TRADE officials and experts say that Myanmar must improve its agricultural sector before the China-ASEAN free trade area takes effect in 2015.

“When the free trade area materialises in 2015, we need to have the capacity to sell our products competitively in markets abroad, otherwise other nations will reap all the benefits and leave us behind,” said U Zaw Min Win, the vice president of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“The free trade area could be dangerous for us as a nation if we lack the capacity to compete against other countries in the region,” he said.

U Zaw Min Win said Myanmar should focus on its strengths: “Our main exports are agro-products and we should concentrate on that sector.

“And there is a lot of potential growth: Japan, South Korea, China as well as other ASEAN nations are willing to buy our agricultural and fisheries products in vast amounts but not as we currently produce them.

“We need to change our production techniques to incorporate sophisticated methods that are accepted internationally,” he said.

Japanese buyers, he said, are willing to buy value-added agro-products such as chilli sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, fisheries products and many others. But they want to know that the foods they are buying are safe to eat.

While raw materials are abundantly available, U Zaw Min Win warned that producers need to enhance the quality of the products they export.

And the first step is to earn internationally recognised certificates, such as those issued by the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points organisation and the International Standardisa-tion Organisation, to guarantee the safety of their operations.

Dr Maung Maung Lay, the federation’s joint secretary general, agreed that Myanmar’s producers need to work on their quality control procedures.

He said producers need to build laboratories to test the quality of their exports and guarantee food safety.

“We must set our standards to those of the EU and US, even though we are not exporting to those countries currently.

“If we meet these standards then we have automatically met those set in Japan and South Korea, both of which are less-stringent than the US,” he said.

Dr Sein Myint, who has 32 years experience in agricultural research and is the director of organic fertiliser manufacturer, the Supreme Group of Companies, said agricultural products comprise a significant percentage of the country’s exports.

Dr Sein Myint said conventional cultivation techniques are inefficient and he cited sugar cane and tapioca as examples.

He said the maximum sugar cane yield in Myanmar is 15 to 20 tonnes an acre, while in Israel – a world leader in agricultural efficiency – it’s 80-100 tonnes an acre; China reaps 40 tonnes an acre.

Myanmar tapioca yields vary from 6-8 tonnes an acre, while China records 20-25 tonnes an acre, he said.

Dr Sein Myint said low productivity has serious side-effects.
“Low productivity increases production costs. How can we be competitive in pricing battles with other rival producers?”

“We need to bring sophisticated technology and more up-to-date thinking into our production channels,” Dr Sein Myint said.

Part of this thinking is to embrace organic farming, he said.

“We only get US$500-600-a-tonne for most beans and pulses that we sell to Japan but those produced organically are worth up to $1800 a tonne,” he said.
In order to earn these higher export revenues, Myanmar’s organically-grown farm products must meet 52 criteria set by Japan’s food authority.

Dr Maung Maung Lay agreed that Myanmar must be regionally competitive if it is to benefit from the free trade agreement.

“Myanmar’s products should be tailored to suit the big markets within our region – namely Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China,” he said.