Q1: How much the industry worth?
Myanmar’s secretive jade industry is worth an estimated $31bn, far exceeding the $3.4bn sold at the country’s gem emporium last year, it’s only official market for international sales of the precious stone. The estimated value of last year’s jade haul would amount to almost half of the impoverished country’s GDP. “The numbers are staggering,” said Juman Kubba from Global Witness, saying the country’s jade trade “may be the biggest natural resource heist in modern history.” The watchdog’s valuation of jade mining in Myanmar is based on factors such as government production data, official sales prices and quality estimates as well as industry reports suggesting up to 80% of the precious stone is smuggled directly out of the country.
Q2. Where are the mines located?
Most of the world’s best quality jadeite is mined in Hpakant, a strip of torn earth in Myanmar’s insurgency-wracked northern Kachin state bordering China, a country with a voracious demand for the precious stone.
Q3. Who are involved?
The Global Witness alleges that most profits from the industry go to powerful military and ex-junta figures instead of the state coffers. It also points strongman Than Shwe’s family with the trade. Jade from Myanmar, which is still under US sanctions, is highly prized in China as a symbol of virtue and power. Official Chinese import data from 2014 indicates more than $12bn of precious stones were imported from Myanmar -- the vast majority jade -- dwarfing Myanmar’s official figures. Jade is also thought to be an important revenue stream for the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA) -- large amounts of the stone are sold through illegal mines and in rebel-held areas -- as it battles the Myanmar army.
Q4. What are the risk factors in mining?
The nation’s lucrative jade mines have also long been a perilous workplace with accidents and landslides common -- landslides killed at least nine miners in April and four in January. Once cloaked by dense jungle, the area is now ringed by naked hills, exposing it to frequent monsoon landslides and a ferocious tropical sun. Quoting locals, the watchdog report says dozens of miners have died in recent months on unsteady mounds of rubble left by mechanised diggers, or falling to their deaths on illicit nighttime jade hunts on the sheer cliffs.
