The Hindu Business Line : India, Myanmar sign investment promotion pact

New Delhi, June 24 A Bilateral Investment Promotion Agreement (BIPA) between India and Myanmar was signed in Myanmar on Tuesday to facilitate greater Indian investment in Myanmar and vice versa.

The Agreement, the 71st of its kind that India has entered into, provides a framework for the resolution of disputes, for promotion and protection of investment, for extending national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment, for repatriation of investment and returns and for entry and sojourn of technical and managerial personnel.

This is among the four agreements India and Myanmar signed in the Myanmar capital for deepening economic cooperation in the presence of the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Power, Mr Jairam Ramesh, and the Myanmar Minister for National Planning and Economic Development, Mr U Soe Tha.

Mr Ramesh also called on the Myanmar Minister for Commerce, Brig. General Tin Naing Thein, and the Minister for Electric Power, Mr U Zaw Min, an official release issued here said.

The second agreement is a credit line between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank for $64 million for financing three 230 kv transmission lines in Myanmar to be executed by the Power Grid Corporation of India.

The third agreement is another credit line for $20 million for financing the establishment of an aluminium conductor steel reinforced (ACSR) wire manufacturing facility to be used for expansion of the power distribution network in Myanmar.

The fourth agreement is between the United Bank of India and the Myanmar Economic Bank for providing the banking arrangement for the implementation of the border trade agreement between the two governments that takes place at Moreh (in Manipur) at present.

Border trade

Mr Ramesh also took up the expansion of border trade centres to include Avangkhu and Lungwa in Nagaland, Zowkhathar in Mizoram, Pangsau Pass in Arunachal Pradesh and Behiang, Skip and Tusom in Manipur. In addition, he informed the Myanmar’s Minister for Commerce that India would like to see normal trade at the border and not have it restricted only to specified items like at present in Moreh where trade only in 22 specified items is permitted.

Hydel potential

Mr Ramesh also expressed India’s great interest in participating in developing the hydel power potential on the Chindwin River in Myanmar and hoped that preliminary work on identifying and detailing these projects would commence soon. India is already developing hydel projects in Bhutan and recently Indian private companies have won contracts to develop hydel projects in Nepal also.

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