Revenues from official Myanmar jade exports declined in the first nine months of fiscal 2015-16, as the profitable industry continues to draw fire safety, ethics and environmental concerns.
According to data of the Ministry of Commerce, US $ S 567 million in revenues were obtained from jade exports from April to December last year compared to US $ 1.4 billion for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Maritime trade has been $ 262 million, while $ 305 million is attributed to overland trade.
The apparent decline in cifre-, but three months of fiscal official exports will still be counted Win-Myint, director of the Department of Trade Promotion Department of Commerce, said the government was “really only stimulate the jade market in Myanmar. ”
Last Myanmar jade emporium, made exclusively for domestic players, was held in December in Naypyidaw, with more than 6,800 items on the screen.
While gemstone officially sold in several emporiums national and international buyers, most Burmese jade smuggled illegally across the border with China. The amount of illegal gains, not reflected in the official data, but a report by Global Witness in October last year estimated that up to $ 31 billion in Jade left the country in 2014.
Monitoring Research found that most of the profits from the illegal trade related to the government and military elite.
The industry also has been marked by a series of deadly landslides land Hpa Kant in Kachin State in 2015, the worst of which killed more than 100 local search engines in November. Many so-called hand-pickers are attracted Hpa Kant cities across the country to explore huge piles of waste discarded by mining companies seeking precious stone.
Jade remains one of the main exports from Burma, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the main countries of destination. As quoted in the New World State Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, an official of the Ministry of Commerce has not identified said that total exports are still expected to reach $ 1 billion to close the current financial year.
Hla Tun Aung, secretary of the Myanmar Gems and Jewellery Entrepreneurs Association, said that the Chinese government has been more closely monitor large transfers abroad, limiting the ability of Chinese traders to raise funds for the purchase of jade.
Min Thu, deputy director of the Myanmar Gems Enterprise, agreed that “many Chinese jade traders could not obtain loans from banks to buy jade.”
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