Myanmar and Thailand will sign a cross-border transportation agreement in March for direct transfer of goods between the two countries, said U Thant Sin Maung, Union Minister of the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications, at the meeting between the vice president of Myanmar and local businessmen held at UMFCCI on February 22.
“There were some requests from the border trade associations that they want to go straight to airport in Bangkok. For that, we have negotiated with Thailand’s transportation ministry and have reached the agreement. We only need to sign the agreement in March. However, the driver of the freight truck needs to be changed at the border while the same truck goes into either country,”he said.
At the time being, the direct cross border transportation will only be to Bangkok, and will not be available for all goods. During the period, the two sides will examine the quality of the designated goods before export to either side.
The agreement between the two countries is part of Cross Border Transport Agreement signed between GMS countries in 2015: Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. [Editor’s Note: The Greater Mekong Subregion, (GMS) is a transnational region of the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia.]
To implement cross border transportation between GMS countries, Myanmar has built border trade gates at the Myanmar-Laos border area, and Myawaddy at the Myanmar-Thailand border, U Thant Sin Maung said.
Thailand is Myanmar’s one of biggest trade partners and the two countries has made over $1.3 billion of trade from October to December 2018.
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