5th India-Myanmar Joint Trade Committee meet held in Nay Pyi Taw

The 5th India-Myanmar Joint Trade Committee (JTC) meeting was held in Nay Pyi Taw in Myanmar on 17 February 2015.

India’s Minister of State for Commerce & Industry (Independent Charge) Nirmala Sitharaman co-chaired the meet with Myanmar’s Union Minister of Commerce U Win Myint.

During the meeting, the two nations committed towards strengthening mutually beneficial relationship especially in field of promoting two-ways investment, infrastructure development particularly to promote border trade, connectivity, agriculture, energy, skill and entrepreneurial development, pharmaceutical and people-to-people contacts.

Important Highlights of the Meeting
• Both the countries agreed to work together to remove the bottlenecks that hampers the bilateral trade and investment. The bottlenecks identified were lack of good connectivity, lack of banking arrangement both for regular and border trade.
• In context of bottlenecks, India offered to support Myanmar to develop infrastructure at the border trade points, upgrade trade training institutes in Yangon and provide training to Myanmar officials on World Trade Organisation (WTO) and international trade related issues.
• To promote bilateral trade, India offered to support subsidised direct shipping links between the two countries
• The two ministers also agreed to jointly inaugurate the land custom station in Zawkhatar, Mizoram at a mutually convenient date.
• Both sides also agreed to meet more often to ensure enhancement of bilateral trade and mutual cooperation to impart further momentum to overall strengthening of bilateral relations.

The next Joint Trade and Investment Forum will be held in Chennai. During this forum, Myanmar would organise a roadshow showcasing investment opportunities in Myanmar especially in the special economic zones.