Little is known about logging along Burma’s 1,320-km border with India. A poor transport infrastructure and decades of tribal warfare in the Indian States of Manipur and Mizoram and the Chittagong Hills in Bangladesh have made large-scale logging difficult. However, economic relations between India and Burma have recently improved, and there are both published (ITTO, 1996) and anecdotal reports of increased timber exports to India.
In April 1995, India and Burma signed their first cross-border trade agreement; this agreement does not include timber. Officially, all timber exports have to pass via Rangoon (which explains the very low level of declared timber exports. In reality, an illegal timber trade is flourishing between Manipur State in India and Kachin State and Sagaing Division in Burma. The 1995 trade agreement includes provisions to upgrade roads connecting major trading towns in Burma to the Indian border. Once these roads are improved, cross-border trade could expand significantly given India’s growing demand for timber.
