TAX EXEMPTIONS FOR GOODS UNDER DRUG SWAP SCHEME

Laos Wants Thai Help Along Border

Thailand, Burma, China, India and Laos have agreed on the need for tax
exemptions for goods and agricultural products made under development
projects in Burma and Laos, launched to substitute narcotic drug production.

The decision was made at an international meeting on cooperation
against drugs, with China and India considered the most likely
potential markets for those products.

Rassamee Wisthawes, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the
Narcotics Control Board, who led the Thai delegation, said the tax
exemptions would help those goods and products compete with
locally-made ones.

Drug authorities from Thailand, China and India agreed to consider
waiving tax altogether.

Thailand has put 40 million baht into the Yong Kha alternative
development project in a Wa-controlled area in Burma's Shan state.

The project, which started two years ago, aims to boost income for the
Wa people so they stay away from opium cultivation and drug production.

Alternative development projects in Laos are sponsored by
China.

Lao drug authorities have asked their Thai counterparts to start
similar projects along the Vietnamese-Lao border.

Ms Rassamee said Thailand planned to expand alternative development
projects to other parts of Burma, an idea welcomed by Pol Col Hkam
Awng, the Burmese joint secretary of the Central Committee for Drug
Abuse Control.

The Burmese authorities called on the international community to lift
economic sanctions.

The meeting also agreed on the control of ketamine, a psychotropic
substance used as an anaesthetic in surgical operations.

Young people also abuse the drug in nightclubs, and Thailand is urging
controls.

The meeting will ask the International Narcotics Control Board to add
ketamine to its list of controlled drugs and psychotropic substances.