India-Myanmar centre for enhancement of IT skills inaugurated

New Delhi, Oct 16 : Union Minister of State for Commerce and Power Jairam Ramesh and Myanmar Prime Minister H.E. General Thein Sein inaugurated the India-Myanmar Centre for Enhancement of IT Skills (IMCEITS) in Yangon today.

The IMCEITS, set up by the Centre for Advancement of Computing (C-DAC) with Indian assistance, will be connected to ten regional centres and train nearly 1000 IT professionals per year.

In a significant development, India and Myanmar have announced the conversion of border trade to regular trade.

Earlier, the India-Myanmar Joint Trade Committee, headed by Jairam Ramesh and the Myanmar Minister for Commerce Brigediar General Tin Naing Thein met on October 14 in Mandalay.

Both countries agreed to convert the present border trade at Moreh-Tamu and Zokhawthar-Rhi border points to normal trade. All goods except a handful of restricted items can now be traded at these points at MFN rates.

The Joint Trade Committee also decided to open border trade at a new border point Avakhung (Nagaland) - Leshi (Myanmar), expand the current list of items for barter trade under the India-Myanmar Border Trade Agreement to 40 and operationalise the new banking arrangement for trade.

The Ministers also reviewed bilateral cooperation in the field of gas or petroleum, power, information technology, telecommunication and agriculture including pulses.

The Myanmar Government announced their intention to submit the Letter of Intent to join the Duty Free Tariff Preference (DFTP) scheme of India under which India would provide unilateral tariff concessions to Myanmar on 94 per cent of the tariff lines covering 99.6 per cent of the trade.

Myanmar has, in recent times, become an important trade partner of India. In 2007-08, India's exports to Myanmar were US 185.28 million dollars and imports were US 809.55 million dollars, with total two-way trade between the two countries almost touching one billion US dollars.

ANI