By Sanjay Thapa Jeet
In response to China’s ambitious silk trade route expansion,? India is making its presence felt in the south-east Asian region with its 1400 km Indo-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) trilateral trade route. Bolstered by the new initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Office of Commercial Affairs of the Royal Thai Embassy, New Delhi has written to the government for setting up trade markets in Guwahati, Imphal and Dimapur as interchange points for goods and services for Thai companies to operate. The IMT trade route is the further extension of the Indo-Myanmar Friendship road that was started in 2001.
What the new trade route has in store
The Thai Embassy officials have been injected with fresh optimism under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi and said that they expect the 1400 km road project to enable a smooth route for all trade and commercial activities across the international borders.The officials said that there would be a reciprocal arrangement under the bilateral trade agreement and the Thai producers selling their wares would, in turn, buy Indian goods as imports to be sold in Thailand.
The trade route is part of the East-West Economic Trade Corridor and is being seen as a big step in the ASEAN India free trade agreement. It connects New Delhi through Myanmar to Thailand. The new Myanmar government in 2015 had temporarily withdrawn from funding the project. However, the Myanmar Presidential visit last year cleared the project. The Indian government has even proposed to pump in around USD 100 million and construct over 69 bridges in Myanmar that fall in the IMT route. India will also be renovating over 73 bridges that are part of this route and are in need of reconstruction and repair.These projects are expected to be completed by 2020.
Sowing the seeds of increased trilateral cooperation
Last month, the government of Myanmar approved a proposal by the Thai government permitting the latter to upgrade a 68 km road stretch from Thaton in Mon state to Eindu in Kayin state. A ?trilateral motor vehicle agreement has already been signed by the three countries and experimental runs of commercial vehicles between the three countries have been conducted. A motor rally was organised from New Delhi to Bangkok, covering the three countries in the process, to commemorate this agreement.
Thailand gets a big share of? its revenue from Indian tourists yet there was a declining share of inflows towards the Indian side. There were several trade avenues that have remained untapped. In order to further give a big fillip to the bilateral trade, the Thai Airways had already started a direct flight for Bangkok from Lucknow and Jaipur recently. However, regional connectivity in India still remains a big hurdle and has jeopardised the movement of ?tourists within the regional circuits in India.
Sanjay Thapa Jeet is an accomplished journalist with over two decades of experience at premier publications like The Indian Express and India Today.?
Featured image source: The Quint
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