“Adjoining Pan-Saung is an Indian village called Pann-Sharr,” said Director-General Tayza Aung Win of the Sub-department of Internal Trade under the Ministry of Commerce.

He said that Myanmar President Thein Sein and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had already discussed and agreed on the project, and that the matter was now in the hands of local officials.

Pan Saung is situated in the mountainous and relatively poor Naga Autonomous Region. Tayza Aung Win said that the cross-border market would first and foremost be a means of increasing the locals’ livelihoods.

Although there has been no common marketplace until now, Indian and Myanmar traders have regularly used the Tamu border route as a trading point in recent years. In 2011-12 fiscal year, border trade between the two countries totaled US $15.409 million. In the 2012-13 by the end of January, bilateral trade stood at $32.137 million.