Commercial Relations
Bilateral trade between China and Burma exceeds $1.4 billion. Chinese imports to Myanmar typically focus around oil, steel and textile products, while Myanmar imports range from natural rubber to raw wood. China is providing extensive aid and helping to develop industries and infrastructure in Burma and aims to be the chief beneficiary from cultivating Burma's extensive oil and natural gas reserves. It is one of the chief partners of the Burmese regime in the project to renovate and expand the Sittwe seaport and has received rights to develop and exploit natural gas reserves in the Arakan region. China has offered loans and credit to the military regime, as well as economic aid and investments for the construction of dams, bridges, roads and ports as well as for industrial projects. China extensively aided the construction of strategic roads along the Irrawaddy River trade route linking Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal. Chinese firms have been involved in the construction of oil and gas pipelines stretching 2,380 km (1,480 mi) from Burma's Arakan coast to China's Yunnan Province. China National Offshore Oil Corporation and the China National Petroleum Corporation hold important contracts on upgrading Burmese oilfields and refineries and sharing of production. PetroChina is in process of building a major gas pipeline from the A-1 Shwe oil field off the coast of the Rakhine State leading to Yunnan, accessing and exploiting an estimated 2.88 to 3.56 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. A proposed Sino-Burmese oil pipeline off the western coast of Burma may permit China to import oil from the Middle East, bypassing the Strait of Malacca.
China Power Investment Corporation's investment in the $3.6 billion Myitsone hydropower station on the Irrawaddy River has hit a snagged in early October 2011 as Burmese government suspended construction due to local residents' concern about the human, environmental impact and perceived benefits. Most of the power generated will be exported to Yunnan province in China and local residents claimed the lack of community feedback in the planning process. China's government is stating Burma will get 54 billions dollar in tax revenue, shared profits, free electricity. At stake is China's huge financial stake in the project and also risk to other big projects China has in the country. China Power Investment Corporation stated only five villages with a total of 2,146 needed to relocated. The firm has provided affected villagers with two storey houses, 21 in televisions and a 100,000 Burmese kyat compensation.
Read more about this topic: Burma–People's Republic Of China Relations
Famous quotes containing the words commercial and/or relations:
“It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“It is commonplace that a problem stated is well on its way to solution, for statement of the nature of a problem signifies that the underlying quality is being transformed into determinate distinctions of terms and relations or has become an object of articulate thought.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)