Economy
Trade with Burma constitutes the largest portion of Mae Sot's economy. It has an established market for commodities such as wholesale gems and teak. Most of the towns service industries are supported by Burmese migrants who fill positions within sweat-shops and factories throughout the region. The town also suffers from a black market in illegal smuggling, people trafficking and narcotics. The Thai-Myanmar friendship bridge, is the primary gateway for trade with Burma. The border region, located several kilometres from central Mae Sot includes the Rim Moei Market that deals in imported goods and woodwork.
Mae Sot also serves as a minor tourist destination, primarily used for those wishing to visit Myawaddy in Burma or as a stopover on the way to Amphoe Umphang, popular for trekking.
Read more about this topic: Mae Sot District
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant’s economy is a coarse symbol of the soul’s economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)