Border trade
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, August 23 2012:
The State Government has made a proposal to the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India to increase the number of items under the Indo-Myanmar border trade and also to allow the State to import up to 50,000 metric tonnes of rice from Myanmar annually.
An official source informed that the State Government put up this proposal during a meeting held at New Delhi yesterday under the aegis of the Commerce Ministry.
The meeting chaired by Sidharth, Joint Secretary of Commerce Ministry was attended by officials of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
The meeting deliberated on enhancing the number of trade items by adding about 15 items to the existing 40 .
From their side, the State Government officials suggested to include rice, teak, sand, fish and khangra timber in the sanctioned list of trade items.
Apart from trading headloads of goods, it is betel nuts and jeera among the sanctioned list of 40 trade items which are being traded in the maximum quantum between the two countries.
Large quantities of betel nuts produced in Myanmar are being imported to India through legal trading system while India is exporting substantial quantity of jeera to her eastern neighbour.
The net value of betel nut and jeera trading between the two countries stands at around Rs 5 crores annually, added the source.