Border trade with Burma stagnates at USD 50mn

As India prepares to celebrate the silver jubilee of its partnership with the ASEAN in a big way, a key border trade link with Myanmar, the closest neighbour of the vibrant Southeast Asian bloc, continues to be hobbled by infrastructure and other issues -- 22 years after it was launched. India's border trade with Myanmar takes place mainly through Moreh, in Manipur's Chandel district, which links with Tamu, located in Sagaing in northwest Myanmar. There is another border trade point through Zowkhathar in Mizoram with the corresponding point Rhi in Myanmar, but Moreh is the biggest border trade point, reports IANS.

Though India and Myanmar signed the border trade agreement on January 21, 1994, and it was made operational the following year, the bilateral border trade figure stands at $50 million -- a poor comparison to Myanmar's trade with China, which was around $6 billion last year. Myanmar has four border trading points with China, of which the one at Muse, in northern Shan state, is the biggest. Around 80 per cent of Myanmar's formal overland trade with China passes through this post that links with Ruili, in China's Yunnan province. While China has pumped in massive amounts of money to build modern infrastructure at Ruili and also in Yunnan province to boost connectivity with Myanmar, the infrastructure at the India-Myanmar border post, Moreh, is still inadequate. An Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Moreh has been in the works for the past 10 years and is yet to be completed. Besides the difficult terrain and militancy that adversely affect border trade at Moreh-Tamu, India in December 2015 officially put an end to the barter system, or trading of goods without exchange of money. According to Myanmarese media reports, the ending of barter trade "killed" India-Myanmar border trade. Professor Priyoranjan Singh, an economist at Manipur University, says that since the Government of India notification ending barter trade, "the present state is that formal trade, or normal official trade, stands at zero, and informal, or illegal trade -- or head load trade -is going on". He told IANS that there was a "huge information gap" between the two sides, including among the traders. "Our own Indian customs agency does not know the customs duty that Myanmar imposes on Indian goods," he said. Singh, who has expertise in the field, feels that "seriousness is not there" in India on boosting border trade, while China exhibits "huge seriousness, which is something Myanmar likes".

Gautam Mukhopadhyay, former Indian envoy to Myanmar, says there are reasons for China's border trade with Myanmar being more robust than India. "First, Yunnan is a much better connected and more productive gateway from China to Myanmar than the Northeast of India to Myanmar. Secondly, for any Northeastern state of India to match China in crossborder trade, the region has to become a net producer than consumer, and better connected to the main productive regions of India," Mukhopadhyay said.

He said efforts were being made in that direction. "But it will take some time and better coordination between our development, commercial and strategic policies for us to match China." He said the government has tried to address the issue of low volumes by liberalising cross-border trade and moving to the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trade status, but there was a "need for a reliable system to determine countries of origin of goods". A lot of goods from China are available in the markets in the region.