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Business News Magazine
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| UMFCCI
holds 15th annual general meeting |
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The
UMFCCI is playing a vital role in helping the private
sector to
achieve success, Lt-Gen Myint Swe of the Ministry
of Defence
said at the 15th annual
general meeting of the Union of Myanmar
Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry
held at the
National Theatre on Myoma Kyaung Road in Dagon
Township on
31 March 2006.
Present
at the meeting were Lt-Gen Myint Swe, Chairman of
Yangon Division Peace and Development Council
Commander of
Yangon Command Brig-Gen Tin Naing Thein,
ambassadors from |
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foreign
embassies in Yangon, departmental officials, UMFCCI
members and guests. UMFCCI President
U Win Myint
extended greetings. Then Lt-Gen Myint Swe
stressed that under the
leadership of the UMFCCI, the private sector has
now
contributed 90 percent of the GDP of th State.
The private sector had a turnover of US$ 1.3 billion,
accounting for 55.5
percent of that of the nation's export in
2003-04 and US$ 1.2billion or 43 percent of total
export in 2004-05. It now
contributes 53.6 percent to the total foreign
trade. Since 2002-03, the nation has seen trade
surplus. It is found that the
UMFCCI is organizing the people to reclaim fallow
and virgin lands and put them under cash crops for
export. He urged
businessmen to extend production of valueadded
goods in order to win customer satisfaction in the
international market.
Steps need to be taken for boosting production
of semi-finished and finished products of beans
and pulses as well as
forest and marine products.
Now, 24 to 30 million
dollars' worth of dairy products, edible oil worth
70 million dollars and car tyres worth 28 million
dollars have been imported annually although
Myanmar has thriving plantations of oil palm, rubber
etc. As these products
can be substituted with domestic products,
the only way to solve the problem is to develop
domestic private industries in
the country. |
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Next,
UMFCCI Patrons Minister Maj-Gen Maung Oo and Minister
Brig-Gen Tin
Naing Thein made speeches. UMFCCI General
Secretary U Sein Win Hlaing read
the annual report (2005-2006) and financial
statement of the federation and seek
approval of the members.
Later, well wishers
donated K.83.4 million for the construction of the
new
office building of the federation and President U
Win Myint gave concluding
remarks. Pavilions of export standard Myanmar
products were staged at the
exhibition by the companies of UMFCCI
members while the annual general
meeting was being convened. |
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Shipping Companies enjoy the pickup in
Myanmar's trade
Myanmar
trade in growing and there is a mounting struggle as the number
of cargo handling agencies expands, the
Myanmar times said. Yangon harbour,
which handles all maritne imports and 90 percent of exports
saw 165, 702 TEU
(20- foot equivalent unit) containers in 2005, up from
158, 184 in 2004. Four main ports compete to handle these
containers:Myanmar International Terminals Thilawa (MITT),
Aisa World Port Terminal (AWPT), Myanmar Industrial Port (MIP)
and the state owned Botataung Street Wharves No 1, 2 and
3 (BSW).
AWPT was taking the greatest share of the
trade handling 43.37 percent of containers in 2004 and 38.18
percent in 2005.
BSW was the second busiest operator last year, handling
30.80 percent of total TEU, up from 25.77 percent in 2004. MIP
also took advantage of Myanmar's trade increase, raising
from 7.96 percent in 2004 to 9.67 percent in 2005. Although
the
MITT is the largest port in the country, it lose some
of its share over the same period, falling from 22.90 to 21.34
percent of
container throughput.
The three private owned ports rely upon seven
private container line agents which handled almost 70 percent
of
containers last year.
The state-owned Myanmar Five Star Line increased
in services by 25 percent last year and the private companies
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Advance Container Line (ACL), Eagle Shipping Line (ESL),
Hong Kong based Orient Oversea Container Line (OOCL) and
Chennai based Gati-ACL remained the foremost container
agencies in Myanmar merchandise. |
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