Indo-Myanmar Border Trade at Moreh-Namphalong and Beyond

Abstract

Moreh-Namphalong has an immense prospective for international trade and commerce through Indo-Myanmar border. The paper examines the nature of border trade (BT) practices and prospective by linking Moreh market with the counterpart Namphalong market and establishes that BT is immensely linked with the third economies like China which actually supply goods. Moreh BT accounts to four per cent of the total India-Myanmar trade. It is affected by the bandh and strikes, insurgency, unstable currency exchange rate and smuggling that led to an economic lost for traders and economy at large. India experiences a border trade deficit as the potential export items are not produced in the proximity of Moreh. BT at Moreh-Namphalong has benefited the local border people in terms of employment, infrastructural development and also improves trade and other relationship between India and Myanmar. Myanmar is critical for India not only for BT partner but also for India’s Act East Policy for developing strategic and economic relations with East and South East Asian countries.