WORLD> Asia-Pacific
Myanmar to export rubber to DPRK
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-19 12:07

YANGON -- Myanmar has planned to export rubber to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as part of the two countries' bilateral economic cooperation program following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations in April last year.

According to this week's Myanmar Times issue, which quoted the Myanmar Rubber Planters and Producers' Association, the export will begin within two months and the export tonnage in the first year will be 10,000 tons under an agreement between the DPRK and the association signed last week.

The export will make DPRK become Myanmar's fifth export client after China, Singapore, Malaysia and India, it said.  

Myanmar has been extending cultivation of rubber. During the fiscal year 2007-08, which ended in March, Myanmar cultivated over 364,500 hectares of rubber in the whole country, producing more than 80,000 tons. It projected to grow 81,000 hectares more in the present 2008-09.

Myanmar's rubber cultivation revived after 1988 due to permission granted to national entrepreneurs to grow and trade the crop freely.

Myanmar exported 19,200 tons of raw rubber in 2007-08, statistics showed.

Rubber, along with jute, cotton, edible crop, stands a main industrial crop in Myanmar.