of the link to the tune of $13 million.

Much of Cambodia’s railways — built by the French in colonial times — were damaged by the years of bitter conflict that engulfed the country during the Cold War era.

The 48-kilometre (30-mile) section of track near Poipet was destroyed in 1973 while the rest of the track to Phnom Penh had been suspended for over a decade due to its poor condition.

The Southeast Asian country has more than 600 kilometres (375 miles) of track extending from its northern border with Thailand to the southern coast.

    Adelina Sau died in February last year after being found outside her employer’s home on the northern Malaysian island of Penang, with her head and face swollen and covered in wounds.

Many Indonesian maids work in more affluent Malaysia and tales of abuse are common, but the horrific nature of Sau’s case generated headlines and sparked diplomatic tensions between the neighbours.

Her employer, S. Ambika, was charged with murder — an offence that carries a mandatory death sentence in Malaysia — shortly after the 21-year-old was rescued and died in hospital.

    But the High Court in Penang dropped the murder charge against her last week, local media reported, without saying why.

Prominent Malaysian human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen called the decision “shocking and unacceptable”.

“This was one of the most public and harrowing abuse cases ever recorded and yet the attorney-general’s chambers somehow saw fit to drop the charge,” Paulsen, a member of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, told AFP.

Steven Sim, an MP from the area where Sau died, said the court decision was “as tragic as the death of Adelina”.

Sim said he had contacted the attorney-general, Tommy Thomas, who had vowed to look into the case.

In Indonesia, Wahyu Susilo, executive director of NGO Migrant Care, condemned the acquittal and described it as “far from justice”.

He said the employer may have been cleared due to a failure to get key witnesses, such as Sau’s parents, to testify at the trial, and called on Jakarta to lodge a protest.

Her murder caused anger in Indonesia, with the foreign minister branding it unacceptable.

Allegations of maid abuse, ranging from overwork to beatings and sex attacks, are a regular diplomatic flashpoint between the Southeast Asian neighbours.

Amid challenges such as the election uncertainty in Thailand and the US-China trade war, which have hindered progress in achieving these goals in the first quarter of 2019, Thailand faces a tough job completing all 13 “economic deliverables” by year-end.

The deliverables fall under three pillars: to help Asean prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR); to enhance Asean connectivity through trade, investment, and tourism; and to enable sustainable economic development in Asean.

Two of its key goals to be discussed at the AEMR are the conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations and the completion of the Asean Single Window (ASW) trade system for all 10 Asean members, said Auramon Supthaweethum, the director-general of the Commerce Ministry’s Department of Trade Negotiations.

If the negotiations are successful, RCEP will be the largest multilateral trade pact in history – encompassing China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the 10 Asean nations.

The combined gross domestic product of RCEP members accounts for up to 28 per cent of global GDP, she said, and as much as 30 per cent of the value of world trade.

In 2017, up to 60 per cent of Thai exports went to RCEP countries, according to Commerce Ministry data.

Meanwhile, the ASW aims to integrate the different national single-window systems of the Asean countries in order to expedite cargo clearance and boost cross-border trade by enabling the electronic exchange of trade-related documents among Asean members.

The ASW has the potential to reduce the time goods have to wait at borders from 10 days to only one to three days.

“Furthermore, there will be the signing of two key documents at the 26th AEMR – the Asean Trade in Services Agreement [ATISA] and the Fourth Protocol to Amend the Asean Comprehensive Investment Agreement [ACIA],” Auramon told The Nation.

The ATISA aims to improve the regulatory standards for the services sector within the region, reduce unnecessary barriers to services trade within Asean and increase the regulatory transparency for the services sector for each Asean member, she said.

The ATISA encompasses principles such as improving regulations to enhance the performance of the services sector, enhancing government regulatory transparency, and providing technical assistance to promote the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The Fourth Protocol to Amend the ACIA will address the issue of governments setting certain |conditions on foreign investors to further enhance investment in the region.

Also, since preparing the region for the 4IR is a key economic priority in 2019, the meeting will discuss what Asean can do as an economic community to meet the challenges of the 4IR, she continued.

One key 4IR goal progressing smoothly so far is the Asean Digital Integration Framework Action Plan, which has already been drafted.

The draft will be discussed at the AEMR, according to the director-general.

Meanwhile, the private sector is eager to see tangible progress on the RCEP negotiations and the ASW after the 26th AEMR.

“Thailand should push for the completion of the RCEP negotiations as soon as possible. The mega-trade pact represents the notion of Asean centrality, and may offset the negative impacts of the US-China trade war on Thai exports,” said Prinn Panitchapakdi, country head of CLSA Securities (Thailand).

Yunyong Thaicharoen, first executive vice president and head of the Siam Commercial Bank’s Economic Intelligence Centre, stated: “We hope to see concrete results from the trade negotiations.

Closer trade ties are beneficial for long-term growth of the economy, especially if the interests of the relevant stakeholders are considered when these trade pacts are being negotiated.”

“We hope to see the development of the ASW for all Asean members to increase the ease of business for exporters in the Asean region,” said Supant Mongkolsuthree, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries.