EMN
Dimapur, July 27
Hard-working Naga farmers from Phek and Mon districts can now dream of exporting their produce. After a long wait, the Myanmar government on Friday gave clearance to two markets along the Nagaland border.
High-level sources in the Ministry of Commerce told Eastern Mirror that Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce has taken the final decision to go ahead with plans to open a series of markets along the Indo-Myanmar border.On the basis of primary information reaching New Delhi from Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, it has clear that Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce has given clearance for setting up of two markets at Layshi and Lahe in the Sagaing Division of the country.
According to the information, the market at Layshi is across Avakhung village in Phek district. And, Lahe is a Myanmar village across Chemoho/Longwa villages in Mon district in Nagaland. The Myanmar government is yet to clear opening of three more markets along the Nagaland border.
The decision to open the border markets is the result of Myanmar President Thein Sein and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s agreements on the project. The cross-border market would mean increasing the locals’ livelihoods. People along the Indo-Myanmar border are relatively poor and the region has poor roads and communications.
The Indian diplomats based in Myanmar are in constant touch with the senior officials of Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce, and the modalities for running the markets are being worked out, the sources said, adding that the markets are likely to get operational by April 2014.
In addition to Lahe and Layshi, the Myanmar government has also given clearance for opening of another market close to Tamu in the in Sagaing Division. Three more new border markets are being opened in the ChinState—Tiddim, Chikha, Tonzang. All the three markets will be along the Mizoram-Myanmar border, the officials said.
In April this year, Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce had announced the opening of a border market in upper Sagaing’s Pan Saung, along the Arunachal Pradesh border. The border market at Pan Saung, which is located in the mountainous Naga Autonomous Region in the northern Sagaing Region, is likely to be inaugurated by the end of 2013.
Although there has been no common marketplace along the international border until now, Indian and Myanmar traders have regularly used the Tamu border route as a trading point. In 2012-13, border trade between the two countries was to the tune of US $38.409 million.
