India to hold SME exhibition in Myanmar in next January

Xinhua: 9 September, 2006

India is coordinating with Myanmar to hold a small and medium entrepreneurs exhibition in Yangon in the last week of January next year, aimed at boosting bilateral trade and cooperation in investment and banking sectors, official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.

The plan of sponsoring the 2007 SME Exhibition India was discussed between visiting business delegation of the Indo-Myanmar Chambers of Commerce and Industry and its Myanmar counterpart on Thursday, the report said, without disclosing the details of the planned exhibition.

The exhibition will be another Indian event in Yangon after the Confederation of Indian Industry held a "Made in India" industrial show in February 2004, in which iron and steel products, construction materials, medicine and medical equipment, cosmetics, garment, handicraft, leather ware, farming equipment, electronic products and kitchen ware were displayed.

Relations between Myanmar and India have been growing during the past few years with cooperation in all sectors, particularly in those of trade and economy, setting a target for their bilateral trade to attain 1 billion U.S. dollars by 2006.

According to official statistics, Myanmar-India bilateral trade, including the border trade, amounted to 557.68 million dollars in the fiscal year 2005-06 which ended in March, up 24 percent from 2004-05. Of the total, the border trade accounted for 15.76 million dollars. The Myanmar-India border trade for the first quarter of 2006-07 (April-June) amounted to 2.91 million dollars.

Myanmar-India border trade started in 1994 and so far there are two border trade points set up on the Myanmar side -- Tamu ( opposite to India's Moreh) and Reedkhandhar ( linking India's Zokhawthar).

It is expected that a border trade zone in Tamu will be established in the future as part of Myanmar's plan of setting up such zones with neighboring countries in the process of transformation of its border trade system at all trade points into normal one following the emergence of such zones in Muse with China in April this year and Myawaddy with Thailand being established.

India stands as Myanmar's 4th largest trading partner after Thailand, China and Singapore, and also Myanmar's second largest export market after Thailand, absorbing 25 percent of its total exports.

Figures also show that India's investment in Myanmar had reached 35.08 million dollars in three projects as of January this year out of Myanmar's total foreign investment of 7.985 billion dollars since late 1988.

India's latest and main involvement in Myanmar includes the building of the 133-million-U.S.-dollar Reed-Falam road, optic fiber link project between India's Moreh and Myanmar's Mandalay, and natural gas exploration and production at block A-1 and A-3 in Myanmar's Rakhine offshore areas being carried out under a consortium led by South Korea's Daewoo International Corporation, in which the ONGC Videsh Ltd of India holds 20 percent of stake and the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) 10 percent.

India has been seeking to buy gas produced from the two Myanmar blocks and ways of laying the pipelines from Myanmar to India are also being sought.