Some 500 containers of goods arriving at the Yangon Port from India and Bangladesh are being transited monthly to China, according to a latest report by the local news journal Myanmar News Gazette.

This is another trade access to China provided by Myanmar for the two neighbours after Thailand. Thailand and China started such transit trade through Myanmar early last July.

Meanwhile, with effect from late last August, the Myanmar authorities have relaxed the tariff for transit trade carried out via the country, reducing it to a value equivalent to 2.5 percent of the cost insurance freight, a decrease from 4 percent previously.

With Myanmar becoming a transit trade center providing trade access for one to another, which stands as Myanmar's immediate neighbour with direct border links, Myanmar is benefiting from the status, traders here believed.

Latest official statistics show that in the 2003-04 fiscal year ended in March, Myanmar's foreign trade volume amounted to 4.4 billion US dollars, of which its trade with the four neighbours accounted for 2.02 billion dollars or 46 percent with Thailand topping with 1.16 billion dollars, India 463 million dollars, China 362.81 million dollars and Bangladesh 42.21 million dollars.

However, in Myanmar's 531.34 million dollars border trade with the four neighbours during the fiscal year, China led with 340.98 million dollars, followed by Thailand with 99.25 million dollars, India with 83.46 million dollars and Bangladesh 7.65 million dollars.

Myanmar has so far opened a total of 13 border trade points with its four neighbours, of which five with China, four with Thailand, two each with India and Bangladesh, holding a good position to provide transit trade for third countries.