Rangoon is set to start on a long-term urban facelift in cooperation with a Japanese agency that is drafting a 40-year upgrading plan to give the colonial city more modern urban characteristics, local media reported on Thursday.
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The draft plan, prepared in cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, is expected to be completed by 2013.
It will include upgrading the city's drainage system, urban transportation, drinking water system, and the Thilawa Special Economic Zone and port terminals, according to the Myanmar Post Global newspaper.
Only 60 per cent of the 6-million population in Rangoon now has access to enough water supply.
Overpasses are planned for the Hledan, Shwegondaing, Tarmwe and Bayintnaung areas, where traffic jams are most severe. Overpasses at Hledan and Bayintnaung have already begun construction.
The port terminals at Yangon Port will be upgraded to international standards in collaboration with private entrepreneurs under a joint-venture basis or a build-operate-transfer (BOT) system, in agreement with the government, officials said.
In November, President Thein Sein urged his government to remake Rangoon into a modern city like Singapore.
In the future, officials said the government would invite foreign investors from Singapore to build sky rail tracks in Rangoon and local investors to operate the existing circular train network.
With a population of over 6 million and an area of 795 square kilometers, Rangoon has 45 townships, of which 33 are in the municipal area.
