Italy signs irrigation and agricultural mechanization agreement with Myanmar

03 August 2019
Italy signs irrigation and agricultural mechanization agreement with Myanmar
Deputy Minister U Hla Kyaw and Italian Ambassador Mrs Alessandra Schiavo exchange notes of MoU on cooperation in the agricultural sector in Nay Pyi Taw yesterday. Photo: MNA

The Ambassador of Italy, Ms Alessandra Schiavo, has just signed in Nay Pyi Taw, together with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, Hla Kyaw, two MoUs between the above mentioned Myanmar Ministry and the Italian Ministry for Economic Development, in the fields of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization.

Both Agreements signed 2 August will aim at jointly setting up two Technological Centres (one in the Sagaing Region, and the other in the Mandalay Region), to improve the quality of local training, accelerate the development of agricultural mechanization in Myanmar thanks to the acknowledged technological Italian know-how, demonstrate and spread the benefits of adopting new technologies, processes and managerial skills.

The Italian side will entrust the Italian Trade Agency, together with the industrial Associations ANIMA and Federunacoma, which collectively comprise almost 3.500 Italian companies, with a turnover respectively of 48,5 and 11 billion Euros in 2018, and have developed some of the most advanced technologies in the whole world.

“With the signing of these two Memoranda of Understanding, Italy demonstrates its will to support Myanmar in its efforts to move from subsistence farming to market-oriented and export-oriented farming. We wish to promote the awareness of modern farming techniques, in order to improve both the quantity of the harvest and the crop quality, and to reduce the dependence on the seasonal nature of the produce supply.

We believe that Myanmar, being literally surrounded by some of the largest and fastest growing  food markets on the global scale, could experience sustained development in the agricultural sector, and we want to help it fly at its full potential altitude, in line with our bilateral friendship and in a win-win framework of co-operation,” declared Ambassador Alessandra Schiavo.