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Our Bureau

New Delhi, Oct. 13 The Minister of State for Commerce and Power, Mr Jairam Ramesh, is heading a delegation for trade and investment talks with the Myanmar Government on October14 and 15.

According to an official statement, Mr Ramesh will look for opportunities to expand trade centres along the 1,600-km India-Myanmar border.

Currently, only Moreh in Manipur is the operational trade centre on the border. The Minister will propose two additional centres — Avangkhu in Nagaland and Zowkhathar in Mizoram. Both the States have been long demanding such a move.

However, border trade centres in Arunachal Pradesh are not under discussion because of security and other considerations on the Indian side, the statement said.

In addition, India will propose an expansion of items to be traded with a view to move towards normal free trade soon at these centres.

The Minister is also expected to reiterate India’s offer to include Myanmar in the duty-free tariff preference scheme announced by it for least developed countries.

The details of the financing mechanism to facilitate expanded bilateral trade will be also be firmed up during the Mandalay talks. UBI has already signed an agreement with the Foreign Trade Bank of Myanmar for establishing such a mechanism.

On October 16, the Myanmar Prime Minister and Mr Ramesh will inaugurate a Centre for Enhancement of IT Skills established at Yangon with Indian assistance of $2 million.

This Centre, to be run by Indian professionals, is equipped to train 1,000 youth every year.

The youths will be awarded a diploma from the Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing — an institution under the Ministry of Information Technology.

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