Economy
Silver, lead, and zinc are mined, notably at the Bawdwin mine, and there are smelters at Namtu. Rubies are extracted in large quantity in Mong Hsu Township in late 1990s and early 2000s.
Teak is cut, and rice and other crops are grown. Shan State is famous for its garden produce of all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables thanks to its temperate but sunny climate. Itinerant markets that travel from place to place, setting up on every fifth day in each small town or village, are typical, although large towns have permanent markets. It is part of the Golden Triangle, an area in which much of the world's opium and heroin are illegally produced. Drug trafficking is controlled by local warlords, some of whom have private armies amounting to thousands of soldiers. Much of the meth-amphetamine (yaba) that ends up in Thailand is produced in this region as well.
There are some border trading centers along the Shan State border and neighbor countries. Muse (Muse, Burma), the biggest border trading center along the Myanmar China border and Tachileik, another important trading center between Myanmar and Thailand are in Shan State.
The construction project of Sino-Burma pipelines of oil and gas that passes through northern part of Shan State was started in September 2010 and planned to be finished in 2013.
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