The rampant increase in the smuggling of goods between Burma and Bangladesh threatens official border trade, according to a merchant from the border area of Bangladesh. Smuggled goods such as salt, animal husbandry, drugs (heroin), Yaba (stimulant) tablets, shrimp, rice, Burmese textiles, among other items, are coming from Burma into Bangladesh. The goods brought into Burma from Bangladesh includes, among others: rice, fertilizer, Phensdyl, medicine, injections, CTL tablets, cooking oil and diesel.

According to local business sources, Burmese rice is smuggled to Bangladesh by smuggling syndicates via the sea. Bangladeshi smugglers also smuggle out the Burmese rice to the border area of Burma, especially Maung Daw Township.

In the border areas of Arakan state, rice from Bangladesh is in much demand because the Burmese authorities strictly prohibit the carrying of rice to these areas from central Arakan state. It is part of a government policy to control the rice markets in Arakan.

Besides rice, the smuggling syndicates are illegally exporting and importing all products from both countries after bribing local authorities, the merchant said.

There are well-organized syndicates in both countries involved in smuggling and they are a very powerful lot of people. The main reason for apprehension is that good relations exist between the smugglers and higher authorities. The same situation prevails in both countries, he said.

The military junta in Burma is creating an artificial shortage of essential commodities and this is the reason goods such as fertilizer and oils are carried from Bangladesh to Burma through various border points.

The smugglers also carry Bangladeshi fertilizer, oils, and rice to Burma through several border points after paying bribes to Burmese authorities on a daily basis. Several outposts have been set up recently by Burmese local authorities in border areas to collect toll from smugglers.

Sources say that Burmese officials in border areas collect toll from smugglers because their salaries are insufficient for their family’s survival.

This is the reason why many traders in the border areas are now involved in the smuggling business because it is more lucrative than official trade. In official trade there are so many restrictions created by the two countries that it is pushing traders into becoming involved in illegal trade.

Even though in the last seven months alone Bangladesh authorities have seized smuggled goods worth about taka 100 million from border areas, smuggled goods still flow from both sides between Burma and Bangladesh.