CHAPTER XVI
(I) TRADE AND COMMERCE[1]
(The figures in this section are generally approximate. Except when otherwise stated they refer to the year 1920–21, called also "last year.")
With a people enjoying a comparatively high standard of living and demanding many varied articles of subsistence, luxury, comfort, and display; with a fertile country yielding in great quantities products sought by other nations; aided and stimulated by European and Indian capital and enterprise, Burma ranks as a commercial country of some importance. Its trade is of modern growth, sprung into luxuriance from small beginnings, since the British occupation of Pegu (1852).
Sea-borne trade. Rangoon, admirably situated as the collecting depot for provincial produce and as the distributing centre for imports, absorbs the greatest part of the sea-borne trade with India and with British and foreign ports, its share approximating to nine-tenths of the total. Of the minor ports, Bassein, Akyab, and Moulmein, each claims from 2 to 3 per cent, of the foreign[2] and from 4 to 6 per cent, of the Indian trade. Mergui and Tavoy have a small foreign and Indian trade, but with Sandoway and Kyaukpyu they take a moderate share of inter-provincial coasting trade, Mergui's portion approaching one-fifth of the whole. Victoria Point, the remote port of Tenasserim, has a small import traffic, almost exclusively with the Straits Settlements; and a little export trade with the United Kingdom, the Straits Settlements, and Siam. Last year the value of the sea-borne trade with foreign and Indian
- ↑ See Appendix V.
- ↑ Except where otherwise stated, "foreign" includes all trade except Indian and inter-provincial.
