SAC Vice Chairman Deputy Prime Minister Vice-Senior General Soe Win addresses Illegal Trade Eradication Steering Committee work coordination meeting (1/2024)
Illegal Trade Eradication Steering Committee held its work coordination meeting (1/2024) at the Ministry of Commerce here this afternoon, addressed by Chairman of the Steering Committee Vice Chairman of State Administration Council Deputy Prime Minister Vice-Senior General Soe Win.
Also present were union ministers Lt-Gen Yar Pyae, U Win Shein and U Tun Ohn, deputy ministers, Nay Pyi Taw Council member, the Revenue Appellate Tribunal chair, permanent secretaries, directors general, association chairs, and officials. Chairs of region/state anti-illegal trade special teams attended the meeting through video conferencing.
In his speech, the Vice-Senior General quoted the discussions of Chairman of State Administration Council Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing at the meeting 1/2024 Republic of Union of Myanmar Security, Peace and Stability and Rule of Law Committee held on 26 January 2024, as saying, “As regards, illegal trade, there are illegal acts conducted against the law by certain businesspersons out of greediness for self-interest. The issue should be taken into account from the business, economic and security point of view. It may even harm the national security as illegal trade can create financial sources for armed terrorists.
Hence, effective means should be applied to expose illegal trade and take severe actions against the illegal traders.”
The Vice-Senior General then said the according to the report of the Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade- TRACIT, illegal trade is significantly harming the success in realizing the Sustainable Development Goals, and especially, it may cause loss and damages to legal businesses, revenues from investments for the government’s important public services, thousands of legal job opportunities, and ecosystem and lives and property.
The report also said that approximately, the extent of damage caused to legal trade extension by illicit trade is between 8 percent and 15 percent of the global GDP; that reinvestment of the profits in billions of US dollars from the illicit trade in other illegal businesses may worsen the economic instability of human societies;
that at worse, it may bring forth financial support for terrorism that is a global threat.
Illegal trade has direct and indirect negative impacts. Direct negative impacts are: destruction of production capacities and profits of a large number of business sectors, decrease in annual economic income, impact on economic development, decrease in production, sales and inputs of legal businesses due to unfair competition from illicit businesses, ruining job creation and tax-paying ability of legal businesses, adverse effects in developing countries caused by a decrease in public sector investment due to a drop in government’s revenue income, increase in the number of criminal gangs in connection with illegal trade.
Indirect negative impacts include depletion of fish resources caused by illegal fishing, posing a threat to business and job opportunities of the people relying on the said sources for their living, forced labor imposed by gangs on illegal trawlers, destruction of forests and wildlife ecosystem due illegal logging and timber trade, eventually threatening the jobs of the tourism sector, economic losses and rapid environmental degradation in the long run due to use of counterfeit pesticides.
It can be seen that entrepreneurs who wish to carry out trade with the international community in accordance with the law are not in favor of illicit trade for its impacts on product brands and competitiveness.
On the other hand, consumers wish to use high quality, safe and genuine products and if the market is flooded with fake products due to illicit trade, consumer trust will be undermined.
Smuggling accounted for sixty percent of illicit trade while about 30 percent of that is carried out by declaring lower prices than actual ones.
The remaining 10 percent is smuggled products that are hidden among products legally traded. Damaging consequences of illicit trade include corruption, impacts on entrepreneurs who conduct trade legally and enormous losses of revenue for the country. Therefore, everyone is urged again to combat illicit trade as a national duty concertedly.
To reduce the global illicit trade environment index of the country, the Illegal Trade Eradication Steering Committee was reconstituted and the steering committee has met 13 times so far including today's meeting. A total of 424 decisions were made in the previous 12 meetings. During the 24-month period after the steering committee was reconstituted, 10,395 cases of seizures worth Ks-200.422 billion were made.
Reviewing the last one-year period from January to December, 2023, most illicit goods were seized at international airports, permanent checkpoints, trading zones, trading stations and international terminals by the customs department.
Among regions and states, most illegal goods were seized in Mandalay Region, followed by Taninthayi and Kachin State. In terms of product categories, unlicensed vehicles and those transporting illicit goods made up the largest number and they were followed by raw materials and those used for investment purposes.
In terms of seizures, the total value of seized goods in 2023 increased by Ks - 70.31 billion, compared with that of 2022.
However, it can be seen that illicit trade is still going on and thus it is evident that staff who are assigned at international airports and ports, border trade stations and permanent checkpoints and illegal trade eradication special teams in regions and states including the Nay Pyi Taw Council Area are required to monitor, inspect, seized and take action against illegal trade more strictly.
As for the X-ray inspection machine at Nyaung Khar Shey permanent checkpoint of the customs department, the plan to replace it with a modern one has been approved by the SAC and the Ministry of Planning and Finance is required to invite tenders in accordance with rules and regulations and to install it as soon as possible.
Similarly, as the freight permission system and SOPs for trains, inland water transport vessels and coastal vessels has been operated on a trial basis for three months since 1 January, 2024, educative tasks must be effectively carried out during the trial run. When the trial run has completed, inspection must be effectively conducted in accordance with the SOPs and action must be taken against violations.
Moreover, SOPs for inspection of goods transported by air have been launched on a trial basis for three months since 11 January, 2024 and it is necessary to make adjust mints by monitoring possible weaknesses. Inspections must be conducted quickly without incurring high costs for mutual benefits. In carrying out illegal trade eradication tasks, everyone is urged again to make efforts with the aim of applying ICT technologies for inspection in addition to conventional inspection methods. And as it was learnt that some vehicles were passing through inspection checkpoints and security checkpoints by paying bribes and there were compliance weaknesses with rules and regulations in inspecting containers at ports that handle maritime trade, chairmen of special teams, OSS departmental in-charges director general generals are required to make inspection tours to inspection checkpoints, security checkpoints, container ports under their supervision monthly to prevent bribing. As the issues have been pointed out at steering committee meetings repeatedly, everyone is urged to tackle them properly.
It is to work together with civil servants, officials, merchants and the people to continuously strive to fight against illegal trade that causes damages to international development including the country as a national duty.
On the other hand, in order to improve foreign exports and domestic production to replace imports, it is necessary to provide support for the long-term sustainability of MSMEs.
Therefore, it is necessary to find more effective methods and ways to detect and prevent illegal trade that threatens domestic production.
Then, Secretary of the Illegal Trade Eradication Steering Committee Deputy Minister for Commerce briefed on the decisions of the Steering Committee meeting (6/2023) and measures being taken by the Steering Committee Afterwards, Director General U Aung Thwin Oo, head of the task force of the steering committee, Director General of Transport Planning Department U Thint Myat Thu, Director General of the Customs Department U Thein Swe, Director General of Central Equipment Statistics and Inspection Department U Han Win Aung, Director General of Trade Department U Myint Thura , and Professor Dr Khin Zaw, Director General of Food and Drug Administration, presented the reports submitted to the illegal trade steering committee coordination meeting 1/2024.
Next, Vice Chairman of the Steering Committee Union Minister Lt-Gen Yar Pyae, Union Minister U Win Shein, Union Minister U Tun Ohn and Deputy Minister Maj-Gen Aung Lin Tun briefed on illegal trade, narcotic drugs in the regions and states including Nay Pyi Taw Council, controlled chemicals, illegal vehicles, fuel oils, food, medicines and cosmetics are being taken in accordance with the law.
Afterwards, those who attended the meeting discussed issues related to the fight against illegal trade according to the relevant sectors, and the head of task force of the steering committee read out the resolution (draft) of the steering committee meeting 1/2024.
Later, the Vice-Senior General made coordination on the reports and gave concluding remarks.