Myanmar's jade trade has been labelled as potentially the biggest natural resource heist in modern history, with the value of the precious stone to the country put at an astounding $US31 billion ($43 billion) for last year alone.

The finding comes in a report by Global Witness, an international body dedicated to exposing corruption and improving transparency in natural resources industries.

The Global Witness findings declare Myanmar's jade trade: "May well be the biggest natural resource heist in modern history."

And while it was the NGO that valued the trade at $US31 billion in 2014, it is at best a conservative estimate, Global Witness spokeswoman Juman Kubba said.

"According to multiple industry sources, between 50 and 80 per cent of jade is smuggled directly to the China border, bypassing the official [Myanmar] sales completely," she said.

The group's report provides a glimpse into the complex web of shadowy proxies, business fronts and companies connected to the military that attempt to obfuscate a kleptocracy still very much controlled by the top brass of the former junta.

Global Witness - which had a measure of co-operation from the current government - also names a coterie of others involved in the trade, including the country's largest and best-financed rebel army, the United Wa State Army, as well as serving politicians and US-sanctioned individuals.

Jade trade thrives amid civil war

There is no doubt that since the formation of the quasi-civilian government led by President U Thein Sein in 2011, Myanmar, formerly Burma, has undergone some key reforms.

But for the people of jade-rich Kachin State, 2011 also marked the breakdown of a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Myanmar's military, the Tatmadaw.

The civil war in the state continues today and has left around 100,000 people displaced.

It is amid this instability that Myanmar's booming jade trade has continued to thrive. Although small-scale mining has been carried out for decades, the introduction of heavy machinery in recent years has allowed greater quantities of jade to be mined than ever before, feeding the insatiable Chinese market.

A soldier from KIA takes position at an outpost. ( Supplied: Kaung Htet )

"We've been told that a site which previously took 30 days to mine can now be mined in less than four," Ms Kubba said.

Amid concerns about stalling reforms, the November 8 elections are widely regarded as the litmus test for the country's democratic transition.

But for some in the jade industry, the elections mean something else entirely.

"According to one machine company source, the licensed [mining] companies are now worried that the new government, or peace negotiations, may change the status quo and they just want to get as much jade out of the ground as they can before then," Ms Kubba said.

Jade valley 'like hell on Earth'

In the hills and valleys of Hpakant in northern Myanmar's mountainous Kachin State, heavy machinery and thousands of men work around the clock, scrambling to find deposits of the country's hottest commodity.

The holy grail of the industry is imperial green jade.

Hpakant had previously been a KIA area, but in recent years the Tatmadaw has overrun their positions and controls many of the roads.

The KIA and various other militias still impose tolls in parts of the state under their control, in an informal taxation system.

Daw Khon Ja of the Kachin Women's Association has seen first-hand the devastation the jade industry and the intractable armed conflict has brought to her people.

A drug addict shoots heroin at the jade mining site near the Hpakant township. ( Supplied: Kaung Htet )

"From my point of view, [Hpakant] is like hell on earth. Everybody has to run for the money. Without money, people have nothing to eat," she said.

"For people in that area who can't collect stones, so many women become sex workers, or people become drug traffickers. Jade mining could provide a lot of good opportunities ... but local people have had very little benefit."

Intravenous drug use and amphetamine-stimulant abuse is rampant, the former driving the region's high prevalence of HIV.

"Conditions for workers in Burma's jade sector have been dire for decades and companies often treat human labour with the same mercantile callousness as they do environmental damage," Human Rights Watch's senior Myanmar researcher David Mathieson said.

Dangerous conditions put workers at risk

The conditions in the jade mines themselves are extremely dangerous, particularly for those who pick through the churned up material from large-scale machinery on unstable, cleaved hillsides.

In April, a landslide caused by the operations of a mine controlled by the former general secretary of the country's ruling party, U Maung Maung Thein, killed an estimated 30 to 60 people.

As Myanmar has further opened the door to foreign investment, international firms have been faced with the often-fraught task of finding a "clean" local partner to work with.

Global Witness found that, despite its million-dollar due diligence process, Coca-Cola still managed to partner with a jade trade-linked local firm, which has ties to the military.

The report also alleges that American earthmoving equipment giant Caterpillar has ties to an internationally wanted drug lord.

The jade mining site near the Hpakant township. ( Supplied: Kaung Htet )

Ms Kubba says that, in the case of the jade industry, the US's ability to impose sanctions gives it a real capacity to affect change.

Myanmar has signed on to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a global standard for transparency and accountability.

But big questions remain unanswered for the country's most obscure, but most profitable, single industry.

"The question of who controls and benefits from jade needs to be addressed as part of the peace talks between the government and KIA," Ms Kubba said.

"Resource sharing is an important issue and transparency is key to allow real and ongoing scrutiny of what is happening.

"It is unlikely that any peace agreement which fails to meaningfully address these issues will be a lasting one."

Global Witness map of military positions and jade mines

Loading...