Myanmar's biggest industrial zone of Hlaingtharya in Yangon, which was severely destroyed by cyclone in May, has resumed operation with 502 factories and workshops in momentum with their respective production, according to the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar Friday.

These factories are manufacturing foodstuff, textile, chemicals, paper and stationery, personal goods, machine and machinery, construction materials, aquatic products, electronic goods, automobiles, forest products, and beans an pulses.

During the storm, more than 150 electricity posts collapsed and most of the roofs of the factories in the industrial zone were blown to pieces and the factories' operation had to be suspended, according to earlier local reports which said that the industrial zone sustained a property loss of 3 billion Kyats (2.7 million U.S. dollars).

The Hlaingtharyar industrial zone, established in 1996, has seven sub-zones with 50,000 workers.

Myanmar claimed that the first phase of its post-disaster restoration work -- rescue and relief, has come to an end and it is now in a second phase of resettlement and reconstruction.

There are 19 local industrial zones scattered across Myanmar's nine states and divisions with over 9,000 factories in operation.

Of the industrial zones, some five are in Yangon -- Hlaingtharyi, Dagon (South), Shwepyitha, Mingaladon and Thanlyin.

Meanwhile, Myanmar is reclaiming more land to establish more industrial zones in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, to systematically accommodate factories and workshops to be moved out from the city's residential areas under a relocation plan of the municipal authorities.

Many such private industrial enterprises have traditionally been in operation in the city's populated residential quarters since several decades ago.

Some of these factories and workshops have caused environmental problems to local residents physically and psychologically, the Yangon City Development Committee said.