Thailand, Myanmar to jointly promote economic crop plantations in border areas

BANGKOK, March 2 (TNA) - Thai and Myanmar narcotic control authorities and Thailand's Doi Tung Development Project will jointly implement an opium replacement project in border areas on the Myanmar soil adjacent to Thailand to cut narcotic production there. Visiting Myanmar National Police Chief Police Major General Kyaw Kyaw Tun, who is also Secretary to Myanmar's narcotic control board, met Secretary-General of Thailand's Narcotics Control Board Police General Adul Saengsingkaew and visited the site of the Doi Tung Development Project in the northern Thai Chiang Rai Province on Friday. The Thai and Myanmar authorities took the opportunity to discuss the opium replacement in Mong Hsat Town in Myanmar's Shan State, where narcotics are produced and delivered to Thailand. Opium plantations in the Myanmar border areas now amount to about 36,000 rai, or 57.6 square kilometers, and the drug crop can feed the production of 14 tons of heroin annaully. Police General Adul told journalists that the first six months of the project will be spent on public relations with ethnic people in the Myanmar areas, who will be convinced to keep their forests for their sustainable life. Thai authorities will also improve the life of the Myanmar ethnics by building communal clinics and teach them to make other livings, instead of growing poppy, covering the introduction of other cash crops to replace poppy. Police General Adul and the management of the Doi Tung Development Project are scheduled to meet Myanmar authorities in Myanmar's Tachilek Town tomorrow to designate villages where opium replacement will start. Meanwhile, the Thai government has agreed to grant an anuual budget of 15 million baht to fund the project in Myanmar. The opium-free requirement for the Shan State is a condition for Myanmar to join a single community of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by 2015. (TNA)