Export and import formalities for traders in Myanmar will continue to process with the government's Trade Council in Yangon without requiring to be so done in Pyinmana, an emerging new administrative capital in the central part of the country, according to sources with the Myanmar Chambers of Commerce and Industry Wednesday.

Quoting Commerce Minister Brigadier-General Tin Naing Thein, the sources said despite moving out of some government ministry offices from Yangon to Pyinmana, the Directorate of Trade under the ministry will remain based in Yangon as a branch of the ministry and such export and import procedures will be allowed to process as usual here without time delay.

The Myanmar government started moving from Nov. 6 nine of its ministries' offices from Yangon to a 100 square-kilometer complex at Pyinmana in Mandalay division, 390 kilometers to the north, giving the reason that the shift of the government headquarters from Yangon in southern part of the country, which had been the capital since independence in 1948, is to effect control over the whole nation from the central part.

With Pyinmana being transformed into a capital for the country's central administration, Yangon is seen as to remain as a commercial capital.

Starting August this year, Myanmar has authorized the Trade Council, the highest commerce authorities, to directly issue all export and import licenses for businessmen doing foreign trade in the country.

According to official statistics, Myanmar's foreign trade reached 4.9 billion US dollars in the fiscal year 2004-05 which ended in March, up 10 percent from 4.5 billion in 2003-04. During the year, the country gained a trade surplus of 954 million. Of the total trade volume, exports were valued at 2.9 billion, while its imports went to 1.9 billion.

Myanmar's foreign trade is dominated by that with neighbors such as China and India and over 50 percent of its total transacting with member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the most with Thailand followed by Singapore and Malaysia.

Source: Xinhua