On August 8, 2018, the international border of Myanmar-India was officially opened. Since then, there is a huge increase in the number of travellers coming into the country for business and tourism purposes.
After the international land border crossing opened, there is no longer a special land entry permission required to travel between the two countries. It is now extremely easy to travel across the land route from one country to the second without any problems. Both the countries have set goals in order to improve the relations in terms of business sector, cultural and medical tourism and also other factors that can help in achieving the set goals.
On the completion of the first month of international border opening, a media team from Moreh visited the immigration office located at the Integrated Check Post (ICP) to collect information regarding the number of travellers travelling between the countries.
According to the report collected, a total number of 235 persons travelled to Manipur through Myanmar. Out of these 235 personals, 173 were Myanmarese and other 25 were Indians. Also, one person each from France, Nepal, Malaysia, USA , Singapore, China, Romania and three from Germany. The remaining 27 of these were from Thailand.
Moreover, the total number of personals who travelled from India to Myanmar is 156. Out of these 156 people, 56 were Indians, 95 were from Myanmar, 2 were from each Nepal and Switzerland and one person from Singapore.
It has also been noticed that most of Myanmar citizens travelling to India are here for Medical tourism. However, Indian citizens are visiting Myanmar mainly for tourism and business purposes.
It is believed, that this suddenly increased number of travellers is mainly because of the introduction of Act Easy Policy, aiming to improve the relations between both the countries and also among the remaining South East Asian countries.
According to the agreed terms between the countries for the opening of international borders, the citizens from both countries are allowed to travel to the other side for 16 kilometres and can stay for 14 days. Myanmar has already started making local border passes for travelling and the work is going on with full pace.
However, the construction work for Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Moreh is not yet completed, leading to slow work progress. Although an immigration office and customs duty office has been set up at the ICP, there is no proper infrastructure and still has many requirements to be fulfilled.
There are no local border cards being made for Indians at the ICP and local residents are have started expressing their concern over this issue to the authorities so that the required action can be taken and ICP may become fully functional as soon as possible.

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