Sections 1, 2 and 3 will be constructed by China Railway No 5 Engineering Group, China Railway International Group and China Railway No 8 Engineering Group. Last December another CRG subsidiary, China Railway No 2 Engineering Group, was awarded a Yuan 2.3bn contract to construct Section 4. This means CRG will carry out civil works on four of the six sections totalling 245km.

The single-track electrified line will have 31 stations and will link China’s Yuxi - Mohan line with the metre-gauge line from Tha Na Laeng near Vientiane to Nong Khai and Bangkok.