"Nay Pyi Taw, 27 Jan — U Soe Tint, Deputy Minister for Construction, at the Pyithu Hluttaw session here on Tuesday answered a query about the government plans for the loss of farmlands and the sale of apartments in installments. ?Farmland loss is due to establishing new satellite towns in public interests,” he said, adding ?The projects are real.” He spoke of the resettlement of affected people on plots measuring 20 feet by 60 feet and 40ft by 60ft, explaining that compensation have been made K 10,000 an acre of bare land and K20,000 per acre of land under cultivation. He added the compensation was more than the then market value. Regarding the sale of apartments in installments, he said low-price housing projects for ordinary people are under planning stage, with detailed calculations being made to ensure the purchase of apartments in long-term monthly installments. As for a question concerning the relationship between the Pyu culture and the Bagan culture, Deputy Minister for Culture U Than Swe spoke of three Pyu cities that date back about 2000 years, quoting researchers as saying that there is evidence that the religion, culture, architecture and arts in Pyu era were discovered in Bagan before the times of King Anawrahta. Cultural evidences found in Bagan and shared by Pyu, Mon and Myanmar are of great significance to the culture of Bagan, he said, adding that the Bagan culture have derived from the Pyu culture. An MP called for the government in her proposal, suggesting that a state-level supervisory committee be formed to deal with arbitrations likely to rise from product-sharing contracts between governmental ministries and foreign firms. Responding to the proposal, Deputy Minister Dr Maung Maung Thein, who is also a member of the Myanmar Investment Commission, said that ministries differ from one another in their operations and that different projects demand different contracts even in a single ministry. Disputes involving international companies are to be settled by arbitration according to the New York Convention, which he said covers Myanmar and as a result the Supreme Court of the Union is working on it to write a law. It is not an easy task to form a state-level committee to tackle disputes on contracts, with the deputy minister saying that contracting parties are fully responsible for the points included in contracts. ?The formation of a committee is against the open market system and will amount to the existence of centralization,” he said."