Myanmar junta restricts exports as Bangladeshi banks freeze Burmese accounts: Report

DHAKA, Bangladesh

The Myanmar junta government restricted exports to Bangladesh through ports after Bangladeshi banks froze the accounts of two Myanmar state banks, according to media reports.

The junta prohibited the export of various food commodities to Bangladesh via Maungdaw in Rakhine State after the decision by Bangladesh’s Sonali Bank, Myanmar Now reported.

The junta government made the decision after a meeting between junta chief Min Aung Bangladesh and Bangladesh’s mission head Md Monwar Hossain, it said.

The regime’s Commerce Ministry announced Sept. 1 that restricted goods, including rice, beans, peanuts and onions must be shipped through the commercial zone in Rakhine State's capital of Sittwe, effective Sept. 4.

“Sonali Bank (Bangladeshi state bank) imposed restrictions, which could lead to the smuggling of people and goods,” said Myint Thura, director general of the junta Commerce Ministry’s trade department, said the report.

The total value of goods exported to Bangladesh via Maungdaw exceeded $4.5 million between April and August of this year, it said.

Bangladesh froze Myanmar accounts

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency under the US Treasury Department, imposed sanctions on two Myanmar banks in

The US Embassy in Dhaka had forwarded a letter to Bangladesh requesting that the sanctioned lenders’ accounts in Sonali Bank be frozen.

The state bank froze the two sanctioned lenders, Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank, holding accounts totaling £1.1 million ($1.4 million) at Sonali Bank.

Meanwhile, Sonali Bank also has now frozen accounts totaling £170,000 at two US-sanctioned Myanmar banks.

The Bangladesh central bank issued an official order in late August that asked all commercial banks not to conduct financial transactions with two Myanmar state banks that come under US sanctions, according to a document obtained by the Anadolu.

Repatriation remains Dhaka’s priority

Hossain met the junta chief Sept. 6 and gave his credentials as the Bangladesh ambassador to Myanmar, according to Hossain’s social media accounts.

“Bangladesh topmost priority is repatriation (Rohingya),” the envoy told the Myanmar junta leader, according to a post Friday on X.

He reiterated that repatriations should start at the earliest ensuring the safety, voluntariness and sustainability of those returning. Hossai emphasized the conducive environment in places of origin.

The junta leader “expressed willingness for immediate repatriation,” Hossain added.

More than 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims forcibly displaced from Myanmar live in camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh and Bhasan Char, an island in the Bay of Bengal.

​​​​​​​Most of the refugees fled a brutal military crackdown in August 2017 in Rakhine, a state on the western coast of Buddhist-majority Myanmar.