Campaign seeks to put stop to Kyaukphyu deep-sea port

By DMG 28 Oct 2022

DMG Newsroom
28 October 2022, Kyaukphyu

Activists organised a campaign against a China-backed deep-sea port project in Arakan State’s Kyaukphyu Township on October 27.

The campaign was conducted in the Thanzit River near Maday Island, where the deep-sea port is slated to be built.

The campaign demanded that local fishermen be respected, and that development of the deep-sea port project be halted immediately as it was initiated without the consensus of local residents and has not addressed the grievances of local fishermen and residents.

The deep-sea port is expected to seriously disrupt the livelihoods of local fishermen, said Ko Maung Tun Aye of Maday Island.

“Fish stocks have been seriously depleted, which will seriously affect the livelihoods of local fishermen,” he said.

An oil and gas pipeline project that was also backed by China and implemented on Maday Island only did harm and brought no good for local fishermen, said the spokesman for the Center for Peace and Development, a civil society organisation monitoring the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project, to which the deep-sea port is closely tied.

“The government ignored our demands in 2017. As a result, local fishermen lost 50 percent of their fisheries. So, they have only relied on the remaining 50 percent to make a living. The deep-seat port will seriously damage their livelihoods,” said Ko Tun Kyi.

Myanmar Survey Research (MSR) has been conducting environmental and social impact assessments for the US$1.3 billion Kyaukphyu SEZ, and the assessment is scheduled to be completed in July of next year. The deep-sea port project will be implemented in three phases and is estimated to cost US$7 billion.

“The assessment is critically important for the people. It is important that they don’t write the report in a way of wanting to sell the project to local residents,” Ko Myo Lwin, who is in charge of the Myanmar-China Pipeline Watch Committee in Ann Township, told DMG last month.