A new industrial estate, currently under construction in northeastern Thailand, is primarily designed as a logistics and freight forwarding center in connection with neighboring countries, confirmed a senior government official on Monday.

The industrial estate in Udon Thani province, which is now 50 percent complete and scheduled to open next year, is designed to locate a logistics and freight forwarding center with a major terminal for container-carrying trucks to shuttle between Udon Thani province and Nong Khai province on the border with Laos, said Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT) Governor Somjin Philuek.

Thai goods cargoes will be transported from the Udon Thani industrial estate across the Mekong River to the Lao capital Vientiane and then to Vietnam, according to the IEAT governor.

The Udon Thani industrial estate, which will be the 16th industrial estate of Thailand, is only 14 kilometers from Udon Thani airport and 53 kilometers from Nong Khai province.

Somjin forecast the Udon Thani industrial estate will attract some 100 billion baht (about 3.19 billion U.S. dollars) in venture capital, collect up to 20 billion baht (about 639 million U.S. dollars) in yearly tax revenue and employ no less than 20,000 people.