According to the December 15th edition of the Thai news publication The Nation, Thailand plans to open up four new trade checkpoints along the Thailand-Burma border.
The checkpoints will reportedly be located at Three Pagodas Pass Town in Karen State, at Huay Ton Nun Town in Shan State, at Ban Nam Khao in Tavoy and Tenasserim Divisions, and at Dan Singkhon in Mergui The news has proved to be especially exciting to the residents of Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) Town, who watched their city slid into an economic depression, after the closing of original checkpoint at TPP crippled the region’s furniture industry. The border was closed by Thailand in 2006 after the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) kidnapped three Thai soldiers.
“Before closing the border, Thai people would come and visit inside Three Pagoda Pass town [Burma side] and bought furniture materials. We were very ok [economically] at that time. Since the border closed, there are no Thai people coming and buying the furniture materials in the shops. If we export our furniture to farther inside Thailand, we have to export it illegally, and have to make understandings with both the Thai local authorities and Burmese authorities. So, we have to pay a lot taxes for their permission [to export furniture illegally]. There is no more profit for us. I had to close my furniture business. Some other furniture shop owners are like me, ” a Mon former furniture ship owner from TPP told IMNA.
IMNA’s June 1st 2009 article covered the May 21st seizure of 31 truckloads Burmese timber at TPP. Over 200 tons of logs were seized by the Thai authorities, after the trucks were caught crossing the Burmese border illegally.
According to a Mon Three Pagoda Pass resident, before closing the border, there were between 30 and 40 furniture shops in Three Pagodas Town. Now there are only 3 or 4 shops left in the town’s limits.
According a second TPP resident, there were over 200 furniture factories in the TPP border area in the years of 2003 and 2004; only an estimated 100 factories are still functioning. As a result, large numbers of day-laborers employed at the factories lost their means of income.
The TPP former furniture shop owner IMNA interviewed claimed that a few factories have resorted to selling their wares to furniture shops further inside Burma, despite the fact that checkpoint taxes and Burma’s competitive furniture prices cut into profits dramatically.
A third TPP resident interviewed by IMNA was optimistic about the reopening of the border, opining that that move will result in furniture factories reopening, day laborers regaining their jobs, and that without the fees attached to illegal furniture shipments, trade with Thailand will boost TPP’s ailing economy.
