"Local dealers decry influx of illegal Chinese traders to Myanmar jade town" 25 June 2023

Burmese gemstone dealers are frustrated over the influx of Chinese jade traders who have set up shop in a northern mining town in Myanmar since the 2021 military coup, residents say.

The traders are purchasing gems illegally at lower cost, making already tight margins razor thin for brokers in Hpakant township in Kachin state, driving some out of business out of business, they say. [...]

Black market

The situation presents a conundrum for Myanmar’s jade dealers, who rely heavily on demand from China’s domestic market for their gems.

That demand has led to entrepreneurs seeking to eliminate the middleman by going straight to the source of the jade, to the point where approximately half of the people traveling to Hpakant to buy gemstones are Chinese, residents said. [...]

Win Ye Tun said that some Chinese nationals had been arrested and deported during the more than two years since the military coup, although he could not provide an exact number. [...]

Meanwhile, traders in Hpakant told RFA that the domestic jade market has declined since the coup and that only bright, translucent jade is selling in China, adding to the pressure faced by local brokers.

“If you buy stones for resale, you can only earn money for a day’s worth of meals and you won’t make a living to provide for your family,” one local trader said. “The gemstone industry is hurting. There is no longer demand for the opaque stones that used to sell and could earn us an income.”

Complicating matters further, Myanmar’s military and a joint force of anti-junta Kachin Independence Army and paramilitary People’s Defense Force fighters have been locked in a standoff in Hpakant since early this year. Imports of food and fuel from Myanmar’s heartland are regularly blocked from entering the region by military checkpoints.

But despite the conflict, jade traders said Chinese nationals are “freely entering and exiting” Hpakant and illegally shipping jade from the area back home.