Preparations underway to soon resume Sittwe border trade

By DMG 09 Mar 2021

DMG Newsroom
9 March 2021, Sittwe

Preparations are underway to resume Sittwe border trade, which has been suspended since June of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to U Tin Aung Oo, chair of the Arakan State Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

U Tin Aung Oo said he wanted to immediately resume trade at the border because export volumes to Bangladesh were higher than import volumes.

“We have faced difficulties regarding border trade. We asked the previous government to ease off on some regulations related to COVID-19 prevention. As far as I know, border trade is about to resume,” he said.

“We are holding meetings on what we should do to resume the border trade in a week. We do not have contact with the current government to resume border trade. After the meeting, we will submit the case to the authorities concerned,” he added.

In the 2019-20 financial year, the border trade’s export volume was worth about $14 million, but it is at zero through this financial year’s first four months, he said.

Many traders continue to spend money on retaining staff — as well as paying fees for storing their stockpiles and other expenditures — while the border trade is suspended, said a Sittwe border trader.

U Aung Aung, the owner of Ngwe Tin Pyay Company, said: “Firstly, we cannot get income. We have regular expenditures, to pay salaries for our staff. And we have other expenditures, including rental for buildings to store our stockpiles. If our goods are of an expired date or rotten, we will face losses also.”

After a passenger who returned by boat from Bangladesh to Sittwe in June 2020 tested positive for COVID-19, border trade was suspended indefinitely.