ကခ်င္နယ္စပ္ တရုတ္ႏုိင္ငံဘက္မွာ ယူအက္စ္ေဒၚလာ ၄သိန္း ၈ေသာင္းနဲ႔ ေရာင္းခ်ေနတဲ့ ျမန္မာ့ေက်ာက္စိမ္း ဘယက္ ....

 

Yingjiang county, an important entry point from Kachin state into China, has more than 4,000 businessmen regularly traveling to Myanmar to purchase raw jade. At least 10,000 locals make their livings from the jade industry. The Kachin conflict has caused transport problems and a massive rise in costs.
Dong Shengzhong, general manager of Yufu Jade Co, has been traveling between Yingjiang and Hpakant, an important mining area for the mineral, in Kachin for 15 years.
Nabang is the entry point he has visited most frequently, but now he rarely ventures from the county seat because he is not prepared to take the risk of visiting Kachin.
Dong migrated to Hpakant around 28 years ago. He swapped his old job of cultivating rice and vegetables to explore for raw jade at the behest of a Myanmar businessman.
As Myanmar jade became more popular in China, Dong started his own business, trading the raw mineral.
"Trading raw jade is like a gamble. One piece of raw jade that cost 500 yuan ($80) may make a profit of 50,000 yuan," he said. "But you may get nothing if the value of the raw jade has been miscalculated."
Before June 2011, when the latest conflict broke out, Dong often led a team of Kachins to search for high-quality jade.
Now, however, some of the highways are impassable and Chinese merchants are likely to be regarded as spies by both the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar military, said Dong. "So, many jade traders are reluctant to go there now," he said.
The conflict has pushed up the costs of extraction and transportation of one ton of raw jade by 10,000 yuan, meaning Dong faces the prospect of spending an extra 1 million yuan annually on the raw material.
To combat the decline in trade, the Yingjiang county government will hold an international exhibition in March to promote the development of the local jade industry.
Hu Yongqi

(China Daily 01/23/2013 page6)

www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-01/23/content_16158373.htm