REPORTED BY THAN ZAW TUN+ NAY TUN NAING TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY AUNG KHIN + MYA
At the First ASEAN-EU Business Summit, Myanmar elucidated and highlighted the information on its Dawei deep seaport, and welcomed foreign investments.
The event was held on 5 May at the Jakarta Convention Center together with 18th ASEAN Summit.
“I’ll discuss the decline of EU investments in Myanmar previous years, and will invite the investments in Dawei deep seaport,” said Chairman U Aung Khin Myint of the Myanmar International Freight Forwarder’s Association to the journalists of Weekly Eleven News Journal before the meeting.
U Aung Khin Myint discussed about the infrastructure which is one of the major agendas at the business meeting.
“Business cooperation between Myanmar and EU has declined in recent years. Investments of EU countries in Myanmar contributed 2.1 percent between 1995 and 1998, and went down to 1.1 percent in 2008. Myanmar ranks the third bottom line among EU’s business partner countries,” said the Chairman.
U Aung Khin Myint also presented previous trade volumes between Myanmar and EU, and he also emphasized on the geographical situations of Myanmar under the topics of infrastructures and communication systems.
While meeting with the journalists of the Weekly Eleven News Journal, Councilor U Min Teza Nyunt Tin of the ASEAN Intellectual Property Association said, “Frankly, we have to make better managements in the aspects of EU-Myanmar trade. First of all, our country’s online systems must be perfect without delay. You have witnessed that the delegation of RUMFCCI did not get identity cards to attend the meeting. They sent application forms with attachment photo files and copies of passports to the responsible persons of the summit from Yangon through online system. When something was wrong in this process, they did not get identity cards like us. If they tried to come here independently without contacting with the association, they would never arrive here. The infrastructural and hygienic standards of our country must be promoted. The second barrier for the development of our country is financial matter such as sanctions. They must be eased. Another problem is the country of origin.
Although we produced commodities, the origin of country is omitted because of foreign sanctions and embargoes. If such obstructions can be liberalized, the country’s trade volume will noticeably increase.”
According to the official figures of EU, the trade volumes between Myanmar and EU were euro 387 millions in 2006, euro 426 millions in 2007, euro 289 millions in 2008, euro 248 millions in 2009 and 244 millions in 2010 respectively.
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