Rangoon: The Burmese government believes that there are 300,000 Burmese labourers working in Thailand, but only 80,000 hold official labour permits issued by the Thai Labour Ministry.

State run media reported the numbers on Thursday. But in Thailand, the actual number of Burmese nationals working – most of them illegally – is believed to be closer to one million.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece for the ruling military junta, acknowleded in an editorial published Thursday that the majority of workers in Thailand “are living in the country without having legal documents.”

The daily blamed “human traffickers” for the massive trade in illegal Burmese labourers into Thailand and the mistreatment they often endured in the neighbouring country.

On its part, the Burmese government claimed to have done its duty by issuing licences to 70 agencies to find job opportunities for Burmese people abroad and for agreeing to issue “temporary passports for Myanmar (Burmese) workers who in the past worked illegally in Thailand so that they will become legal guest workers” as of Nov 6, last year.

Lack of proper Burmese identity papers is often sited as one of the main reasons that Burmese labourers fail to qualify for Thai labour permits, which are also issued to labourers from neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.

The New Light of Myanmar made no mention of the main reason hundreds of thousands of their citizens are forced to work illegally in Thailand – the decline of the economy over the past two decades that is widely blamed on the military’s refusal to allow political and economic reforms.