THE Crab Entrepreneurs Association said its plans to set up a
crab trading centre at Myawaddy on the Thai border will improve
trading conditions for members who it says are being mistreated
by Thai buyers.
“We are planning to establish the centre with the aim
of protecting Myanmar crab traders and ensuring them financial
security,” the association’s chairman, U Hnin Oo,
said at a weekly livestock and fisheries meeting in Yangon.
Most crab trading currently takes place in the Thai border town
Mae Sot, across the river from Myawaddy. However, U Hnin Oo said
Myanmar crab traders frequently complain that Thai buyers are
slow to pay for goods under the existing arrangement.
“At the moment we are running a small trading centre at
Myawaddy as a trial but this has not hampered trade, which is
continuing as usual,” he said.
All weighing and sorting of crabs is in the future to be done
at the Myawaddy zone, the home-turf advantage of which is hoped
to give Myanmar more control over the trade with Thailand.
“We ask that money for goods be paid within 24 hours,
and if they fail to pay we will not sell the goods to them so
that we can provide financial security to our traders,”
U Hnin Oo said.
Monitoring which Thai traders are making deals will also help
clear up outstanding debts owed to Myanmar crab suppliers, he
added.
“We will help collect debts of more than two million baht
from Thai traders,” U Hnin Oo said.
“We aim to have the market on our side but we have no
intention of taking advantage of the situation. We only want to
have a fair market.”
Myanmar earned about US$12 million from crab exports in the
first half of the 2007-08 fiscal year up to the end of September.
U Hnin Oo said the Crab Entrepreneurs Association was “very
confident” of achieving its $25-million export target for
the year.
Meanwhile, officials from the Myanmar Fisheries Products Processors
and Exporters Association (MFPEA) said at the same meeting they
were planning to draw up a masterplan for their own trading zone
at Myawaddy.
“At the Myawaddy trade zone, four acres of land have been
allocated for fisheries products and we will make a plan with
the help of the Department of Fisheries,” MFPEA chairman
U Soe Tun Shein said.
The Myawaddy trade zone in Kayin State will be the second largest
in the country after the Muse 105 Miles Trade Zone on the Chinese
border. The zone is intended to lead a shift away from largely
undocumented border trade procedures to “normal trade”,
which uses banks to facilitate payments.
“According to our plan, we will assign places for various
kinds of fisheries products like eel, crab, frozen fish and dry
fish,” U Soe Tun Shein said.
“We intended to draw the plan according to international
standards, like the HACCP standard.
“After drawing the plan, we will start building the zone.
We will invite entrepreneurs to do business in the zone, which
we hope to have running this December,” he said.
However, some have warned that setting up the trading zone could
be a costly exercise.
“The plots allocated for the fisheries area are located
in wild land with no road, no water and no electricity,”
said U Hnin Oo of the Crab Entrepreneurs Association.
“I found out it will cost about K200 million just for
the electricity (to be connected) and another K50 million for
the water for each acre and there may be other costs for the road,”
he said.
But U Soe Tun Shein said he was confident the zone would go
ahead and pointed to the experience of setting up the Muse trade
zone as an example of how obstacles could be overcome.
“Under the guidance of the Department of Fisheries and
the Myanmar Fisheries Federation, we are sure to successfully
build and run the fisheries product trading zone in Myawaddy.
That zone will benefit Myanmar traders,” he insisted.
It is not yet known how the zone will be financed.
