As Myanmar’s financial crisis deepens, Indian Ambassador to Myanmar Abhay Thakur is talking to finance and central bank officials about enhancing cooperation with India and the delivery of more technical assistance, junta media reported.
It said the envoy visited the junta’s planning and finance minister, Win Shein, in Naypyitaw on Monday to discuss cooperation in the banking and finance sector, loans and technical assistance from India, and more training for officials in Myanmar.
The Indian ambassador also met Central Bank of Myanmar governor Than Than Swe the same day to discuss rupee/kyat direct payments to promote bilateral trade, and cross-border payments via cards and mobile apps.
Most members of the international community shun Myanmar’s junta for its barbaric violations of human rights, but neighboring India has since the 2021 coup – embraced the regime, providing it with diplomatic and military support, and promoting trade.
The regime has been short of hard currency since the putsch, which sparked a stampede of foreign investors out of the country. The junta has had a hard time attracting new investment projects. The two banks it used the most for international transfers – Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank – were sanctioned by Washington in June of last year. Both were primarily foreign-currency exchange businesses that allowed Myanmar’s state-owned enterprises access to international markets and helped them more easily complete transactions with foreign partners.
As the dollar crisis deepens for the regime, India has facilitated direct payment in kyat and rupee for border trade. The country has been a major buyer of Myanmar’s beans and pulses. The Indian Embassy in Yangon said earlier this month that India had bought 10 million rupee (US$ 120,000) worth of beans and pulses from Myanmar.
India’s offer of loans and banking assistance to the regime came shortly after senior junta officials berated the country’s top bankers at a meeting late Wednesday, accusing them of inflicting inflation on Myanmar and causing the country’s currency to plunge.
The world’s largest democracy is also the third-biggest supplier of arms and equipment to the junta. It trails only Russia and China, rights group Justice for Myanmar noted in a March report.
India is also helping the regime with its planned election even though it is widely ridiculed in Myanmar and considered a sham. Late last month, the Indian ambassador offered to provide technology and training for the junta’s election commission.
India last week reaffirmed its continued cooperation with the regime to implement a massive transport and development project in Myanmar’s westernmost state, Rakhine.
The US$484 million Kaladan Multi-Transport Transit Project is funded by India. Its goal is to connect the city of Kolkata with India’s remote, and underdeveloped, northeast – the state’s above Bangladesh and beneath China.
The project uses Sittwe port and the Kaladan River to link Kolkata with India’s most remote region. It also includes a road in Chin State’s Palweta Township to link the Kaladan River to India’s northeastern state of Mizoram.
Junta foreign minister Than Swe also held talks with his Indian counterpart on the construction of a Myanmar-India-Thai highway when he attended the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in New Delhi last week.
The trilateral highway will allow India to expand its trade with Southeast Asia through Myanmar and Thailand. Like the Kaladan project it is part of India’s so-called “Look East” policy.
