India for expanding border trade with Myanmar

NEW DELHI: India will seek to expand border trade by opening more trading points along the 1,600-km border its shares with Myanmar during the two-day talks to be held at Mandalay beginning October 14. Minister of State for Commerce and Power Jairam Ramesh will lead a high-level delegation to Myanmar during the crucial talks.

At present, only Moreh in Manipur is the only operational trade centre on the border. India will propose two additional such centres — Avangkhu in Nagaland and Zowkhathar in Mizoram. Mr. Jairam said border trade centres in Arunachal Pradesh were not under discussion because of security and other considerations on the Indian side.

In addition, he said India would propose an expansion of items to be traded. India is also expected to reiterate its offer to include Myanmar in the duty free tariff preference scheme announced by it for Least Developed Countries . The details of the financing mechanism to facilitate expanded bilateral trade will be also be firmed up during the Mandalay talks. Union Bank of India has already signed an agreement with the Foreign Trade Bank of Myanmar for establishing such a mechanism.

FTA beneficiary


Myanmar will be the beneficiary of the FTA with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to be signed by India and ASEAN in Bangkok on December 18. Myanmar is also a member of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Agreement involving Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.

India is hosting the BIMSTEC Summit in New Delhi in mid-November. India’s exports to Myanmar in 2007-08 amounted to about $185 million, while its imports from Myanmar were valued at around $810 million, mostly comprising pulses.

On October 16, the Myanmar Prime Minister and Mr. Jairam will inaugurate a Centre for Enhancement of IT Skills established at Yangon with Indian assistance of $2 million. This Centre, to be run by Indian professionals, is equipped to train 1,000 youth every year who will be awarded a diploma from the Pune-based C-DAC (Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing) which is an institution under the Ministry of Information Technology.