Data based on the latest figures announced under the Extractive Industries Transparency Imitative (EITI) and Myanmar Gems Enterprise will now be available on the website, NRGI said last week. It will include data on licenses, funds channeled in to the sector as well as revenues generated.

The aim is to make the sector more transparent, which will benefit the public, said U Maw Tun Aung, director at NRGI Myanmar.

“Firms involved in extracting and profiting from Myanmar jade, which is a natural resource of the country, must also give back to the community. But if the amount of natural resources extracted and used is not known, it will lead to doubts over the management of this sector,” he said.

“Myanmar has been poorly ranked for transparency especially in the jade sector, according to the Resource Governance Index,” U Maw Tun Aung added. As such, efforts are being made to make data on the sector more widely available to the public.

The website will include sections discussing the impact of jade mining on the country, analytics and interviews with industry insiders, databases on jade licenses, revenue flows as well as other information and data tools.

The move is a positive step forward for the Myanmar jade sector, which is estimated to generate revenues amounting to billions of dollars, but has historically been shrouded in secrecy. 

Even by making additional data available, policymakers may continue finding it challenging to glean insights from the potentially large amounts of unstructured data made available.