Myanmar and China have started some free trade activities under the Early Harvest Plan (EHP), an advanced program of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (FTA), a local news journal reported Tuesday.

The Myanmar-China trade under the EHP covers 596 items of products including live animals, meat, fish and diary products as well as vegetable and fruits, the Myanmar News Gazette quoted a document of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as saying.

Myanmar is set to ultimately remove the tariff on the 596 items of products by the year 2009, according to the document.

Under the EHP, Myanmar has exported to China over US$500,000 worth of green mung bean, it disclosed.

The EHP constitutes part of the free trade activities countrywide under the ASEAN-China FTA targeted for establishment by 2010.

Meanwhile, China has unilaterally cut import tariff on over 100 Myanmar products along with those of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam under a framework agreement of ASEAN and China initiated in November 2002.

According to official statistics, the trade volume between ASEAN and China increased eight times in the past decade, reaching US$78 billion in 2003. ASEAN has become China's fourth trading partner with the trade volume tending to reach US$100 billion by 2005.

Of the ASEAN-China trade, Myanmar-China bilateral trade, including the border trade, reached US$1.07 billion in 2003 with China's exports to Myanmar amounting to US$200 million and its imports from Myanmar taking up 170 million. China has proposed an increase of their bilateral trade to 1.5 billion by 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2004)