Executives from Chinese state-owned firm CITIC met with junta officials on Friday to press for speedy implementation of the planned Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone and deep-sea port under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The meeting focused on how to expedite the project even though Rakhine State has largely fallen to rebels.
Junta media said the two sides “agreed that the development plan for the deep-sea port should be updated to meet the needs of the current situation.”
Attending the meeting were Investment and Foreign Economic Relations Minister Kan Zaw, Commerce Minister Tun Ohn, the Rakhine State chief minister, and CITIC executives.
The CITIC representatives “discussed matters related to environmental and social impact assessments and development plans,” junta media reported.
Tun Ohn claimed that “relevant departments are preparing timelines to ensure they complete all necessary tasks ahead of the deadline.”
It was their first meeting since the junta’s recent Private Security Services Law permitted Beijing to send security companies to Myanmar to protect its investments.
The Kyaukphyu Deep-Sea Port and SEZ, part of China’s vast Belt and Road initiative, are important to China because they would give it direct access to the Indian Ocean, reducing reliance on the Malacca Strait for energy imports. Another Belt and Road project, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), is supposed to connect Kyaukphyu to Yunnan Province via pipelines and planned rail networks, but all of them run through rebel-held territory, and hopes of imminent progress are slim.
China is nonetheless pressuring the regime to kickstart the projects. When junta boss Min Aung Hlaing met Chinese premier Li Qiang in his first post-coup visit to China in November, he promised to start them “where possible.”
The concession was signed on Nov. 5, 2020, between the Kyaukphyu SEZ Management Committee and CITIC. Following the coup in 2021, the regime tried to start it.
Deputy junta chief Soe Win told cabinet members in October 2022 that they must be aware of the politically sensitive nature of the contracts and ensure a “win-win” situation through negotiations.
An addendum to the agreement was signed in December 2023, and the “long stop date”—the date the developer has set for the property to be completed—was extended by 18 months until June 26 this year, according to junta media.
Kan Zaw told a Jan. 21 meeting the junta now seeks to get the job done two months ahead of the deadline.
But the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) ontrols 14 of 17 townships in Rakhine State. Only three towns, including Kyaukphyu and the state capital of Sittwe, are under junta control, and AA troops have encircled Kyaukphyu and are attacking the junta’s Danyawaddy naval base there.
The Rakhine port town is also the starting point of the China-Myanmar pipeline that carries natural gas to Yunnan
Under pressure from China, the regime is working to establish a joint security company with Beijing and recently passed the controversial Private Security Services Law, allowing private Chinese security companies to operate officially in Myanmar.
