Deputy Minister of Commerce announced that the border pass at Ban Ton Noon in Tambon Mae Ngao, Khun Yuam District, will be upgraded to a permanent border check point, linking the Khun Yuam district of Thailand and Mae Chae district of Myanmar. The Deputy Minister, the Mae Hong Son Governor Kamthorn Thawornsathit, General Boonyarit Kalayanamit of the Department of Trade Negotiations and the Mae Hong Son Chamber of Commerce President Supoj Klinpraneet met with Aung Soe Thein, the Director of the Department of Border Trade for Myanmar in Yangon between January 24 and 28.
Free trade agreement talks were also held in Mae Hong Son in an effort to increase cross border trade, tourism and investment projects and to enable ASEAN agreements with Mae Hong Son.
The Deputy Minister of Commerce, Alongkorn Polbutre also attended the first meeting in Mae Hong Son with the Director General of the Myanmar Trade Department, the Director of the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and the Director of the Chamber of Commerce. Members of the business community also participated in the meetings to seek cooperation on increasing cross border trade and tourism.
After the meeting the group travelled to the Ton Noon border pass on the Thai-Myanmar border. Once open, the border checkpoint would link Mae Hong Son’s Khun Yuam district with Myanmar towns like Toungoo, Pray and the coastal town of Thandwe, deputy minister Alongkorn said.
“From Khun Yuam district own to Ban Ton Noon border pass is about 30 kilometers, and then from the Thai-Myanmar border checkpoint to Toungoo town in Myanmar is about another 200 kilometers”, he added.
The meeting and border inspection is regarded as the first step of the plan to improve relations between Myanmar and Mae Hong Son province and is in line with Thai government policy, following last year’s official visit of the deputy minister Alongkorn to Myanmar. The government aims to open more border crossings with a hope to increase trade and tourism between Mae Hong Son and Myanmar.
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