The Mawhtaung border trade point in southern Tanintharyi Region in Burma will become the fifth with Thailand, according the Xinhua news agency, which quoted Global News. China is No. 1 in border trade with Burma followed by Thailand, India and Bangladesh.

Burma’s border trade with Thailand amounted to US$ 274 million in fiscal year 2009-10, according to official figures.

Burma now has a total of 12 border trade points: four links with China, four with Thailand, two with India and two with Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, work on a highway linking Bangkok and the Dawei deep-sea port and industrial zone in Tanintharyi Region is under and scheduled to be finished in one and a half years.

According to official statistics, Burma’s border trade amounted to over US$ 3.046 billion in fiscal year 2011-12, up about 60 per cent from more than $1.9 billion in 2010-11.

In 2010, Mizzima reported that Thailand’s Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlabutr made a trip to Burma, which resulted in two significant trade outcomes. 

The first was that Thailand and Burma agreed to resume trade relationship and investment by organizing the fifth Thai-Myanmar Joint Trade Committee, or JTC meeting during the first quarter of 2010, where Thailand served as the host. The JTC meeting was suspended for over five years. The JTC meeting included discussions on various issues such as offering account trade services for the two countries, as well as setting up wholesale and export markets around the Thai-Burma border, in order to increase border trade standards.

Second, a Thai-Burma Business Council will be set up to operate with the cooperation of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Myanmar Industries with three private institutes from Thailand, the Federation of Thai Industries, and the Thai Bankers' Association.