OVERVIEW
1. Part One: Assessing Myanmar’s Reforms
2. Part Two: Doing Business in Myanmar
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• “All of us might wish at times that we lived in
a more tranquil world, but we don't.
• And if our times are difficult and perplexing,
• so are they challenging and
• filled with opportunities. “
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TODAY REALITIES
• Very interesting and exciting
• Volatile and Chaotic
GEOGRAPHY
• Strategic location
• Between the two economic global powerhouses –
China and India
• Bridge between South and South East Asia
DEMOGRAPHY
Population
54,584,650
Age Structure
0-14 years: 27.5%
15-64 years: 67.5%)
65 years and over: 5%
NEW WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
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Socio-economic progress
Opportunities opening up
Space growing
‘Latecomer’
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NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
• Ends – Poverty Reduction and Rural
Development
• Means – Good Governance and Clean
Government
• Eight-point Agenda
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NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
• Goals
• Reducing poverty from 26.5% to 16% by
2015
• Graduate from LDC
• Three-fold increase in per capita GDP
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‘MYANMAR SPRING’
• Extraordinary, Unprecedented and
Unimaginable!
• President U Thein Sein
• Rapid speed of recent changes
• Peaceful revolution
• Top-down
‘MYANMAR SPRING’
• On the brink of a momentous economic flowering
• Most important period of political transition
• Reconciliation and addressing long-neglected
needs
• Myit Sone Dam
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Release of political prisoners
• Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD in Parliament
• Continued reconciliation between the Government
and various ethnic groups
• Myanmar Human Rights Commission
PEACE DEALS
 Nine out of 16 rebel groups signed
ceasefire agreements since August 2011
 Deal reached with KNU
 Norwegian Peace Fund, Peace Centre
LEGISLATIVE REFORMS
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Dynamic leadership
New laws enacted
FDI
Taxation
Land Reform
Freedom of Expression
Freedom of Association
LEGISLATIVE REFORMS
• Engagement with 88 Generation
• Willingness to Listen to the Voices of the People
• ‘Check and Balance’
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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Rapprochement with the West
High-profile visits of senior Government and
National and UN officials
Re-engagement with the international community
Resumption of ODA
Gradual lifting of Sanctions
ASEAN Chairmanship in 2014
AFTA/AEC in 2015
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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Engagement with UN
UN Country Team Strategic Framework
(2012-15)
UNITED NTIONS ENGAGEMENT
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Four Strategic Priorities
1. Encouraging inclusive growth in both rural and urban
areas
2. Increasing equitable access to quality social services
3. Reducing vulnerability to natural disasters and climate
change
4. Promoting good governance and strengthening democratic
institutions and human rights
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UNITED NTIONS ENGAGEMENT
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Social Protection
Development Policy Options (DPOs)
National Census (2013)
UN Global Compact
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SOCIO-ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
• Priority to accelerate socio-economic development
• Job Creation
• Linkages between Peace , Democracy and Development
• Guaranteeing Rule of Law
• Promoting Civil Society
• Media
DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES
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Foreign exchange rate unification
Agriculture
Natural resources management
Competitive business sector
Financial/Banking Sector
DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES
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Education and Health
Legal structures
Infrastructure, and
Policy formation and implementation
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
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• “You can’t cross the sea,
• merely by standing and staring at
the water.”
CHALLENGES
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Socio-economic and humanitarian challenges
Weak capacity for implementing reforms
Beginning not the end
Much still depends on individuals not policy
CHALLENGES
• Sanctions
• Official Development Assistance (ODA)
• Lowest recipient of ODA among all LDC’s,
with 7.2 US$ per capita in 2010
• FDIs
CHALLENGES
• Kick-Starting/Jump Start Growth –
SEZs, Deep Sea Ports
• Equality of opportunities not outcomes
• “Pulled Along” by China, India + ASEAN
• Poor Infrastructure
• Corruption
FROM CHANGE TO
TRANSFORMATION
MYANMAR IS
OPEN FOR
BUSINESS
• “Faith is the bird that feels the light
and sings,
• when the dawn is still dark.”
‘NEW’ MYANMAR
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One of Asia's final economic frontiers
Comparative advantages
Geographical location
60-million untapped market
Bountiful natural resources
INVESTMENT CLIMATE
• New Foreign Investment Law
• Western countries to become highest
investing countries
• Europe, Australia, Canada and USA
cancelled the economic sanctions
NEW MYANMAR INVESTMENT SUMMIT JUNE
2012
• Representative from USA, Germany, France, Canada,
British, Italy, Norway, Australia , United Arab Emirates
(UAE), China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Korea,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Mongolia, Lao, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh attended
NEW FOREIGN INVESTMENT LAW (FIL)
• Company which joint venture with
foreign company 5 years free of tax
and 70 years permission to do
business
INVESTMENT SITUATION: TOP 7 COUNTRIES
COUNTRY
US$ billion
%
13.9
45.03
Hong Kong
6.3
20.37
South Korea
2.9
9.36
Thailand
2.5
7.99
UK
2.2
7.29
Singapore
1.5
4.83
France
0.5
1.62
China
FOREIGN INVESTMENT
Priorities
1. Resource-based investment
2. Resource-based export-oriented value added
projects
3. Labour intensive export-oriented projects
REASONS
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Population approximately 60 million (approx.
5 million in Yangon)
Vast and virtually untapped natural
resources
Relatively educated labour force and low
wages
REASONS
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Strategic location
Sea and air links within the Asia region and
beyond
Generalized System of Preferences (GSP)
100% foreign-owned enterprises permitted
REASONS
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Familiar business structures and commercial
laws (based on the British law codes of the
pre independence India Statutes )
English widely spoken and used
Significant incentives under the Foreign
Investment Law for larger investments
Membership of ASEAN, BIMST-EC
EXISTING CHALLENGES
• International sanctions not fully
removed yet
• Opaque and arbitrary policymaking,
including frequent, unannounced and
unwritten policy changes
EXISTING CHALLENGES
Investments approved on a case-bycase basis
• Weak rule of law and property rights
• No independent judiciary and lack of
legal transparency
• Arbitrary tax policies
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EXISTING CHALLENGES
Tiny financial sector and shallow
domestic capital market
• Continued unpredictability in electricity
supply, especially areas outside Yangon
and other major cities
• Privatization
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EXISTING CHALLENGES
• Weak educational system and unskilled
work force
• Poor infrastructure including
communications and transportation
networks
• Evolving system of exchange rates and
foreign exchange controls
MYANMAR
• Joined the UN Global Compact
• Promoting Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR)
• Encouraging Socially Responsible
FDIs
• Rotary International
REVIEW
1. Part One: Assessing Myanmar’s Reforms
2. Part Two: Doing Business in Myanmar
49
• "Together we want
to help the world
see and believe,
• in a better future."
• There are those who look at things the way
they are,
• and ask why...
• I dream of things that never were,
• and ask why not?