Article 5.5(a) and (b) of the EU Common Position on Burma refers to a list of state-owned companies subject to financial sanctions. This list appears in Annex II of the Common Position. The list is agreed within the EU by consensus. No consensus has been reached on adding Myanmar Timber Enterprises to the list.
The UK will continue to work for the strongest achievable targeted measures in the EU Common Position, which is adopted by unanimity, and will remain in close contact with EU partners to establish which State-owned enterprises should be included on the list of companies subject to sanctions under the Common Position.
The UK supports the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan which envisages Voluntary Partnership Agreements with individual countries to promote trade in legally produced timber. Burma is not a FLEGT Partner Country and its timber exports are therefore not promoted under this scheme. In the UK, the Government maintains a long-standing policy of discouraging British companies from trading with Burma.