Thousands of Myanmar jade sellers and dealers are collecting signatures for a petition calling on the civilian-led government to temporarily ban mining of the gemstone and stop its illegal export to China in a bid to push up prices in the domestic market, an official from a jade association said.
They have collected roughly 10,000 signatures from people in Mandalay and Sagaing regions and the mining town of Hpakant in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state since Saturday, and are still collecting them in the latter two places, said Kyaw Kyaw Oo, spokesman of the Jade Business Development Committee.
“We are collecting signatures to demand a temporary halt of jade mining operations for a while,” he said.
Jade dealers want to temporarily halt extraction to increase demand for the stone and raise the price for domestic sales amid slow market conditions, he said.
In 2012, miners stopped extracting jade for a while because of unsafe conditions due to fighting between armed ethnic groups and the Myanmar army. This subsequently pushed up the price of jade and offered favorable market conditions for sellers, Kyaw Kyaw Oo said.
Local jade businessmen are also demanding that the government take action against those who sell jade illegally, he said.
Legitimate jade dealers must pay the government 28 percent tax on every sale, but those who want to avoid the tax sell jade directly and illegally to China, he said.
U.S. $31 billion industry
There are more than 200,000 people Mandalay, about 50,000 in Sagaing, and more than 700,000 in Hpakant who work in the jade industry, he said.
Hpakant, which lies 651 kilometers (404 miles) north of Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw, produces some of the highest-quality jade in the world, much of it exported or smuggled to China where demand for the precious stone is high.
Myanmar's jade industry alone is worth U.S. $31 billion, according to a report issued last October by London-based anti-corruption and environmental advocacy group Global Witness.
The group said a network of former generals, drug lords, and crony businessmen—including former junta chief Than Shwe and senior figures in Myanmar’s military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)—tightly control the jade industry and keep the sector’s vast profits exclusively for themselves.
In recent months, locals have led protests against jade-mining companies to get them to improve the safety of excavation areas in light of a recent series of deadly landslides caused by collapsing waste heaps.
Rights groups routinely criticize jade-mining companies for the detrimental social and environmental impacts of their activities in the largely unregulated industry.
Reported by Sat Paing Toe. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.