Myanmar Business Today - Vol 2, Issue 24

June 19-25, 2014Myanmar Business Today

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mmbiztoday.com June 19-25, 2014| Vol 2, Issue 24MYANMAR’S FIRST BILINGUAL BUSINESS JOURNAL

Myanmar Summary

Inside MBT

Myanmar Can Double Rice Exports Through Policy Reforms: WB

Report advises Myanmar to rethink its rice export strategy

Myanmar has the potential to more than

double its rice exports by implementing policy re-forms, a new World Bank report said.

In a bid to increase rice exports, Myanmar has to diversify and increase its rice production, open its rice milling sector to di-rect foreign investments and reduce export pro-cedure costs, thereby al-leviating rural poverty, said the report, Myan-mar: Capitalizing on Rice Export Opportunities, by the World Bank and the Livelihoods and Food Se-curity Trust Fund (LIFT) of Myanmar.

“Reforms are required as a policy environment conducive to supporting this refocus of the rice export sector is essential if anything is to change,” said Andrew Kirkwood, LIFT’s fund director.

Kirkwood said much of the policy change can be introduced without cost

May Soe San

“Consistent economic policies without anti-ex-port bias, alongside the

to improve farmer access

rates of return for Myan-mar rice exports, for its farmers and for the rural poor.”

Improving agricultural productivity and promot-ing rice exports have been among the top priorities for the current govern-ment. Despite its plan

to export four million tonnes of rice by 2020, the actual annual rice ex-port has reached only 1.3 million tonnes over the past years.

The current rice ex-port strategy favours the production of low qual-ity rice, which is largely sold to Africa and China, the report said, adding that farmers have earned

businesses have skipped necessary investments. It warned that the situation

is worsening as the global demand for low quality broken rice is shrinking.

“This is now a govern-ment call to capitalise on rice export opportuni-

incomes to smallholder farmers,” said Kanthan Shankar, the World Bank’s country manager for Myanmar.

“Rice production is a source of livelihoods for about 70 percent of the population. Higher and

port improves farm in-comes and food security of the rural poor, he said.

Shankar added that in-creasing rice exports will spur momentum for in-clusive growth and pover-ty reduction in Myanmar for the next decade.

The report said there are good market pros-pects for Myanmar to ac-commodate more diver-

Myanmar over the next 10-15 years, particularly in the European Union and Asian countries, earn higher incomes, and di-

ent markets. The obstacles in hitting

these marks are low pro-ductivity and poor rice quality at the farm level, undercapitalised and in-

costly export infrastruc-ture and procedures, the report noted.

Opening the rice mills to direct foreign invest-ments is, according to the report, a vital step to take to increase quality and volumes of rice export. Improving infrastructure and reducing export pro-cedure costs would also boost Myanmar’s export competitiveness, it added.

The World Bank report

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Contd. P 12...

Contd. P 12...

When Investors Turn into Bullies P-7

US Commerce Secretary Touts “Closer Ties” with Myanmar P-10

Myanmar’s Institutional Infra-structure Constraints and How to Fill the Gaps P-11


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MYANMAR’S FIRST BILINGUAL BUSINESS JOURNAL

Board of EditorsEditor-in-Chief - Sherpa Hossainy

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Business News in BriefProperty tax to be introduced to deter specula-tion

Arrangements will be made to levy property taxes on speculators after studying international practices and consulting experts, local authorities and businessmen,

Parliament in response to a query. Property prices in Myanmar have reached record highs after the country launched sweeping economic reforms in 2012.

MOGE invites tender for consultancy servicesState-run Myanma Oil & Gas Enterprise (MOGE),

under the Ministry of Energy, announced that it is in-terested to establish joint venture or alliance projects for drilling, seismic acquisition and pipeline construc-tion and maintenance services with a potential partner who is reputable and internationally recognised in the

commence around August 1, is to help in legal and tech-nical assessment as required in JV processes, tender

tion of bidders, JV agreement and contract prepara-tion, MOGE said. Duration of the assignment will be six months, but may be extended, MOGE added.

Philippine-based Cebu Air Inc, operator of budget air-

proval of Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) for a combined 2,520 seat entitlements per week to Yangon, Filipino media reports. Cebu and Tiger both want 1,260 weekly seats for the Manila-Yangon route. The Philippines and Myanmar signed a new air agreement on May 20, up-dating the pact that was signed in 1979 by increasing

improving trade and investments between the South-east Asian neighbours. The new agreement allowed the designated airlines of each country a total of 3,780 seats

between Manila and points in Myanmar.

ing

bile banking services within weeks, bringing the total number of such providers to four, local media reported,

Innwa Bank and Myawaddy Bank, both owned by the

First Private Bank and CB Bank will be granted permis-sion for mobile banking.

Myanmar is preparing to set up a credit bureau that will pave the way for some important steps forward in

they disappeared when the banks that introduced them collapsed in 2003.

centre

agement centre in Nay Pyi Taw in a bid to help local

emergencies, the European Union said. The EU-funded centre will be ready for 24-hour service and work to-gether with the ASEAN Coordination Center for Hu-manitarian Assistance and other crisis management centres from member countries of the ASEAN in emer-gency situations.

ploring opportunities to export its products to Myan-mar and is understood to have initiated a process to ink a deal with the neighbouring country, according to Indian media reports. P Padmanabhan, managing di-

cussion with the Ambassador of Myanmar to India and he is positive in that regard, Assam Tribune reported. According to a study, the demand for oil products in Myanmar is expected to reach 60,000 barrels per day.

Myanmar SummaryjrefrmEdkifiH\ tdrfNcHajra&mif;0,frIrsm;tm; tcGefaumufcHEdkif&ef

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Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Thilawa SEZ Construction Permit by JulyHtun Htun Minn

Construction permits for Thilawa Special Econom-ic Zone will be granted

by July, U Set Aung, chairman of Thilawa SEZ Management Committee, said.

Most of the countries seeking permit are from Asia, he added.

A total of 45 companies from 11 countries have currently applied for permits for the 394-hectare (960 acres) Class A area, which went on sale last month for manufacturing en-

project.“Majority of the applicant

companies are from Japan, fol-lowed by Hong Kong. Only one US company and three Swedish companies have submitted pro-posal to lease land,” U Set Aung, who is also the Vice President of Central Bank of Myanmar, said.

“Among ASEAN countries, most proposals came from Thailand, Singapore and Ma-laysia. Currently, we are scruti-nising the applications and we will grant construction permits

by next month,” he said.Investors who want to lease

land inside the project area are allowed to get the land on a 50-year lease with $70 per square metre, a source from the Thil-awa SEZ Public Company said.

Companies need to submit business and investment plans to get the land and the board

Committee to Halt Granting Foreign Bank Licences

May Soe San

The Banking and Finan-cial Development Com-mittee of the Parliament

will propose to the Central Bank of Myanmar to halt grant-ing banking licences to foreign banks until a modern Financial Institutions Law is enacted, a member of the committee said.

have provision to deal with corruption in banks but My-anmar’s 1990 Financial Law doesn’t have such terms. We have to amend the current law or enact a new one to make way for provisions like this,” U Phyo Min Thein, who is also a Mem-ber of the Parliament, said.

The committee recently met with the foreign bank licence is-suing committee and local bank representatives and decided to carry out further steps to having a modern law, he said.

According to recent reports, the government is expected to grant licences to as many as 10 foreign banks to carry out lim-ited operations in Myanmar. There are 36 foreign banks who have opened their representa-

government may grant the li-cences by the end of September, a Reuters report said.

banks to advise regarding for-eign bank licences as no regu-lations have been issued by the Central Bank of Myanmar, said U Pe Myint, managing director of Cooperative Bank.

Police to Beef Up Security for Foreign Buyers at Jade Expo

Kyaw Min

Myanmar Police Force will arrange special se-curity for foreign gems

buyers at the upcoming Myan-ma Gems Emporium at Nay Pyi Taw, U Kyaw Htay, secretary of Gems Entrepreneurs Associa-tion, said.

The authorities will deploy a special tourist police force unit, which will also provide health services and other assistances to foreign gems buyers, he said.

“We would like to ensure safe-ty for all the foreign buyers and we will try to provide every kind of assistance,” U Kyaw Htay said.

The 51st Myanma Gems Em-porium will be held from June 24 to July 6 at Mani Yadana Hall in the capital city.

A total of 7,500 gem lots will be displayed at the emporium – 2,100 lots of which are from the government and the rest will be displayed by local companies.

will base their decisions de-pending on the plans, he added.

“We will decide based on the structure of the factory and how they are going to use those lands. There is no time limit for the construction of the factory. We will also check their com-mercial operation plan,” U Set Aung said.

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Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Yusen Logistics Opens

Aye Myat

Japanese freight forwarder and logistics services pro-vider, Yusen Logistics has

Yusen Logistics (Myanmar) Co Ltd sees Yusen Logistics’ pres-ence increase to 40 countries around the world, Yusen said in a statement.

Hiromitsu Kuramoto, presi-dent of Yusen Logistics Co Ltd, said: “With our medium-term business plan ... Yusen Logis-tics will continue to push ahead with our expansion program in the ASEAN region.

“We are continuing to build on our established infrastruc-ture, rolling out networks to mirror clients’ changing sourc-ing patterns.”

Hiromitsu said with the grow-ing importance of logistics in

US to Help Myanmar Improve Highway Safety

Aung Phyo

The United States will help Myanmar improve the safety of the Yan-

gon-Mandalay highway where hundreds of car accident cases

years.The United States Agency

for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Construction signed a letter of agreement recently on this re-gard.

US architecture and engi-neering experts will train and mentor Ministry of Construc-tion engineers and technicians in international highway safety standards as they construct safety enhancements along a ten-kilometre section of road.

This demonstration section, funded in cooperation with the US Government, will serve as a model for ongoing improve-ments implemented by the Ministry of Construction along the full length of the highway,

the US Embassy in Yangon said in a statement.

“As the economy grows, trans-portation infrastructure will have to accommodate more

-bassador Derek Mitchell.

“But this issue is about more than economic development; it is about saving lives. I am pleased the United States will be able to improve a small sec-tion of the Yangon-Mandalay Highway, and work with the Ministry of Construction to help address very real concerns about safety standards.”

The Yangon-Mandalay High-way, which is the main ground route from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw and runs through the cen-tre of the country, stretches 386 miles between Yangon, the country’s commercial cen-tre, and Mandalay, a city of ap-proximately one million people. Three thousand vehicles drive the highway every day.

Increased speed and a lack of standard highway safety meas-

ures have resulted in a dispro-portionately high number of vehicular fatalities on this road.

to 2014, over 700 highway acci-dents have claimed the lives of over 360 victims.

Myanmar, Yusen Logistics’ pro-vision of valuable logistics ser-vices will contribute to the de-velopment of the country.

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Myanmar Summary

Ball Corp Becomes First US Investor in Thilawa SEZ

Phyo Thu

American packaging and

poration is to set up a one-line beverage can manufac-turing plant in the Thilawa Spe-cial Economic Zone (SEZ).

company to invest in the much-touted Thilawa SEZ, 20 kilome-

tres southeast of Yangon.Last month Ball announced

that it will open a can plant in Myanmar, without specifying the factory location.

A contract agreement was signed between Ball Corp and the Myanmar-Japan Thilawa Development (MJTD) Co Ltd for the establishment of the plant. The signing came on the

heels of US Secretary of Com-merce Penny Pritzker’s Myan-mar visit earlier this month.

The US Embassy in Yangon said in a statement that the plant will employ local work-

contribution” by a US company to Myanmar’s development.

“The United States believes that responsible investment by US companies in this coun-try can support broad-based economic development, help deepen continued political and economic reforms, and high-light the highest standards of corporate social responsibility,” the statement said.

The one-line plant is expected to begin production in mid-2015 with investment in the fac-tory to the tune of $40 million, Ball Corp said.

ity to produce beverage cans for Coca-Cola Pinya Beverages under a long-term agreement, as well as other local, regional and multinational customers, it said.

During an event highlighting

US investment, including Ball’s new plant, Pritzker said the Ball factory opening is “already en-couraging further engagement

tablished in Myanmar. “Coca-Cola is one of these

companies. Coca-Cola re-opened operations here in 2012, began manufacturing lo-cally one year ago, and has al-ready committed to buy more than half of the cans produced at Ball’s new facility,” she said.

“When our [American] busi-nesses make investments, they bring with them the highest standards, including a commit-ment to corporate and social re-sponsibility,” she added.

More than 45 companies from various countries are in the pro-cess of setting up manufactur-ing plants and industries in the SEZ, state-run media reported.

MJTD was formed by two My-anmar companies and two Jap-anese companies, with stakes split 51 percent for Myanmar and 49 percent for Japan.

The two Myanmar compa-nies are Thilawa SEZ Manage-ment Committee and Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Co Ltd (MTSH), while the two Japanese companies include MMS Thilawa Development Co Ltd and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The land lease procedure for Phase 1 of the Thilawa Class A Area, which is about 396 hec-tares (978 acres), started last month.

The commercial run of the SEZ is expected in mid-2015.

Japan Gives $75m for Construction, Rural

Zwe Wai

Tassistance worth $75.7 million for the develop-

some areas of Myanmar.Three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were

signed between Deputy Minister for National Planning and Economic Development Daw Lei Lei Thein and Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar Tateshi Higuchi in Nay Pyi Taw recently.

billion ($41.3 million) for the construction of the new

cation projects.

Myanmar Summary

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S Korea to Open Polytechnic University in Myanmar

To provide assistance in agricultural development

Zwe Wai

South Korea and Myanmar will cooperate in technol-ogy development by open-

ing a polytechnic university in the Southeast Asian country.

The government has ap-proved a draft memorandum of understanding between My-anmar and South Korea on this project, according to Dr Aung Kyaw Myat, deputy minister for science and technology.

The South Korea Polytechnic

University and the Ministry of Science and Technology are conducting a feasibility study for further discussions on sub-jects and curriculums planned.

South Korea has been helping Myanmar in the development of a number of sectors includ-ing agriculture and its mecha-nisation, irrigation technology, rural and socio-economic de-velopment, and public health.

The Korea International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) is also providing assistance in

GAP Becomes First US Apparel Retailer in Myanmar

American clothing and accessories re-tailer Gap Inc said

it plans to produce ap-parel at factories in My-

major US apparel retailer to enter the impoverished Southeast Asian nation’s lucrative garment indus-try.

The US Embassy in Yan-gon said products made at two Yangon factories would be in Gap stores by this summer.

“The garment industry stands poised to become a

exports and opportuni-ty for the people of this country,” the US embassy said in a statement.

The San Francisco-based retail giant said it has signed a sourcing deal with South Korean-owned factories in Myanmar, while the two factories are reportedly producing vests and jackets for the company’s Old Navy and Banana Republic brands.

According to textile in-

garment exports had hit a high of $850 million in 2001, but plunged after the US toughened sanc-tions in 2003 in protest at the junta’s detention of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar’s garment in-dustry – which employed approximately 300,000 people in the early 2000s, according to government

the trade embargo. Be-fore the embargo, apparel

Kyaw Min

Paul S

akuma/A

ssociated Press

accounted for nearly 40 percent of Myanmar’s exports, with about half going to the US. In 2004, the US State Department estimated more than 50,000 garment jobs had been lost to sanctions.

The Obama administra-tion started lifting those sanctions in 2012, after a new nominally civilian government in Myanmar enacted a series of eco-nomic and political re-forms.

More than a year ago, Coca-Cola Co started producing Coke in My-anmar, pledging to spend $200 million here over

-can companies, including General Electric and APR Energy, have embarked

-ments in Myanmar. In

arm signed a $960 mil-

lion contract to lease 10 Boeing aircraft to carrier Myanmar Airways, and in February APR Energy won a contract to refur-bish a 100-megawatt power plant in the coun-try, an investment valued at $30 million.

Gap, which sources ap-parel from roughly 40 countries, didn’t specify how much it is investing in the Myanmar project. Based on the employment Gap expects to create –

its apparel orders and as many as 4,000 indirect jobs in the country – it is likely one of the largest US economic commit-ments to Myanmar since the end of sanctions, the Wall Street Journal re-ported.

Gap said its decision to source garments from Myanmar was taken after

a rigorous due diligence process which saw the company engaging ex-tensively with US govern-

and union representatives and international and lo-cal NGOs in Myanmar in order to better under-stand the opportunities and challenges of doing business in the country.

As part of the company’s commitment to transpar-ency, Gap said it will vol-untarily disclose and pub-lish information about its practices in Myanmar consistent with the Unit-ed States government’s reporting procedures.

Gap will also operate in partnership with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on a project to improve skills among Myanmar’s largely female textile industry workforce.

The company’s partner-ship with USAID will help lay the foundation for Gap Inc to provide growth and economic opportunities for women in the country, the US embassy said.

“By entering Myanmar, we hope to help acceler-ate economic and social growth in the country, and build on our track record of improving working conditions and building local capacity in garment factories around the world,” said Wilma Wallace, the vice presi-dent of Gap’s Global Re-sponsibility division.

The US embassy state-ment, which was released following the signing of the USAID partnership, added that Gap would ensure the factories it is sourcing from meet “in-ternationally recognised human rights and labour standards”. Gap’s ven-dors in Myanmar will be bound by the company’s Code of Vendor Conduct, it said.

Workers at the South Korean-owned factories supplying the Gap prod-ucts – which Gap says

competitive reasons – are paid an estimated average of $110 a month, with supervisors earning as much as $1,000, ac-cording to the Wall Street Journal.

Gap makes clothing, ac-cessories, and personal care products for men, women, children, and babies under its Gap, Ba-nana Republic, Old Navy,

Piperlime, Athleta, and -

cal year 2013 its net sales were $16.1 billion from its stores in about 90 coun-tries worldwide.

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

some projects being imple-mented for the development of agriculture, encouraging export of Myanmar’s farm produce to South Korea.

KOICA is helping Myanmar establish a Post-harvest Tech-nology Application Center in Nay Pyi Taw and provide farm equipment for killing pests in fruits and vegetables plants.

KOICA also helped Myanmar in agricultural mechanisation by training farmers at Yezin, Nay

Pyi Taw, while upgrading farm-land in other areas in the capital.

Under a framework agree-ment, KOICA also extended a grant aid for 2013 to help My-anmar in the development of road network, a national statis-tical system, capacity building strategy for conferences, land reform program for mechanised farming and forest greening.

South Korean investment in Myanmar stood at $3.05 billion in 86 projects as of January, ac-counting for 6.7 percent of the total foreign input – placing it sixth among foreign investor countries.

Bilateral trade between Myan-mar and South Korea reached $1.76 billion in 2013, of which

Myanmar’s export to South Ko-rea accounted for $554.59 mil-lion.

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mmbiztoday.com

7

Myanmar Summary

Contd. P 8... Contd. P 8...

LOCAL BIZWhen Investors Turn into Bullies

MySQUAR’s Canadian founder Rita Nguyen tells a warning tale of trust in Myanmar

Many people have been reaching out to me lately

to ask for details on the “management shakeup” at MySQUAR and to date, I’ve been fairly qui-et about it because I was hoping to keep things civ-ilised, despite the hostile and aggressive manner in which the other side has been handling everything. Now that they have issued a press release letting everyone know that I’ve “stepped down”, it’s time to set the record straight because I’m damned if they tell my story for me.

On May 9, I came back to Ho Chi Minh City

the MySQUAR board of directors had removed me as the CEO with no notice and no reason given. Dur-ing the course of that one hour meeting they had cut

me from all the internal systems and have since changed the locks on the doors. Even worse, they did the same to my co-founder but didn’t even give her the courtesy of letting her know. Instead, she found out when one

called her to ask her about what was going on.

The ensuing weeks have been highly emotional but as mentioned, I’ve kept it pretty quiet until now simply because I believed them when they said that they wanted to handle this amicably. Instead, they have spent the past few weeks adding insult to injury at every turn in-

Rita Nguyen

cluding kicking us out of the apartment in Yangon, sending me veiled threats

(I’ve since resigned from the board), sending us threatening (but empty) letters from lawyers and as of June 6, bullying our lawyer into dropping us

est”.One of the directors

and shareholders of MyS-QUAR is Piers Pottinger of Bell Pottinger, a big PR

guess is a client in another market. Despite the fact that Piers invested per-sonally (and only a small amount) into MySQUAR, he’s decided to go through our lawyer’s international partners to put pressure on our lawyer to drop us. I’m not entirely sure how they do business at Bell Pottinger but in my world you pay expenses and severance when you

engage in further bullying tactics.

At this point the com-pany has not paid the out-standing expenses that my co-founder and I have in-

curred, the salary that we had not been paid for the last two months as well as anything related to sever-ance for termination. In addition to that, we have found out that they had removed – or I was lied to and the investors were never added – several of the early investors as le-

gal shareholders in the company. So not only am I out tens of thousands of dollars, so are many of my friends and family who believed in me back when we didn’t have anything other than an idea and a pitch deck. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a lot of personal money for

my co-founder and I but little more than a round-ing error for them. But it’s been radio silence from them, other than getting my lawyer in Singapore to drop us.

Given Bell Pottinger’s comfort level working with governments with se-rious human rights viola-tions, perhaps a complete disregard of employment rights is to be expected of one of the name partners

out what possible reason they would not only take my company but do it in such a disrespectful and hostile manner. Now I’m

lawyer who is strong and willing enough to take on a beast like Bell Pottinger.

For those of you in My-anmar, Bell Pottinger is coming to the country to work with the largest conglomerate in Myan-

“ Given Bell Pottinger’s comfort level working with governments with

serious human rights violations, perhaps a complete

disregard of employment rights is to be expected.”

Tech

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on American sanctions list. What’s more scary is that Piers recently told me that they were pitching to jointly represent The Lady (Daw Aung San Suu Kyi) as well as one of the other

a very likely presidential candidate. Given the bru-tal way they do business, I fear for this country if these leaders have com-panies that work like Bell Pottinger whispering in their ears.

-

I was warned over and over again to not trust business people in Viet-nam and yet here I am. Let’s start at the begin-ning. A year ago when I was launching MySQUAR a friend in Vietnam in-troduced me to Eric Schaer, the CEO of Ris-ing Dragon, an advisory group who was helping companies set up in My-anmar. Given how much this market was changing every day, it made sense for us to enlist the servic-es of Rising Dragon. The basic terms were that we would give Rising Dragon

of equity in return for them getting us free of-

HCMC as well as handling out legal incorporation in Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam. The other piece here is that I would retain proxy voting rights for the shares. About a month later, we also started pay-ing Rising Dragon a hefty

consulting fee, about 10 percent of our burn rate to be our acting CFO. In the ensuing eight months he has been “helping” us to raise money has been a travesty and now he’s even stolen the company.

spaces and while I have proof that he was “work-ing on” the proxy voting docs, that never hap-pened either. As the CEO, this is of course my fault to stupidly trust him and I have learned some major lessons on keeping your house in order.

Eric has leveraged all the relationships he got through his involvement with MySQUAR to create his own crony network and many of the MyS-QUAR shareholders are now also shareholders in Rising Dragon subsidiar-ies, not to mention that Eric is also a shareholder in many of their compa-nies. Since there’s been complete radio silence from all the sharehold-ers since this happened, I’m not sure who’s sleep-ing with whom and how deep it goes but the share-holder list is publicly ac-cessible in ACRA should

anyone be interested. Any entrepreneurs who are fundraising in Asia, I highly recommend you research your possible in-vestors and talk to other entrepreneurs who have worked with them.

As I mentioned previ-ously, conveniently, many of my friends and family who would most certainly have not voted against me are not in ACRA. I’m not sure why but there is most certainly a case here for deeper investigation especially given the paper trails I keep.

So where does that leave me?

I am on the hunt for my third lawyer now. I can

for the compensation owed me or I can spend my time building some-thing new. With all the lessons and contacts I’ve already made, it will take me far less than a year to get to where MySQUAR is today. As an entrepreneur you learn very quickly to move on from “sunk costs” and to not let it col-our your decisions. From that angle, I’ve lost a year and some money, both of which I can deal with. My

pride was also bruised and

surrounded by amazing people who have reached out in an overwhelming show of support. And of course there is also the reputation thing. Let me reiterate this: there was absolutely no reason giv-en and frankly, no reason that they could have given for this move other than greed and a full on land grab.

I don’t know exactly what’s next but rest as-sured you haven’t seen the last of me. I wasn’t named on Forbes’ Wom-en to Watch in Asia list for nothing. Thankfully I was raised in a society where you celebrate and embrace failure because this whole thing was full

getting to a place where I can accept that and move forward. I hope that by sharing this story, I can help some others out there who may be facing similar issues. If nothing

else, let this be a warning tale of trust.

So my journey with MySQUAR largely comes to an end but my entre-preneurial journey is still in the beginning. For those of you who have reached out – thank you. I could not have made it through the past month without your love and support. For those of you learning about this for the

shock but this is just the

so many more good things to come out of Myanmar.

Rita Nguyen is the founder of MySQUARE,

published this post in her blog and it has been re-published here with her permission. The opinions and views expressed here are the author’s own and

Myanmar Business To-day’s editorial opinion.

“Given the brutal way they do business, I fear for

this country if these lead-ers have companies that

work like Bell-Pottinger whis-pering in their ears.”

Techcrunch

Panel Deals Blow to Suu Kyi’s Chances of Becoming President

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s hopes of be-coming Myanmar’s

president next year have been dealt a blow when a parliamen-tary committee voted not to change a constitutional clause that bars her from the post, two of the panel members said.

The committee tasked with recommending amendments opted to retain the section that prevents anyone married to a foreigner or with children of foreign citizenship from becom-ing head of state.

The two sources declined to

why the proposal was rejected by 26 of the 31 panellists.

Most experts believe the

Aung Hla Tun clause, 59 (f), was written into the military-drafted 2008 con-

Suu Kyi, who became a global -

tary rule, most of it from house arrest.

Her late husband was British, as are her two sons.

-tee members voted in favour of amending the section at the closed door meeting of the com-mittee,” said a member who re-quested anonymity because the

to be secret.Suu Kyi and her National

League for Democracy (NLD) party have been pushing for constitutional change ahead of next year’s election, mainly to reduce the political clout of the

military, which ruled Myanmar for 49 years until a nominally ci-vilian government led by retired

The committee picked to as-sess amendments has only two NLD members on it and is comprised mainly of lawmak-ers from the ruling Union Soli-darity and Development Party (USDP), which was created from a social movement of a similar name set up by the for-mer junta.

The USDP has 14 people on the panel and seven members

-pointed as lawmakers as part of a 25 percent legislative quota allocated to the armed forces, a

persecution by the former re-gime, wants to change.

Myanmar lawmakers are as-sessing changes to the constitu-tion ahead of next year’s parlia-mentary election.

A vote in the bicameral legis-lature to change the constitu-tion to allow Suu Kyi to become president is still possible, al-though political analysts say it is extremely unlikely it would be passed because the military and its USDP allies dominate parliament.

Her party, however, said it was not over yet.

“We can’t say Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has no chance of be-coming the president until the union parliament approves it,” said spokesman and senior par-

“We need to wait till the com--

tions at the parliament.”Myanmar’s constitution was

crafted by the former junta as the basis for the country’s grad-ual transition to democracy. The semi-civilian government has surprised the world with reforms that were unthinkable under direct army control and managed to convince Suu Kyi and the NLD to join parliament.

Reuters

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Myanmar Summary



Myanmar Summary

American power so-lutions provider APR Energy an-

nounced that the com-pany’s power generation plant in Myanmar is now fully operational.

In February, APR clinched a contract to build a “fast-track” 100-megawatt power plant in upper Myanmar,

-can company to sign a power generation agree-ment with the govern-ment since the lifting of sanctions in 2013.

Based in Kyaukse, Man-dalay region, the plant provides the Myanmar Electric Power Enterprise (MEPE) with a guaran-teed minimum of 82MW of power and will enable the provision of electricity and power to more than six million people, APR Energy said in a state-ment.

The contract, which is on a rental basis, is ex-pected to run through to late 2015.

Clive Turton, manag-

at APR Energy, said: “The commissioning of our thermal power generation plant, one of the largest in the country, is an im-

establishing adequate re-liable power generation capacity in Myanmar.

“We look forward to playing a continued role to help Myanmar supply

-ably to its people and in-dustries.”

Turton said Myanmar is a fast growing econo-my and the country, like many others in the region, needs reliable power in

potential.The project represents

another substantial in-vestment by a US com-pany in the infrastructure

said it will “contribute to the economic and social progress of Myanmar by employing local people and supporting commu-nity development pro-grams.”

Fuelled by natural gas from the Shwe Gas Pro-ject, the plant features 68 of the newest generation CAT low-emission mo-bile gas power modules

Wai Linn Kyaw

“one of the cleanest power generation solutions” in Myanmar, APR said.

Penny Pritzker, US Sec-retary of Commerce, who was on a visit to Myanmar recently, said APR pro-viding power solutions in Myanmar is “critical,” particularly as 75 percent of the country’s popula-tion lacks access to elec-tricity.

“The engagement of US businesses in Myanmar will help promote inclu-

all of the country’s peo-ple,” she said.

Turton, in an earlier in-terview with Myanmar Business Today, said the

ministry to provide solu-tions for “further power needs” and have “more po-tential projects.”

“We are very keen to develop our businesses in the market and we will be looking forward to mak-ing a lot of investments in this country in this par-ticular sector.”

Wai Linn K

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Myanmar Summary

US Commerce Secretary Touts “Closer Ties” with Myanmar

Penny Pritzker discusses economic engagement, announces first-ever Commercial Service Office in Yangon

Wai Linn Kyaw

The US Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker trumpet-

ed the United States’ commit-ment to closer economic and commercial ties with Myanmar during her recent visit to the Southeast Asian country.

To promote new investment, Pritzker announced the open-

-

in Yangon, which will support American businesses to navi-gate and invest in Myanmar.

Since the opening up of Myan-mar three years ago, the US has boosted its engagement with the country it once denounced and courted it in a bid to curb China’s overwhelming domi-nance in the country and the Southeast Asian region – Ba-rack Obama paid a visit in 2012, trade restrictions eased and sanctions were lifted, Derek

US ambassador to the country since 1990 and last year Presi-dent U Thein Sein became the

the White House in almost 50 years.

“As President Obama said when he was here in 2012 – the

this country – the United States values the friendship between our two nations and we want to contribute to your success,” said Pritzker.

“We want to support your progress and reform.”

She said since Obama’s visit Myanmar has made reforms that have helped improve busi-ness climate in the country. “Two years ago, the United

States began allowing invest-

years. Shortly thereafter, Presi-dent Thein Sein signed a law to help attract more foreign eco-nomic engagement. As a result, nearly $250 million in Ameri-can investment is now here,” she said.

As of April 30, US companies have plans to invest $243.6 mil-lion in Myanmar’s economy, and US exports have increased from $9.8 million in 2010 to $145.7 million in 2013, the US Embassy in Yangon said in a statement.

Pritzker said she was in Myan-mar to talk about how “we can build on the progress of the last two years to further strengthen our trade relationship and en-

courage even stronger ties.” She said given “the promise

of existing and future reform,” her department is opening a

in Yangon.She said the Foreign Commer-

-cated in US embassies around the world, help American com-panies enter overseas markets,

-ers around the world.

Pritzker said as Myanmar’s economy continues to grow and its market continues to open, more US companies are getting interested to do business in this country.

“The US government is en-couraging American companies to evaluate the opportunity. Re-

sponsible investment can help facilitate broad-based economic growth and economic prosper-ity for your people,” she said.

Pritzker joined APR Energy to highlight the signing of a large-scale turnkey power, one of the

-ments signed by a US company in recent years, and joined Ball Corporation to announce plans to build an aluminium can fac-tory outside Yangon.

She said the US has a “funda-mental interest” in the continu-ation of reform.

“We have communicated to your government the need to build on the progress that has been made by implementing measures that increase inclu-sive economic development,

Reu

ters

promote government transpar-ency and accountability, and safeguard labour rights and hu-man rights.”

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mmbiztoday.com

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Myanmar Summary

Contd. P 12...

Contd. P 12...

LOCAL BIZMyanmar’s Institutional Infrastructure

Constraints and How to Fill the GapsDavid DuByne and Hishamuddin Koh

Infrastructure both physical and institutional are the key drivers for rapid economic

growth and development in any country. With the number of physical infrastructure pro-jects taking place in Myanmar involving roads, rail lines, mari-time ports, airports and inland waterways; rarely mentioned in the same breath is institutional infrastructure which encom-passes several other segments of society including human capital, legal instruments, ad-ministrative oversight, farmers

last-mile logistics along with health and education facilities.

Implementation of country-wide projects to speed Myan-mar’s overall development to date have been slow in part due

economic and legal reforms plus the bottleneck of capital

investors through the coun-try’s banking system. These are hurdles institutional investors experience, but little focus is paid on micro-level develop-ment throughout the rural sec-tor which comprises 70 percent of the country’s population of

the movement of goods and services into and out of villages where local economies stagnate because of lack of options for transport, warehousing, pro-

-etary transactions and crop yield boosting inputs.

How can a parallel set of insti-tutional infrastructure designed

in rural locations and what im-provements in livelihood will it provide upon completion, not only for local regions and farm-ing communities but the coun-try as a whole?

Major impediments to doing business in Myanmar cited by a survey of foreign managers

electric power, poor internet -

rental rates. Considering that 70 percent of the country has zero access to grid delivered electricity in 2014, what other upgrades or issues might be ad-dressed to boost output of com-modities from remote locations onward to main trunk lines in order to economically stimulate pockets of rural populations or-ganically?

A common example of insti-tutional infrastructure systems are the actual trucks that run collection routes through the countryside for farmer’s prod-ucts, not the actual roads. The only sales point available for farmers is the single company vehicle that comes to the vil-lage. The buyers at this juncture have monopoly pricing in a take it or leave it scenario to their advantage.

If farmers say no to these of-fers, crops rot and there is zero value, if they say yes, the price is substantially below fair market price, literally pennies on the dollar. Farmers remain exploit-ed by those that can bring in trucks and access the products at the farm gates.

The solution calls for a com-bination of several mechanisms to counter exploitation by trad-ers and middlemen.

These mechanisms are: i) Presence of strong and dynamic farmers organisation capable of serving the multi-dimensional

needs of rural farmers in pric-ing and value-adding; ii) Pres-ence of adequate warehousing, drying and processing facilities; iii) Presence of a solid network of rural roads with adequate connectivity to major roads, highways, waterways to move goods and services from and to the farm-gates to expedite transactions; iv) Transporta-tion facilities for moving farm-

er’s products and inputs at least cost. v) Functional social servic-es e.g. clinics, schools, farmers’ educational training centres.

All these factors are institu-tional infrastructure that com-pliment physical infrastructure thereby creating a complete set of usable infrastructure which will enable development of ru-ral Myanmar and the majority of its population.

One aspect of institutional in-frastructure that merits atten-

-ers’ organization which must meet the following 3A’s criteria in serving the multi-dimension-al needs of the farmers: Acces-sibility – to and from farmers; Availability – resources both

-ity – reasonable price of inputs.

In other words any infrastruc-ture must take into account the

-tive and realistic.

Farmers’ organisations are very important institutional in-struments that will drive rural development and create pro-ductivity along with income contribution in both rural and national development. First and foremost, multi-purpose farm-ers’ organisations that can pro-vide bargaining power for the farmers in sales transactions must top the list. This will pre-vent small farmers from being exploited by opportunist mid-dlemen/traders. In well-organ-ised and institutionalised farm-ers associations the farmers are constantly kept informed on prices of their produce/prod-

ucts which allows them to react to market forces and obtain the best price based on daily spot rates.

For example in Taiwan, which

multipurpose farmers organisa-tions, even in the remotest loca-tions you see farmers with AM/FM radios slung on tree branch-es listening to updated price quotes for farm produce sold onward to Taipei and abroad. Standardised pricing to farmers

The Taiwan model of multi-purpose integrated farmer or-ganizations has been adopted in Malaysia and backed by the Farmers Organisation Act 1973 passed by the Malaysian Par-liament. This model works and could be rapidly administered in Myanmar if the Union Gov-ernment chooses to do so.

Following quickly behind that in terms of implementation would be ways to create higher selling prices through value-add processing in the villages. Something as simple as port-able expeller presses to crush seeds and collect oil on site, or small rice milling machines to polish rice and sell on to whole-salers at a higher price point.

reduced logistics costs by trans-porting only extracted oil, leav-ing the bulk weight of pressed oil cake which stays in the vil-lage to be used as animal feed.

Currently most farming com-munities are unable to obtain necessary machineries to pro-cess and send out higher value goods in the supply chain. Con-sider machineries for process-ing higher value products itself as agriculture infrastructure.

The trump card would be modern warehousing facilities along with training of locals in proper storage and handling techniques for their localised crops. If village Farmers Or-ganisations have modern ware-houses this will quickly would alleviate the “rush sale” “take it or leave it” sales model for their products. Goods could be stored for longer periods of time until the next buyer comes along and this in turn will send the monopolistic collection trucks back empty unless a fair price is paid.

“ Implementation of countrywide projects to speed Myanmar’s overall development to date

have been slow in part due to limited financing options, economic

and legal reforms plus the bottleneck of capital inflows.”

U A

ung/Xinhua

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Pricing mechanisms, market intelligence, united selling/bar-gaining policies with Farmers’ Organisations in place in ad-dition to multiple transporters involved in supply chain deliv-eries, is what we mean by insti-tutional infrastructure/frame-work.

transporters can bring in ferti-lisers to boost agricultural out-put. In reality, if you can’t move people or crops you sure can’t move income and the economy stagnates.

In both Taiwan and Malaysia when Farmers’ Organisations set collective uniform pricing

communities, the countryside economy grew organically by it-self without national economic growth policies. Simply put, more money in farmer’s pock-ets meant more people spent more money locally, with posi-

businesses.

Repeating patternsThis pattern will repeat itself

in Myanmar when these simple institutional mechanisms are put in place. It may take time for the smallest of roads to be built or resurfaced by the Un-ion Government but the pattern will repeat as has already been observed across the Irrawaddy Delta in Township Develop-ment.

As a success story from the Delta where villages receiving more money for their rice after starting their local rice entre-preneurs association created their own road building fund and re-paved 10km leading from the main Pathein Highway road, themselves. This in turn created a faster economic deliv-ery device to enter their villages

with the result being a pocket of economic prosperity based on self-funded road access, which came from collective uniform pricing to buyers and rice mill-ers.

A short cut to development is using business models that have worked over and over again during the past years of poverty alleviation case studies. There is no need to re-invent the wheel.

Another example of institu-tional infrastructure would be training centres focused on ef-fective education programs for fertilizer and pesticide us-age. Regulatory approval for imported agriculture products into Myanmar should be prop-erly labelled for usage in the lo-cal language. Companies that follow these procedures should be granted fast track approval for products such as hybrid seed strains, fertilisers and

training on seed selection and seed storage for higher yield the following year should be given priority approval.

Even with a severe shortage of skilled labour, Myanmar’s farmers know how to work their indigenous land and with a few pointers they could turn the ta-bles from poverty to prosperity.

When building Special Eco-nomic Zones (SEZ’s) serious consideration should be given

the containers will come from and how and how the localised infrastructure be aligned to ex-pedite this movement within Myanmar.

We have presented you with some thoughts on the problems and the solutions facing Myan-mar’s rural development. With the current governments dy-namic policies directed towards alleviation of rural poverty, enhancing rural productivity and boosting agrarian families’ income, the time is opportune for us to move in a direction to meet these challenges with re-alistic and practical approaches suggested in this paper.

Hishamuddin Koh has 25

years of experience in agricul-ture and rural development and is Executive Chairman of Hisham Koh and Associates and the Myanmar Planta-tion Management & Advisory Co (MPMAC) along with My-anmar Food Technology. He can be reached at [email protected].

David DuByne is Myanmar Operations Director at One

-ing on Myanmar’s agricultural export sector and acts as Chief Editor for Oilseedcrops.org. He can be reached at [email protected].

“ Farmers’ organisations are very important institutional instruments that will drive

rural development and cre-ate productivity along with income

contribution in both rural and na-tional development.”

Sherpa H

ossainy

and lower exporting costs would trigger changes at farm level, helping to raise agricultural productivity and change farm practic-es, including the choice of rice varieties, required to match the evolving de-mands of importers.

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mmbiztoday.comREGIONAL BIZ 13

Myanmar Summary

Contd. P 15...

Contd. P 15...

Trinna Leong

Malaysia has spent a total of 27.6 million ringgit

($8.6 million) so far on the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, authorities said,

-

-lion ringgit was only the sum spent by Malaysian agencies, we do not know how much other countries spent,” Department of Civil Aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told a news conference, saying he was unsure of the cost break-

down.The search for MH370,

which disappeared carry-ing 239 passengers and crew on March 8, is al-ready set to be the most costly in aviation history and spending will rise

expands to a wider swathe

Australia. Experts have suggested the cost of searching for the missing jetliner could reach hun-dreds of millions of dol-lars.

The search has been dealt setbacks, most re-cently when Australian

that wreckage from the aircraft was not on the seabed in the area they

acoustic pings thought to be from the plane’s black box recorders.

Asked where the new search area would be, Azharuddin said he did not know but that it “will not be very far away from where the search is now”.

“The Australian and Ma-laysian investigators have done their analysis and are in the process of exchang-ing notes with Inmarsat,” he said, referring to the

analysis of signals from the

plane is the basis for the current search area.

A Wall Street Journal re-port on June 8 cited sourc-es as saying investigators were revising some of their basic assumptions about the plane’s last position.

The search area has al-ready been extended to a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) zone that is be-ing surveyed by a Chi-nese vessel. It will then be searched by a commercial operator in a mission ex-pected to start in August and take up to a year, at a cost of A$60 million ($55 million) or more.

search operations to bids -

sia’s deputy defence min-ister, Abdul Rahim Bakri, said those costs would be shared equally by Malay-sia and Australia. Reuters

Myanmar Summary

Thai Billionaire’s True CorpKhettiya Jittapong

State-owned China Mobile Ltd has agreed to buy an 18 percent stake in Thai

telecoms group True Corp for

major corporate deal since the military coup last month.

True Corp, backed by billion-aire Dhanin Chearavanont’s Charoen Pokphand Group, said it was raising $2 billion through a rights share issue to boost its

the fund raising, True Corp will sell 4.4 billion shares to China Mobile, the world’s biggest car-rier by subscribers, at 6.45 baht each, a 13.4 percent discount to True’s last traded price.

The deal is part of the Thai group’s long-term plan to se-cure a foreign partner and un-

derscores Dhanin’s strong po-litical connections in mainland China, sources familiar with the matter said.

In 2013 Dhanin’s CP Group

emerged as a surprise buyer for global bank HSBC Plc’s $9.4 billion stake in Ping An Insur-ance Group Co of China Ltd.

-

national to invest in China’s agri-business in 1979 and it was tasked with helping to modern-ise China’s farm sector. It also operates Lotus super markets in Shanghai, according to the company’s website.

“Through the proposed stra-tegic investment in True Corp, China Mobile is expected to access new customers, interna-tional business opportunities and new earnings growth driv-

-cance to the telecom business of the company,” China Mobile’s chief executive Li Yue said in a statement.

The proposed deal comes less than three weeks since the military seized power in Thailand. The two companies made no mention of the coup or preceding political crisis,

which weighed on corporate dealmaking. New mergers and acquisitions in the country have slumped by 72 percent by value from a year ago to $648 mil-lion by end May, according to Thomson Reuters data. Reuters

Bloom

berg

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Myanmar Summary

China Says Vietnam, Philippines’ Mingling on Disputed Isle A ‘Farce’

Ben Blanchard

China denounced Vietnam and the Philippines for getting together on a dis-

puted island in the South China Sea to play soccer and volley-ball, calling it “a clumsy farce” and demanded both countries stop causing trouble.

The comments by a foreign ministry spokeswoman were

-ering on the Vietnamese-held is-land of Southwest Cay on June 8.

-scribed the meeting of soldiers from the two sides as a chance to show there can be harmony despite a web of overlapping claims to the potentially ener-gy-rich waters.

“Don’t you think this small move together by Vietnam and the Philippines is at most a clumsy farce?” China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua

“China has irrefutable sover-eignty over the Spratly Islands and the seas nearby,” she said. “We demand that Vietnam and the Philippines stop any be-haviour that picks quarrels and causes trouble ... and not do an-ything to complicate or magnify the dispute.”

The gathering underscores the growing cooperation between Vietnam and the Philippines, which have both felt China’s wrath over the South China Sea, even though both claim South-west Cay and other islands.

The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all claim some of the

Spratlys, while China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the whole chain.

China also claims 90 percent of the 3.5 million sq km (1.35 million sq mile) South China Sea, its reach depicted on its maps with a so-called nine-dash line deep into the mari-time heart of Southeast Asia.

Diplomats and experts have described the partnership be-tween Hanoi and Manila as part of a web of evolving rela-tionships across Asia that are being driven by fear of China as well as doubts among some, especially in Japan, over the US commitment to the region.

Separately, China accused Vietnam of ramming its ships more than 1,000 times in a part of the sea and said while it wanted good relations with its neighbour, it would not aban-don principles to achieve that.

sank on May 26 during a con-frontation not far from where China has towed an oil rig, accompanied by a cordon of Chinese vessels, 240 km (150

Last week, Vietnam television broadcast video showed a large Chinese vessel steaming after

then colliding with one which capsized.

The dispute is the most seri-ous deterioration of relations between the Communist states and traditional rivals since a brief war in 1979 following Viet-nam’s invasion of Cambodia. Reuters

Philippine Senate Passes Bill Liberalising Banking Sector

Siegfrid Alegado

The Philippine senate has approved a bill that will open the country’s re-

stricted banking sector to more

The passage paves the way for a change in the law ahead of a goal for economic integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc of countries in 2015.

It amends a 20-year old foreign banking act, permitting foreign ownership of domestic banks to rise to 100 percent from 60 per-cent, a statement posted on the senate’s website said.

Current limits to the number of foreign banks operating in the country will be eliminated, it said. The existing Republic Act 7721, which liberalised the entry of foreign lenders in 1994, al-lowed the entry of only up to 10 banks fully-owned by foreigners to operate in the country.

The bill provides for the en-try of “established, reputable

banks” in the country and also grants Philippine incorporated subsidiaries of foreign banks same banking privileges as homegrown lenders.

A counterpart bill was ap-proved in the lower chamber of

congress last month. The two bills will need to be reconciled in a bicameral conference commit-tee before it is sent to President Benigno Aquino for his approval.

“Greater foreign participa--

cial sectors is expected to aug-

which the Philippine economy may have access,” Senator Ser-gio Osmeña III, who heads the senate banks committee, said in the statement.

He said the bill’s passage would allow the country to “take advantage of economic in-tegration of the ASEAN region.”

Reuters

India Likely to Raise Foreign Investment Limit in Gov’t Debt Soon

Himank Sharma, Rajesh Kumar Singh & Suvashree Dey Choudhury

India will likely raise the foreign investment limit in government debt soon, as

almost all the allocation has al-ready been taken up as overseas buyers pile into the country’s

-

the government’s thinking.The current cap is 995.46 bil-

lion rupees ($16.86 billion).As of June 6, foreign inves-

tors owned 886 billion rupees worth of government debt, or 89 percent of the full available allocation, following a surge in

-

about Narendra Modi’s recent election as prime minister.

Once the limit reaches 90 per-cent, foreign investors are only allowed to buy debt under a more cumbersome auction bid-ding system.

One of the sources said the gov-ernment could raise the amount foreign investors are allowed to

buy by another $5 billion.-

cide on the matter after consul-tations with the Reserve Bank of India and capital markets regu-lator Securities And Exchange Board of India, the sources said.

“I expect the government to take a call on this soon,” said

the process. The sources de-

were not authorised to talk to the media about the plans.

Foreign investors bought a net $425.43 million worth of debt on June 6, their biggest daily purchase since May 23 and bringing their total this year to $8.6 billion.

Under current rules, India al-lows all types of foreign inves-tors to buy up to $20 billion of government debt, although the dollar amount depends on the exchange rate.

The total foreign investment limit for foreign investors is $30 billion, with the remaining $10 billion for investors such as foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds, insurance funds

and pension funds.Investors have been expecting

the government would raise the allocation for foreign investors once the 90 percent mark was reached.

The country last raised the amount of government debt that foreign investors can buy by $5 billion in June last year. Reuters

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Julian Abram

Wainw

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Myanmar Summary

Resume Commercial Whale HuntWai Linn Kyaw

Japan’s prime minister told parliament he would boost

-ing commercial whaling, de-spite a top UN court’s order that Tokyo must stop killing whales in the Antarctic.

Shinzo Abe’s comments put

with anti-whaling groups, who had hoped the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would herald the begin-ning of the end for the mammal hunt.

“I want to aim for the resump-tion of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research in

indispensable for the manage-ment of whale resources,” Abe told a parliamentary commis-sion, AFP reports.

“To that end, I will step up -

standing from the international community,” he was quoted as saying.

Abe said that in contrast to the foreign perception that whaling communities merci-lessly exploit the giant mam-mals, whaling towns appreciate the meat and show respect to the creatures with religious ser-vices at the end of every hunting season.

“It it regrettable that this part of Japanese culture is not un-derstood,” Abe said.

Japan has hunted whales un-der a loophole in the 1986 glob-al moratorium, which allows le-thal research on the mammals, but it has made no secret of the fact that their meat ends up in

-kets.

The annual hunt in the South-ern Ocean has proved particular-

ly controversial, with sometimes violent confrontations between whalers and protestors.

Australia, backed by New Zealand, hauled Japan before the ICJ in 2010 in a bid to stop the yearly campaign. The court slammed the hunt, which it said was a commercial venture mas-querading as research.

Antarctic season, and said it would redesign the mission in a

separate hunt in the northwest

in coastal waters which are not covered by the moratorium.

Since the ICJ ruling, Japanese e-commerce marketplace Ra-kuten has told online retailers they cannot sell whale and dol-phin meat through its site.

But dealing in whale meat “does not violate international or domestic laws in any way”, said Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, according to AFP.

Hayashi told the same par-

liamentary committee that Ra-kuten had made a commercial decision as a private company, but that the increasing number of companies that are refusing to sell whale meat is “regretta-ble”.

Inviting people to dine on whale in his ministry, he said a “whale week” campaign, which began on June 9, was part of

know that whaling and eating whale meat are part of their cul-ture.

Whales were once a key source of fuel and food, but Japan’s consumption of the meat has considerably diminished in re-cent decades and it is no longer a regular part of most people’s diet.

However, powerful lobbying forces have ensured the contin-ued subsidisation of the hunt with taxpayer money.

Tokyo has always maintained it was trying to prove whale populations were big enough to sustain commercial hunts.

AF

P

“The deal is unusual given the country is having a political situation like this,” said Min-tra Ratayapas, an analyst at KK Trade Securities,

“Some foreign investors voice concerns about the situation in Thailand. But for True, it seems

the company thanks to strong connections with Dhanin.”

True has been grappling with rising debt as it invests in the expansion of its network to compete with market leader Advanced Info Service and sec-ond-ranked Total Access Com-munication.

True is the only Thai mobile company without a foreign partner and the new invest-ment is expected to help with its planned regional expansion, a source with knowledge of the deal said.

Like True, China Mobile has been struggling in its home market, reporting in April its

years as it invests heavily to catch up with rivals in providing 4G mobile broadband services.

China Mobile, which had $69.4 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of 2013, also faces challengers in the shape of newly-licensed mo-bile virtual network operators, who lease capacity from the net-work operators like China Mo-bile and sell their own packages to subscribers.

If successful, the Thai deal

transaction outside of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in sev-en years, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Thailand’s True Corp is get-ting the better end of its deal with China Mobile, Reuters Brekingviews columnists Una Galani and Ethan Bilby wrote. “True reduces its crippling debt and gains a cash-rich partner to support its aggressive growth. For China Mobile, the minority stake looks a pricey way to push overseas,” they said. Reuters

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Pact to Halt Forced Labour Snubbed by Thailand

Stephanie Nebehay

Perpetrators of forced la--

lion people globally, will be punished in most countries under a UN treaty clinched last week, despite being snubbed by Thailand and nearly all Gulf countries.

More than half of the estimated 21 million caught up in forced or compulsory labour are women and girls and the practice reaps an estimated $150 billion in il-

domestic services and the sex in-dustry, among others, the Inter-national Labour Organisation, a United Nations agency, said.

The new treaty, a protocol to the ILO’s Forced Labour Con-vention of 1930, aims to halt the practice by requiring countries ratifying it to identify and release victims, ensure them access to compensation and punish perpe-trators, it said.

“It is a strong indication of the global community’s commitment

-ination of forced labour,” David Garner, president of the annual

International Labour Confer-ence’s committee on forced la-

Thailand’s new military gov-ernment was the only govern-ment to vote against the treaty at ILO’s annual ministerial confer-

But Bahrain, Brunei, Iran, Ku-wait, Omar, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Yemen were among those abstaining, they said. The Mid-dle East is home to an estimated 600,000 people deemed to be forced labourers, Beate Andrees, head of the ILO special action programme to combat forced la-bour, told Reuters.

Garner said forced labour, which includes slavery but also deceptive recruitment practices,

“It’s very large-scale, much of

it very well organised and so-

criminal elements are involved in it as well.” Reuters

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Myanmar Summary


mmbiztoday.comINTERNATIONAL BIZ 16

Nothing about the narrow cream-colored lobby at

160 Aldersgate Street in -

cial district gives a hint of its role at the centre of the

That’s because the building is occupied by

at least, it is also home to Rowan Companies, one of the largest operators of drilling rigs in the world.

In 2012, Rowan, which has a market value of $4 billion, shifted its legal and tax base from the United States to Britain. But not much else.

“We changed our corpo-rate structure and we’re legally domiciled in the UK but our headquarters and our management team remain in the US,” Suzanne Spera, Rowan’s Investor Relations Direc-tor said in a telephone in-terview from Houston.

“It has been positive. We take advantage of try-ing to be competitive with

say the shift helped cut

tax rate to 3.3 percent in 2013 from 34.6 percent in 2008. Spera said Rowan complies with all UK tax rules.

A government spokes-woman for the Treasury said recent changes to the tax rules were aimed at supporting “genuine busi-ness investment”.

“The UK is not a tax hav-en. In 2015, our main rate of corporation tax will be 20 percent, well above the levels seen in tax havens,” she said in an emailed statement.

In the last year around a dozen major U.S. com-panies including media group Liberty Global, ba-nana group Chiquita and

-veiled plans to shift their tax bases overseas outside the United States.

Historically, when U.S. companies wanted to cut their tax bill they usually reincorporated in Carib-bean Islands or Switzer-land.

However, following re-cent legal changes where-by Britain largely stopped seeking to tax corporate

Tom Bergint

countries, including tax havens, companies are increasingly choosing the UK as a corporate base.

President Barack Oba-ma and Congressional Democrats have proposed

of so-called “inversions”, although Congressional gridlock on tax reform means new barriers to overseas moves are un-likely anytime soon.

of companies which have moved their tax base to Britain but government

lawyers said at least seven had re-based to London – Aon Plc, CNH Global NV, Delphi Automotive Plc, Ensco Plc, Liberty Global Plc, Noble Corp Plc.

Omnicom had planned to transfer their tax domicile to Britain, while retain-ing US headquarters, but the takeover deals which were meant to facilitate this recently failed.

other company state-ments from the seven that relocated showed that while redomiciling to London can cut a com-pany’s tax bill, it usually involves relocating just a handful of senior execu-tives – and sometimes not even that many.

“The UK has made a very clear policy decision to engage in tax competi-tion for multinationals. It’s fair to say it’s rivalling Ireland,” said Stephen Shay Professor of Law at Harvard University who

-

sional investigations into corporate tax reform.

“When I go to tax con-ferences now, I hear peo-ple talk about the UK as a tax haven.”

Bernhard Gilbey, tax

Squires Sanders said tax competition was common across countries and that companies were within the law and indeed faced competitive pressure to structure themselves in response to such govern-mental incentives.

The companies said that while tax was a considera-tion in their moves, com-mercial reasons such as the desire to be closer to customers was also a fac-tor.

George Osborne has wel-comed the trend of US companies such as insur-ance group Aon redomi-ciling to Britain, saying it

-ment has made the coun-try a more attractive place to do business.

In November, Ernst & Young, one of a number of tax advisors which ad-vocated the tax changes that made Britain a mag-net for US corporations, published a survey say-ing that 60 multinational companies were eyeing a move to the UK.

EY said this could create over 5,000 jobs and bring in over 1 billion pounds a year in additional corpo-ration tax, the UK’s cor-porate income tax.

Accounts for the com-

to the UK exchequer from the corporate relocations.

Aon and Liberty Global – the only two companies

for group UK tax pay-ments – reported UK cor-poration tax credits for 2013.

Ensco had a UK tax charge of $200,000 last year. That included tax on

-ating subsidiaries which have revenues of around $300 million a year.

Delphi Automotive’s most senior UK corpo-rate entity is a partner-ship, which does not have to pay tax. The company declined to say if other British units paid any cor-poration tax but said in its annual report that it had UK tax assets which could

CNH does not pub-lish UK tax payments. Its main UK operating unit reported a tax credit

in 2012, the last period for which accounts were available.

What attracts compa-nies like Rowan to Britain is not a headline tax rate that is half the US level but the way the UK has

companies’ overseas sub-sidiaries.

The government intro-duced the measures in the 2012 budget to “better

-nesses operate in a global economy” and encourage investment in Britain.

This means companies

the countries where their employees and custom-ers are based, into tax ha-vens, and then bring the money back to Britain and pay it out to shareholders without paying any tax – something that would not be possible under US or German tax law.

the UK can literally be a nil tax jurisdiction, which obviously compares very well with traditional tax havens,” Kevin Phillips, International Tax Part-ner, Baker Tilly said.

The UK is also unusual in not charging withhold-ing tax on dividend pay-ments and, for now at

-spectability.

“Over the last couple of years, companies that have used jurisdictions like Ireland, the Nether-lands or Luxemburg have found themselves at the wrong end of some poor publicity for their attitude to tax,” said Gilbey.

“It looks less likely that that would be the case if they put themselves in the UK because we’re not generally considered a tax haven.” Reuters

Myanmar Summary

Britain Becomes Haven for Us Companies Keen to Cut Tax BillsJa

son

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“ Over the last couple of years, companies that have used jurisdic-

tions like Ireland, the Netherlands or Luxemburg have found them-

selves at the wrong end of some poor publicity for their attitude to tax. It looks less likely that that would be the case if they put themselves in the UK because

we’re not generally considered a tax haven.”

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mmbiztoday.comINTERNATIONAL BIZ 17

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Katie Lobosco

Lunch with Warren Buf-fett is a hot ticket item: The winning bidder at his

annual charity fundraiser paid $2.2 million for the privilege.

Each year on eBay, Buf-

to lunch. The proceeds go to GLIDE, a charity that runs a number of anti-poverty pro-grams in San Francisco.

This year’s winning bid, from a man from Singapore named Andy Chua, was more than double last year’s of just over $1 million. The highest ever was in 2012, at $3.5 million.

Since the auction began 15 years ago, it has raised nearly $16 million for the organisation.

Past winners include hedge fund manager David Einhorn, though most bidders remain anonymous. GLIDE did not provide more details about Chua.

The winner will be allowed to invite up to seven friends

the New York City steakhouse Smith & Wollenksy.

GLIDE operates on a budget of about $18 million. It serves more than 850,000 free meals a

and operates a health clinic in a city with one of the highest lev-els of inequality in the country.

“The demand keeps growing,” said GLIDE founding president Janice Mirikitani. “In this area, the cost of living is very high

to pay for both food and rent,” she said.

leading philanthropists. He started The Giving Pledge in

up more than 100 billionaires around the globe. They have pledged to donate half of their net worth during their lifetime, or at their death. CNNMoney

Leslie E K

ossoff-Pool/G

etty Images

World Bank Cuts Global Growth Outlook as Ukraine Crisis Weighs

Anna Yukhananov

The World Bank trimmed its global growth forecast,

events, from the Ukraine crisis to unusually cold weather in the United States, dampened eco-nomic expansion in the

The institution pre-dicted the world economy would grow 2.8 percent this year, below its prior forecast of 3.2 percent made in January, but it

-tivity was already shifting to more solid footing.

In its twice-yearly Glob-al Economic Prospects re-port, the World Bank said tensions between Ukraine

worldwide. The bank also cut its growth forecast for the United States to 2.1 percent from 2.8 percent to account for the toll taken on growth by the weather at the start of the year.

The US economy con-

quarter, but it already ap-pears to be rebounding.

“Yes, there has been a big downgrade in 2014,” Andrew Burns, the re-port’s lead author, said in

an interview. “But that’s

that’s already happened.”The World Bank ex-

pects growth to quicken later this year as richer economies continue their recovery. It kept its global growth forecasts for the next two years unchanged at 3.4 percent and 3.5 per-cent, respectively.

The forecasts assume tensions in Ukraine will persist this year but won’t worsen. An escalation in the crisis could further

-pone investments and crimping growth in de-veloping economies by as much as 1.4 percentage points under the worst-case scenario, the bank said.

“The markets, inves-tors, don’t like uncertain-ty,” Burns said. “It’s also pretty clear that there’s a potential for tensions (in Ukraine) to develop, and for the situation to de-grade.”

Russia and Ukraine are seeking to resolve a gas pricing dispute that is at the heart of the crisis be-tween the two countries. Failing to do so could set back peace moves that are gaining momentum after weeks of violence in east

Ukraine.The World Bank also

fretted about the possibil-

emerging markets once the US Federal Reserve starts to raise interest rates, mopping up some of the liquidity glut in global markets.

Burns said emerging markets have not fully priced in the potential for a monetary tightening in richer economies.

“The real concern is what happens in 2015, 2016,” Burns said.

Burns also said develop-ing countries need to do more to address structur-al issues that are holding back growth.

This year marks the third straight year that developing economies would expand by less than 5 percent, a factor that has contributed to rising debt-to-GDP ratios that could make those economies more vulner-able, Burns said.

“Although the situation in developing countries is pretty good ... it isn’t the kind of growth they’re go-ing to need if they’re go-ing to make the very solid inroads into poverty that we’re hoping,” he said. Reuters

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mmbiztoday.comINVESTMENT & FINANCE 18

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Rockwell Automation Sets Sight on MyanmarKyaw Min

Rockwell Automa-tion will now focus on Myanmar as its

next strategic market in Southeast Asia to drive fur-ther growth in its already strong revenue stream, the US-based industrial auto-mation company said.

The company has ap-pointed MINs Control Systems Solution Co Ltd

-nised system integrator for Myanmar to meet indus-trial automation demand by machine builders and original equipment manu-facturers (OEMs), as well as end users.

“Combining our compa-ny’s industrial automation technology with MCSS’ in-depth market knowledge and expertise, we will add measureable value to our customers by supporting their existing investments, as well as helping them plan future projects for op-timised return on invest-ment,” Bob Buttermore, regional director, South-east Asia, Rockwell Auto-mation, said.

MCSS is well-known as a systems integrator and is partnering with Rock-well across many process industries including pet-

rochemicals, oil and gas, waste and water treatment, mining and cement, But-termore said.

The Fortune 500 com-pany has been eyeing My-anmar to add to its other Southeast Asian markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, Chris Marshall, market access director, Southeast Asia, Rockwell Automa-tion, said.

“We are pleased that the time is now right for us to move in and capitalise on its robust economic growth and investment-friendly environment.

“Since manufacturing constitutes about 20 per-cent of the country’s GDP,

with oil and gas, construc-tion, infrastructure and consumer packaged goods being important sectors, Myanmar is a natural ex-pansion market for us.”

Headquartered in Mil-waukee, Wisconsin, Rock-well employs about 21,000 in 80 countries. Its 2011 revenue stood at $6 billion.

Japan to Help Upgrade Inland Water Transport

System in MyanmarAye Myat

Japan will help upgrade inland water transport system in Myanmar for national transport sector development.

Japan is expected to provide technology and as-sistance for the implementation of the master plan which has been drafting, said Myanmar deputy Minister for Transport U Han Sein at the coordi-nation meeting of transport deputy ministers from both sides held in Nay Pyi Taw.

At the meeting, Ryuji Masuno, deputy minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan promised to further strengthen the friendship between the two countries and to help in upgrading of inland water transport of My-anmar.

Myanmar has started installing air safety and se-curity equipment in major airports and provided three meteorological radars and automatic weath-er forecasting equipment.t

major disincentive to foreign investment.Thailand still maintains a leading position in Myan-

mar’s hydrocarbon sector, but as the trend of the latter’s economic opening continues, Bangkok should pursue a strategy to diversify it gas supply. In the long term, such a strategy could include looking to other countries and developing corresponding gas import infrastruc-ture. In the medium term, however, boosting domestic

such, Bangkok should pursue E&P activities in the Gulf of Thailand in a way that guarantees local knowledge transfer, doesn’t overly restrict the marketing of pro-duced gas, and addresses local communities’ concerns.

Nicholas Borroz is an independent analyst of energy geopolitics with a focus on oil and gas transportation infrastructure. He works for a DC-based risk consul-tancy and has three years’ experience working for the

-cused on development, energy, and economics. You can reach him on Twitter @Nborroz or on his blog nicholasborroz.wordpress.com.

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Myanmar Summary

David Mayes

This is a question I am often asked by people, and my an-

swer is usually not what you would expect from someone who makes his

advice. I often say that I am only in business because people are too scared to make decision themselves. The truth is that for most people, if they have a little bit of time to educate them-

-sor is not required except when you need access to products where an inter-mediary is required.

Most people have vari--

nancial advisor, but it usu-ally boils down to them being overwhelmed by the large variety of ways to invest, information and misinformation about the subject, and the idea that a professional advisor can help them steer their way through it all with-out making any horrible mistakes. The sad truth is that even professionals

-ing into the same traps as retail investors, although few in the industry like to admit this.

If you are not likely to make your way through a world of decision mak-ing under conditions of imperfect information – that’s a technical way to say all investing has real risks of losing mon-ey involved – without an improved probability of

-

Do You Really Need a Financial Advisor?

ments, why not take re-sponsibility for those de-cisions yourself? I know that when I mess some-thing up myself I handle it a lot better than when someone else’s mistake costs me time or money. If everyone thought this way, I would probably be out of business, but I think everyone should.

The people that I believe -

sor are those who simply are so busy at work, as is happening more and more often in the modern age, that they don’t have time to craft a plan and execute it. While there are plenty of people in this camp, I think most people fall into the camp of being afraid to take responsibil-ity themselves.

should include an emer-gency cash reserve, insur-ance against illness and death or disability, and a monthly savings amount towards future goals such

as retirement or kids schooling fees. Invest-ments themselves do not need to be complicated, and in fact keeping it sim-ple is most likely to lead to better performance as well as your ability to fol-low the strategy with dis-

-cial investments altogeth-er and spend their lives building up a portfolio of rental properties. While I

better, I have met many very successful investors over the years who have

in this manner and been very successful at it.

Regardless if you chose to do things on your own

always remember that a certain element of every advisor’s business is sales. If you need an insurance policy or a savings plan, do your own research on the recommendation of the advisor and see if there are other users of the plan who have given positive or negative testimonials. Today it is easy with the internet to research just about anything. Take the time to make a little ex-

the most important areas of your life, it could make

standard of living when it comes to retirement time.

David Mayes MBA lives in Phuket and provides wealth man-agement services to ex-

Aim

stock

patriates throughout Southeast Asia, focusing on UK pension trans-fers. He can be reached at 085-335-8573 or d a v i d . m @ f a r a m o n d .com. Faramond UK is regulated by the FCA

and provides advice on taxation and pensions.

“ The people that I believe do need a financial advi-

sor are those who simply are so busy at work, as is

happening more and more of-ten in the modern age, that they

don’t have time to craft a plan and execute it.”

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Contd. P 18... Contd. P 18...

Natural Gas: Myanmar, Thailand and Foreign Capital Thailand depends upon imported natural gas from Myanmar to meet its domestic demand. As Myanmar becomes a more competitive market with an increasing num-

ber of foreign investors, Thailand’s traditional dominance in Myanmar’s gas sector will subside. Thailand should correspondingly seek new sources of gas, chiefly by boosting domestic production. To do so, it will need to attract investment despite its political turmoil, and it will need to woo investors away from Myanmar.

Thailand depends upon Myanmar’s natural gas to supplement its domes-tic production, which is not enough to meet do-mestic demand. This de-pendence shows no sign of slacking, as Thailand prepares to import more gas from Myanmar in an-ticipation of growing do-mestic consumption. Re-cently, Thailand upped its investment in Myanmar’s gas E&P sector through its state-owned oil-and-gas company PTT. The company already has pipelines connecting to Myanmar’s Yadana and

the process of developing -

eration with Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.

Traditionally, Thailand has been one of the few major players in My-anmar’s gas sector, but this is changing. Foreign investors are increas-ingly targeting Myanmar across all sectors, oil and gas included. As a result, Thailand’s dominance is subsiding. In 2013, Myan-

-shore blocks, reportedly without a formal bidding process. A repeat of such favourable treatment is unlikely as an increas-ing number of investors compete with Thailand to take a part in Myanmar’s energy projects. Addition-ally, Myanmar’s domestic demand for gas is increas-ing. As a result, it seems probable that more gas that would originally have made its way to Thailand will instead be set aside to generate power for Myan-mar’s electricity-hungry populace.

-

Given these develop-ments, Thailand needs to look elsewhere to meet its gas needs. The options are either to import gas from other countries or to boost domestic produc-tion. Thailand has already

Nicholas Borroz

developed an LNG import terminal in Rayong. How-ever, while the import ter-minal is useful in terms of

-land to a single supplier, it is less economically ef-

reason, while the LNG terminal is an important tool to diversify import options, Thailand should also look towards other alternative sources of gas.

At the moment Thailand is connected to only one other country via pipe-line besides Myanmar: Malaysia. That pipeline’s development was marred with protests and political controversy, and it skirts near Thailand’s troubled southern provinces, an area where armed insur-gency has claimed thou-sands of lives over the last decade. Thailand should look into possibilities for importing Malaysian gas and consider developing new pipelines with other countries. Such interna-tional infrastructure deals require tedious nego-tiations with neighbours, though, and at best they are long term solutions that take years to arrange.

More immediately, Thailand should grow its own domestic produc-tion. This would be easier to arrange than interna-tional cooperation with gas suppliers, and for this reason could potentially yield quicker results. As of yet, Thailand has been unable to cover its own demand with domestic production alone. There are rumours of sizeable domestic reserves, how-ever, particularly in the Gulf of Thailand.

-

Developing these do-mestic resources will

require foreign capital. Unfortunately, the invest-ment climate in Thailand is losing its attractiveness for two main reasons. First is the recent coup, which raises concerns about Thai markets’ sta-bility. Second is Myan-mar’s economic opening, which has created a com-petitive new investment market across the border.

Representatives of Thai-land’s Ministry of Foreign

Myanmar, which cur-rently chairs ASEAN, in order to convince it that

the coup does not pose a threat to regional stabil-ity. That such a dialogue could occur both illus-trates Thailand’s fall from grace and Myanmar’s in-creasing importance as a regional actor. Whereas Myanmar is liberalising after a half century of jun-ta rule, Thailand has ex-perienced yet another in a

long string of coups, with reports of increasing au-thoritarianism and grow-ing numbers of political refugees. It is important not to overstate Thai-land’s decline and Myan-mar’s rise; Thailand has weathered many coups and remains a strong economy in the region, while Myanmar’s transi-tion from authoritarian rule to democratization is arguably stalling. Still, the contrast in the two coun-tries’ recent experiences is striking.

-

Thailand needs to at-tract investors despite its political turbulence, and it needs to woo investors away from Myanmar, which is also seeking for-

ventures. When reaching out to international in-vestors, Thailand should keep three factors in mind:

Thailand should not impose onerous require-ments for selling gas to domestic markets, as is rumoured will happen in Myanmar. This would likely alienate foreign in-vestors, especially since there is no guarantee that local wholesale buyers will be able to pay market

Myanmar Summaryprice for the gas. Thailand should impose

local employment quo-

in order to ensure local knowledge transfer. This

population and soothe nationalist sentiments, of which there are many. At the same time, it would not alienate foreign in-vestors because Thailand already has a fairly skilled workforce in the hydro-carbon industry.

Similarly, Thailand needs to engage local stakeholders when de-signing and implement-

-jects. This would address concerns that such pro-jects adversely impact local communities and ecosystems. From a more business-oriented per-spective, projects with lo-cal buy-in meet less popu-lar opposition, which is a

“Thailand still maintains a leading position in Myanmar’s hydro-

carbon sector, but as the trend of the latter’s economic open-

ing continues, Bangkok should pursue a strategy to diversify it gas supply.”

Reuters

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Myanmar Summary

Vietnamese Bank Ties Up with Myanmar SME BankBIDV to give $30 million to state-run SMIDB

The Bank for Invest-ment and Develop-ment of Vietnam

(BIDV) has signed a deal with state-run Small and Medium Industrial Devel-opment Bank of Myanmar (SMIDB) to share infor-mation, develop products and services, and support business and investment activities in both coun-tries.

Under the agreement, which was signed in Yan-gon, Vietnamese state-owned BIDV and SMIDB will share experiences and information about lo-cal regulations, and con-

and banking products for trading and investment by businesses in Vietnam and Myanmar.

BIDV will also help SMIDB upgrade its IT systems and make greater use of IT applications in its operations, according to the deal. It will help SMIDB undertake study tours to Vietnam in 2014-15.

BIDV chairman Tran Bac Ha said, “With our

Aung Phyo experience and advantag-es in providing services to SMEs in Viet Nam, we wish to share our experi-ence to facilitate the de-velopment of Myanmar’s

SMEs.”He announced a $30

million loan to SMIDB with a 4 percent interest

said BIDV, which already

in Myanmar, is preparing to open a branch in Myan-mar.

SMIDB’s chairman U Maung Myint, who is also the minister for in-dustries, welcomed BIDV in Myanmar’s nascent

the agreement underlined BIDV’s role in strength-ening economic ties be-tween the two countries.

statistics, Vietnamese investment in Myanmar amounted to $513.19 mil-lion as of April, ranking 8th among Myanmar’s foreign investor coun-

tries.In May 2013, as part of

the bilateral cooperation, a 45-member Vietnamese entrepreneurs delegation came to Myanmar and initiated a MoU with the Union of Myanmar Fed-eration of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) on coopera-tion in various economic sectors.

Both sides said they will cooperate in sectors such as textile, hotel and tour-ism, electronic and spare parts, marine products, food, oil and gas, con-struction materials, fruits and vegetables, agricul-ture, housing and sanita-tion.

Vietnamese Hoang Anh Gia Lai Construction and Development House Joint Stock Company have made major investments in My-anmar’s hotel sector, most notably a $300-million ho-tel and housing project in Yangon.

Bilateral trade between Myanmar and Vietnam reached $66 million in 2012-13 and it is expected to reach $500 million by

statistics.Vietnam mainly imports

forestry and marine prod-ucts, vegetables and rub-ber from Myanmar while exporting iron products, machines and spare parts, plastic, textile and cloth-ing.

Economic reforms helped triple for-eign direct invest-

ment (FDI) into Myanmar to more than $4.1 billion

-ed on March 31, a senior investment commission

an increase this year.Myanmar’s quasi-ci-

vilian government has pushed through a series of political and economic reforms since the end of military rule in 2011 and foreign interest has jumped as Western coun-tries have lifted or sus-pended sanctions.

-ed to $4.107 billion, com-pared with $1.419 billion a year before and $91.17 mil-

2003/04,” Aung Naing Oo, secretary of the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC), told Reuters.

Aung Hla Tun

“As you know, we have opened up a number of sectors to foreign inves-tors, relaxed various re-strictions, set up Special Economic Zones and removed unnecessary

paperwork and red tape since April 2012,” he said.

-ring to FDI that has been approved during the year but may not all have

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He forecast more FDI

which started on April 1, with plans to make the investment climate even more attractive. Latest data showed that nearly

April from 28 companies.The plans include a sin-

gle investment law for all investors, combining the Foreign Investment Law passed in 2012 and the Myanmar Citizens Invest-ment Law from 2013.

“The Myanmar Invest-ment Commission was recently reorganised, with many new and younger members, and the Com-mission will open its of-

Yangon, saving a lot of time and energy for poten-tial investors,” he added.

Ministries and govern-ment agencies are in Nay Pyi Taw, a new capital built from scratch by the military government a decade ago, but embas-sies and many companies are still in Yangon.

Reuters

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Myanmar Summary

In Conversation With: UOB Group Managing Director and Head of International Ian Wong

Wai Linn Kyaw

--

-

UOB has an ongoing unwavering presence in Myanmar for 20 years, working closely with the local Myanmar banks and the Central Bank. In 2011, UOB established a For-eign Direct Investment Advisory Unit to help our existing and potential cli-ents from our network

branches across South-east Asia, Greater China and beyond to invest in Myanmar. To date, we have helped more than 50 companies explore vari-ous business opportuni-ties through our FDI Ad-visory services.

Our client research tells us that while Myanmar remains a key invest-ment hotspot for compa-nies looking for regional growth opportunities in Southeast Asia, their top concerns when ex-panding into Myanmar

-ing options and the lack of insights around local laws and regulations. Our latest FDI symposium in Yangon held jointly with Myanmar Investment Commission, Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce and International Enter-prise Singapore in Feb-ruary this year attracted over 300 clients across our network.

The bank’s deep exper-tise in structuring project loans in high growth sec-tors such as energy and oil and gas can also contrib-ute to the development of Myanmar’s economy. We made a start on this

UO

B

when in February, UOB -

ment in Nay Pyi Taw with a Singaporean company, Asiatech Energy, to build Myanmar’s largest gas-

state. We have also part-nered with US-based APR Energy, a global leader in power solutions, to sup-port their construction of a 100MW power plant in the Mandalay region. The APR Energy contract was

-tion agreement signed by a US-based company with the government of My-anmar since the lifting of sanctions in 2013.

UOB’s commitment to Myanmar also extends to the local banking commu-nity. UOB was one of the

correspondent banking network with local banks. The bank has a long-term

commitment to share best practices in international trade, risk mitigation and working capital solutions with the business com-munity, regulators and local banks.

We held a one-day seminar on June 2 dur-ing which we shared with close to 50 corporate and central bankers in Myan-mar our views on the in-

-ket and its implications for Myanmar. Industry experts from UOB and the Singapore Management University shared their expertise and experience of navigating the global

-dated on best practices and real-life case studies on how capital and treas-ury markets could fuel the growth and development

sector.

branches in Myan-

expectations of this

-

-

UOB welcomes a bank-ing licence in Myanmar as it would allow us to serve

our clients’ banking and

invest and expand into Myanmar.

-nancial transformation underway is real and it is rapid. What is key now is for more investors, for-eign governments and multinational organisa-tions to help generate trade and investment op-

the people and businesses of Myanmar. It is clear that UOB has stayed its course in the last 20 years in Myanmar and will cer-tainly step-up its engage-ment and collaboration

all local stakeholders as the country opens up its economy.

UOB is committed to building our businesses here in Myanmar for the long term and looks for-ward to fostering even closer ties in the years to come.

businesses do you ex-pect to see in Myan-

According to our experi-ence, businesses that are looking to expand into Myanmar are in indus-tries such as energy, oil and gas, telecommunica-tions, manufacturing and construction.

As the economy ex-pands, there are also opportunities for both foreign and domestic in-vestors in areas such as real estate development, in particular accommoda-tion, to address the short-age for visitors.

At the same time, with the anticipated trend to-wards urbanisation, the education, health-related

-tors will attract investors to cater to the popula-tion’s increased spending in tandem with rising in-come.

The International Mon-etary Fund believes that

Myanmar will open doors to its trading partners,

particularly those within the Southeast Asian re-gion, and help Myanmar take advantage of the ASEAN Economic Com-munity that will be estab-lished by 2015.

foreign banks to open a

Yangon in 1994 and was

establish a correspondent banking network with lo-cal Myanmar banks. UOB is also working with the Central Bank of Myan-mar and the Myanmar Banks Association to pro-vide training, workshops and study tours for local banks in the areas of trade and payment processing,

risk management. We be-lieve that this cooperation will enhance further the service level of the bank-ing sector in Myanmar.

With a branch licence, UOB will be able to work together with local banks for certain onshore in-frastructure projects, and share our knowledge

loan structuring. We see our role as complemen-tary with domestic banks as foreign banks, with a limited branch network and restrictions on se-lected activities, will not

be in direct competition with the local banks in Myanmar’s domestic re-tail market.

UO

B

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mmbiztoday.comPROPERTY & REAL ESTATE 23

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Hilton to Open Five More Hotels Despite Hitch in Myanmar

Wai Linn Kyaw

The world’s largest hotel operator by market value, Hilton Worldwide Hold-

ings Inc, said it plans to open

in the next three years despite a delay in its maiden project in the country.

Hilton has signed manage-ment agreements with Eden Group Company Ltd, a business conglomerate in Myanmar, for the hotels.

Two, which are existing prop-erties, will be rebranded and open as Hilton hotels in Octo-ber. The other three are slated to open in 2016 and 2017, it said in a statement.

Hilton last year entered the Myanmar market with the sign-ing of a management agree-

-ing Co Ltd to manage Hilton

-wide property in Myanmar, a

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300-room hotel, was originally scheduled for opening this year. However it is now expected to open in late 2015 or early 2016, said Martin Rinck, president of

“Working in an environment such as Myanmar where some-times not everything goes like Swiss clockwork, the project is coming later than expected,” Rinck told Reuters, adding the delay is not deterring Hilton from further expansion in the country.

“Hilton really is a company that likes to be on the forefront,

entering emerging markets.” A surge in the number of tour-

ists in recent years has sparked a boom in hotel development in

star hotels were in operation at the end of 2013. Hotel and service apartment operators including Hilton, Accor Group, Shangri-la Group and Pan Pa-

open new hotels in the country.

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Millcon Steel, Thiha Group Launch Steel JV in Myanmar

Aye Myat

Thailand-based steel pro-ducer Millcon Steel Pcl has joined with local

conglomerate Thiha Group to set up a joint ven-ture in its regional growth push.

Millcon will hold 51 percent stake in the JV, Millcon Thi-ha Co, while Thiha Group will hold the rest.

the trading business focusing on steel and construction mate-rials, Thai media reported.

Sittichai Leeswadtrakup, president and CEO, said the company has proceeded with the registration of the new com-pany in Myanmar following its board’s approval of the joint venture.

Millcon, which is one of Thai-

land’s leading producers and distributors of steel products, said it sees vast opportunities and strong growth with the opening up of Myanmar ahead of the ASEAN Economic Com-

munity, which is set to launch in 2015.

estimates, Myanmar’s population of about 60 million consumes 19 kil-ograms of steel per per-son per year, 1.33 mil-lion tonnes a year, while

Thailand’s 65 million consumes 17.7 million tonnes, a vast gap that has lured many construc-

Several construction products company, especially from Ja-pan, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand, has already ventured into Myanmar’s booming con-struction sector, which was in shambles for decades due to a stagnant economy.

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mmbiztoday.com

24

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

PROPERTY & REAL ESTATEThilawa Land Owners Await SEZ Start to Bag More Bucks

May Soe San

Despite high demand from foreign investors for real estate around

Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) land owners and agents are waiting for the SEZ launch to sell plots, anticipating fur-ther increase in land prices, re-altors say.

Thilawa SEZ, which is being jointly implemented by Myan-mar and Japan, is expected to start its commercial run from mid-2015, according to project

-lar project, which is touted to become a cornerstone of My-anmar’s economy in the near future, has already grabbed the attention of foreign investors who are eyeing using Myanmar as a cheap manufacturing base.

Demand for lands in and around the SEZ, along with that the prices of them, has gone up as the Japanese consortium responsible for the project re-cently started selling leasehold rights to interested enterprises and investors.

Thilawa is divided in two zones – local and international. However, land sales in interna-tional zone are outpacing that in the local zone.

A 120 square foot land plot in

the international zone is about K200 million ($207,000), Ko Min Khant from Kaung Htet real estate agency, which deals with lands in Thilawa, Thanlyin and Kyauktan, told MyanmarBusiness Today.

A similar plot of land at lo-cal zone was K200-250 million seven months ago, however, now the price have climbed up to K350 million ($362,000) and stagnated as demand tum-bled, he added.

“Investors from local zone are waiting to see how the require-ments at international zone un-fold and have stopped dealing land plots,” Ko Min Khant said.

Realtors say there is no pres-sure to build in the local zones, while international zone land owners have to construct the factories and provide details of their investment and busi-ness to the authorities within six months as the SEZ goes into operation next year.

Places near the SEZ such as new quarters in San Chin Mi level 1, 2 and 3, Thet Yar Kon at Nat Sin Kone ward and Pha Lan ward are seen as lucrative as land owners anticipate foreign investors to buy lands in the lo-

-tures like banks, realtor say.

Lift and Escalator Association Meets to Discuss Myanmar Building CodesPhyo Thu

As Myanmar continues to experience rapid urbani-sation and attract for-

eign investment, Yangon’s con-struction industry continues to boom. Crucial to the urban de-velopment of the city, with the increasing number of high rise buildings, are lifts and escala-tors.

Asia Lift and Escalator Asso-ciation (PALEA) representing delegates from all sectors of the Lift Industry from twenty four

to hold their 3rd annual Com-mittee Meeting in Yangon.

PALEA is a liaison member of both the CEN and ISO technical committees for lifts and escala-tors and has a close relationship with many code writing author-

has assisted many of these au-thorities in the development of their codes.

In co-operation with the My-anmar Engineering Society (MES) and facilitated by Jar-dine Schindler, the leading el-evator and escalator supplier in Myanmar, PALEA held a one day seminar recently, where

they presented the latest de-velopment in International Lift and Escalator Standards.

U Than Aye, former deputy director general, Electrical Inspection Dept, Ministry of Industry, said: “The seminar demonstrates the commitment of the international lift and escalator industry to building local capacity and expertise in Myanmar. Companies like Jardine Schindler which has a strong focus on technical com-

petencies, plays an important role in rapid expansion of the construction industry.”

The seminar was attended by a wide range of representatives from both the public and pri-vate sector.

The organisers said it provid-ed a useful forum for PALEA to share their technical expertise and recommend the use of In-ternational Standards. There was also a interplay of ideas as local representatives were able

to voice concerns and share their knowledge of the local market with PALEA, they add-ed.

Ian Todkill, president of PALEA, said, “We hope that the seminar has helped the Myan-mar authorities in the develop-ment of their own national lift and escalator standards and we are prepared to assist further in the future.”

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mmbiztoday.comAUTOMOBILE 25

Myanmar Summary

Protesting Against Uber Car AppDrivers say app-based car service violates taxi rules

Tchaos in Europe’s top cit-ies last week by mounting

one of the biggest protests ever against Uber, a US car service whose smartphone app sum-mons rides at the touch of a button.

Hundreds of licensed black

streets around Trafalgar Square in central London, hooting their horns as they passed Downing Street, home of Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Hous-es of Parliament.

on major arteries into the city during the morning commute. Hundreds choked the main road to Berlin’s historic centre while commuters packed buses and trains, or just walked, to get to work in Madrid and Barce-lona.

San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc, valued last week at $18.2 billion just four years since its 2010 launch, has touched a raw nerve by bringing technological advances to one of the most visible and regulat-ed services in modern city life.

Uber customers order and

Jack Stubbs and Brian Love

pay for a taxi with its applica-tion on their smartphones. In-stead of having taxis prowl city streets looking for customers, Uber links to smartphone GPS systems to locate app users and have a nearby car go pick them up.

“This about an all-out assault on our profession, our liveli-hoods,” said Max Small, a Lon-don taxi driver for 34 years. “These big companies are com-ing in, not playing by the rules.”

Taxi drivers across Europe say Uber breaks local taxi rules, violates licensing and safety regulations and its drivers fail to comply with local insurance rules.

Uber, backed by investors such as Goldman Sachs and Google, refutes that criticism and argues it complies with all local regulations.

“What you are seeing to-day is an industry that has not faced competition for decades,” said Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s Regional General Man-ager for Europe.

competition from companies such as Uber which is bringing choice to customers,” he said,

adding the taxi industry in most countries was “highly regulat-ed” and “not pro-consumer”.

Uber has expanded rapidly since it was founded by two US technology entrepreneurs, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, and now operates in 128 cities across 37 countries.

Kalanick last week announced $1.2 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $18.2 billion, one of the highest valu-ations ever for a Silicon Valley startup.

But ordinances keep it out of cities such as Las Vegas and Mi-ami. In Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC, Uber and similar companies have faced lawsuits from taxi companies hoping to keep the new compe-tition out.

In London, the European Union’s biggest city by popula-tion, police helicopters moni-

the Houses of Parliament as mopeds and cyclists weaved through the chaos and crowds of bemused tourists looked on.

Uber says its minicabs arrive -

don and fares are 30 to 50 per-

cent cheaper than a black cab.“It’s no surprise they’re tak-

ing business away from the cab drivers ... but it’s adapt or die,” said Callum, a 24-year-old pub-licist from London.

Uber also provides an app for drivers to calculate the cost of each journey, which black taxi

-meter and thus contravenes a 1998 British law reserving the right to use a meter for licensed cars.

Transport for London, the city’s transport regulator, says it thinks smartphone applica-tions do not constitute a taxi-meter but has asked the High Court for an opinion.

After the disruptions, Uber hit back in Germany by emailing

-count on all shared rides for the rest of the day. In London the company took out a full page advertisement in the evening

Uber UK & Ireland General Manager Jo Bertram said the app had an 850 percent in-crease in new customers on Wednesday, the most in one day since it launched in London two years ago. Reuters

Zarni M

in Naing

Myanmar Summary

Myanmar to Taut Rules for Yangon Bus Drivers

The authorities will tighten the enforcement of rules for bus drivers in Yangon

commercial hub.At least 41 people have died

and 358 others were injured in 122 road accidents that oc-curred during January-May

teams will now patrol Yangon to check vehicles, state-run me-dia reported.

Aung Phyo There are 6,600 buses run-ning in 352 routes in Yangon, a city that has an estimated popu-lation of about 7 million.

“To reduce the crashes and

users and drivers should change

Bus-line Control Committee was quoted as saying.

According to the city’s road transport administration, the number of motor vehicles oper-ating in Myanmar was 4.02 mil-lion in 2013, with 3.418 million motorcycles, 409,411 passenger

cars, 110,705 trucks and 21,043 buses.

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Myanmar Summary

Contd. P 15...

Contd. P 15...

Trinna Leong

Malaysia has spent a total of 27.6 million ringgit

($8.6 million) so far on the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, authorities said,

-

-lion ringgit was only the sum spent by Malaysian agencies, we do not know how much other countries spent,” Department of Civil Aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told a news conference, saying he was unsure of the cost break-

down.The search for MH370,

which disappeared carry-ing 239 passengers and crew on March 8, is al-ready set to be the most costly in aviation history and spending will rise

expands to a wider swathe

Australia. Experts have suggested the cost of searching for the missing jetliner could reach hun-dreds of millions of dol-lars.

The search has been dealt setbacks, most re-cently when Australian

that wreckage from the aircraft was not on the seabed in the area they

acoustic pings thought to be from the plane’s black box recorders.

Asked where the new search area would be, Azharuddin said he did not know but that it “will not be very far away from where the search is now”.

“The Australian and Ma-laysian investigators have done their analysis and are in the process of exchang-ing notes with Inmarsat,” he said, referring to the

analysis of signals from the

plane is the basis for the current search area.

A Wall Street Journal re-port on June 8 cited sourc-es as saying investigators were revising some of their basic assumptions about the plane’s last position.

The search area has al-ready been extended to a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) zone that is be-ing surveyed by a Chi-nese vessel. It will then be searched by a commercial operator in a mission ex-pected to start in August and take up to a year, at a cost of A$60 million ($55 million) or more.

search operations to bids -

sia’s deputy defence min-ister, Abdul Rahim Bakri, said those costs would be shared equally by Malay-sia and Australia. Reuters

Myanmar Summary

Thai Billionaire’s True CorpKhettiya Jittapong

State-owned China Mobile Ltd has agreed to buy an 18 percent stake in Thai

telecoms group True Corp for

major corporate deal since the military coup last month.

True Corp, backed by billion-aire Dhanin Chearavanont’s Charoen Pokphand Group, said it was raising $2 billion through a rights share issue to boost its

the fund raising, True Corp will sell 4.4 billion shares to China Mobile, the world’s biggest car-rier by subscribers, at 6.45 baht each, a 13.4 percent discount to True’s last traded price.

The deal is part of the Thai group’s long-term plan to se-cure a foreign partner and un-

derscores Dhanin’s strong po-litical connections in mainland China, sources familiar with the matter said.

In 2013 Dhanin’s CP Group

emerged as a surprise buyer for global bank HSBC Plc’s $9.4 billion stake in Ping An Insur-ance Group Co of China Ltd.

-

national to invest in China’s agri-business in 1979 and it was tasked with helping to modern-ise China’s farm sector. It also operates Lotus super markets in Shanghai, according to the company’s website.

“Through the proposed stra-tegic investment in True Corp, China Mobile is expected to access new customers, interna-tional business opportunities and new earnings growth driv-

-cance to the telecom business of the company,” China Mobile’s chief executive Li Yue said in a statement.

The proposed deal comes less than three weeks since the military seized power in Thailand. The two companies made no mention of the coup or preceding political crisis,

which weighed on corporate dealmaking. New mergers and acquisitions in the country have slumped by 72 percent by value from a year ago to $648 mil-lion by end May, according to Thomson Reuters data. Reuters

Bloom

berg

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Pricing mechanisms, market intelligence, united selling/bar-gaining policies with Farmers’ Organisations in place in ad-dition to multiple transporters involved in supply chain deliv-eries, is what we mean by insti-tutional infrastructure/frame-work.

transporters can bring in ferti-lisers to boost agricultural out-put. In reality, if you can’t move people or crops you sure can’t move income and the economy stagnates.

In both Taiwan and Malaysia when Farmers’ Organisations set collective uniform pricing

communities, the countryside economy grew organically by it-self without national economic growth policies. Simply put, more money in farmer’s pock-ets meant more people spent more money locally, with posi-

businesses.

Repeating patternsThis pattern will repeat itself

in Myanmar when these simple institutional mechanisms are put in place. It may take time for the smallest of roads to be built or resurfaced by the Un-ion Government but the pattern will repeat as has already been observed across the Irrawaddy Delta in Township Develop-ment.

As a success story from the Delta where villages receiving more money for their rice after starting their local rice entre-preneurs association created their own road building fund and re-paved 10km leading from the main Pathein Highway road, themselves. This in turn created a faster economic deliv-ery device to enter their villages

with the result being a pocket of economic prosperity based on self-funded road access, which came from collective uniform pricing to buyers and rice mill-ers.

A short cut to development is using business models that have worked over and over again during the past years of poverty alleviation case studies. There is no need to re-invent the wheel.

Another example of institu-tional infrastructure would be training centres focused on ef-fective education programs for fertilizer and pesticide us-age. Regulatory approval for imported agriculture products into Myanmar should be prop-erly labelled for usage in the lo-cal language. Companies that follow these procedures should be granted fast track approval for products such as hybrid seed strains, fertilisers and

training on seed selection and seed storage for higher yield the following year should be given priority approval.

Even with a severe shortage of skilled labour, Myanmar’s farmers know how to work their indigenous land and with a few pointers they could turn the ta-bles from poverty to prosperity.

When building Special Eco-nomic Zones (SEZ’s) serious consideration should be given

the containers will come from and how and how the localised infrastructure be aligned to ex-pedite this movement within Myanmar.

We have presented you with some thoughts on the problems and the solutions facing Myan-mar’s rural development. With the current governments dy-namic policies directed towards alleviation of rural poverty, enhancing rural productivity and boosting agrarian families’ income, the time is opportune for us to move in a direction to meet these challenges with re-alistic and practical approaches suggested in this paper.

Hishamuddin Koh has 25

years of experience in agricul-ture and rural development and is Executive Chairman of Hisham Koh and Associates and the Myanmar Planta-tion Management & Advisory Co (MPMAC) along with My-anmar Food Technology. He can be reached at [email protected].

David DuByne is Myanmar Operations Director at One

-ing on Myanmar’s agricultural export sector and acts as Chief Editor for Oilseedcrops.org. He can be reached at [email protected].

“ Farmers’ organisations are very important institutional instruments that will drive

rural development and cre-ate productivity along with income

contribution in both rural and na-tional development.”

Sherpa H

ossainy

and lower exporting costs would trigger changes at farm level, helping to raise agricultural productivity and change farm practic-es, including the choice of rice varieties, required to match the evolving de-mands of importers.

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Soe Z

eya Tun/Reuters



Myanmar Summary

American power so-lutions provider APR Energy an-

nounced that the com-pany’s power generation plant in Myanmar is now fully operational.

In February, APR clinched a contract to build a “fast-track” 100-megawatt power plant in upper Myanmar,

-can company to sign a power generation agree-ment with the govern-ment since the lifting of sanctions in 2013.

Based in Kyaukse, Man-dalay region, the plant provides the Myanmar Electric Power Enterprise (MEPE) with a guaran-teed minimum of 82MW of power and will enable the provision of electricity and power to more than six million people, APR Energy said in a state-ment.

The contract, which is on a rental basis, is ex-pected to run through to late 2015.

Clive Turton, manag-

at APR Energy, said: “The commissioning of our thermal power generation plant, one of the largest in the country, is an im-

establishing adequate re-liable power generation capacity in Myanmar.

“We look forward to playing a continued role to help Myanmar supply

-ably to its people and in-dustries.”

Turton said Myanmar is a fast growing econo-my and the country, like many others in the region, needs reliable power in

potential.The project represents

another substantial in-vestment by a US com-pany in the infrastructure

said it will “contribute to the economic and social progress of Myanmar by employing local people and supporting commu-nity development pro-grams.”

Fuelled by natural gas from the Shwe Gas Pro-ject, the plant features 68 of the newest generation CAT low-emission mo-bile gas power modules

Wai Linn Kyaw

“one of the cleanest power generation solutions” in Myanmar, APR said.

Penny Pritzker, US Sec-retary of Commerce, who was on a visit to Myanmar recently, said APR pro-viding power solutions in Myanmar is “critical,” particularly as 75 percent of the country’s popula-tion lacks access to elec-tricity.

“The engagement of US businesses in Myanmar will help promote inclu-

all of the country’s peo-ple,” she said.

Turton, in an earlier in-terview with Myanmar Business Today, said the

ministry to provide solu-tions for “further power needs” and have “more po-tential projects.”

“We are very keen to develop our businesses in the market and we will be looking forward to mak-ing a lot of investments in this country in this par-ticular sector.”

Wai Linn K

yaw

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on American sanctions list. What’s more scary is that Piers recently told me that they were pitching to jointly represent The Lady (Daw Aung San Suu Kyi) as well as one of the other

a very likely presidential candidate. Given the bru-tal way they do business, I fear for this country if these leaders have com-panies that work like Bell Pottinger whispering in their ears.

-

I was warned over and over again to not trust business people in Viet-nam and yet here I am. Let’s start at the begin-ning. A year ago when I was launching MySQUAR a friend in Vietnam in-troduced me to Eric Schaer, the CEO of Ris-ing Dragon, an advisory group who was helping companies set up in My-anmar. Given how much this market was changing every day, it made sense for us to enlist the servic-es of Rising Dragon. The basic terms were that we would give Rising Dragon

of equity in return for them getting us free of-

HCMC as well as handling out legal incorporation in Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam. The other piece here is that I would retain proxy voting rights for the shares. About a month later, we also started pay-ing Rising Dragon a hefty

consulting fee, about 10 percent of our burn rate to be our acting CFO. In the ensuing eight months he has been “helping” us to raise money has been a travesty and now he’s even stolen the company.

spaces and while I have proof that he was “work-ing on” the proxy voting docs, that never hap-pened either. As the CEO, this is of course my fault to stupidly trust him and I have learned some major lessons on keeping your house in order.

Eric has leveraged all the relationships he got through his involvement with MySQUAR to create his own crony network and many of the MyS-QUAR shareholders are now also shareholders in Rising Dragon subsidiar-ies, not to mention that Eric is also a shareholder in many of their compa-nies. Since there’s been complete radio silence from all the sharehold-ers since this happened, I’m not sure who’s sleep-ing with whom and how deep it goes but the share-holder list is publicly ac-cessible in ACRA should

anyone be interested. Any entrepreneurs who are fundraising in Asia, I highly recommend you research your possible in-vestors and talk to other entrepreneurs who have worked with them.

As I mentioned previ-ously, conveniently, many of my friends and family who would most certainly have not voted against me are not in ACRA. I’m not sure why but there is most certainly a case here for deeper investigation especially given the paper trails I keep.

So where does that leave me?

I am on the hunt for my third lawyer now. I can

for the compensation owed me or I can spend my time building some-thing new. With all the lessons and contacts I’ve already made, it will take me far less than a year to get to where MySQUAR is today. As an entrepreneur you learn very quickly to move on from “sunk costs” and to not let it col-our your decisions. From that angle, I’ve lost a year and some money, both of which I can deal with. My

pride was also bruised and

surrounded by amazing people who have reached out in an overwhelming show of support. And of course there is also the reputation thing. Let me reiterate this: there was absolutely no reason giv-en and frankly, no reason that they could have given for this move other than greed and a full on land grab.

I don’t know exactly what’s next but rest as-sured you haven’t seen the last of me. I wasn’t named on Forbes’ Wom-en to Watch in Asia list for nothing. Thankfully I was raised in a society where you celebrate and embrace failure because this whole thing was full

getting to a place where I can accept that and move forward. I hope that by sharing this story, I can help some others out there who may be facing similar issues. If nothing

else, let this be a warning tale of trust.

So my journey with MySQUAR largely comes to an end but my entre-preneurial journey is still in the beginning. For those of you who have reached out – thank you. I could not have made it through the past month without your love and support. For those of you learning about this for the

shock but this is just the

so many more good things to come out of Myanmar.

Rita Nguyen is the founder of MySQUARE,

published this post in her blog and it has been re-published here with her permission. The opinions and views expressed here are the author’s own and

Myanmar Business To-day’s editorial opinion.

“Given the brutal way they do business, I fear for

this country if these lead-ers have companies that

work like Bell-Pottinger whis-pering in their ears.”

Techcrunch

Panel Deals Blow to Suu Kyi’s Chances of Becoming President

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s hopes of be-coming Myanmar’s

president next year have been dealt a blow when a parliamen-tary committee voted not to change a constitutional clause that bars her from the post, two of the panel members said.

The committee tasked with recommending amendments opted to retain the section that prevents anyone married to a foreigner or with children of foreign citizenship from becom-ing head of state.

The two sources declined to

why the proposal was rejected by 26 of the 31 panellists.

Most experts believe the

Aung Hla Tun clause, 59 (f), was written into the military-drafted 2008 con-

Suu Kyi, who became a global -

tary rule, most of it from house arrest.

Her late husband was British, as are her two sons.

-tee members voted in favour of amending the section at the closed door meeting of the com-mittee,” said a member who re-quested anonymity because the

to be secret.Suu Kyi and her National

League for Democracy (NLD) party have been pushing for constitutional change ahead of next year’s election, mainly to reduce the political clout of the

military, which ruled Myanmar for 49 years until a nominally ci-vilian government led by retired

The committee picked to as-sess amendments has only two NLD members on it and is comprised mainly of lawmak-ers from the ruling Union Soli-darity and Development Party (USDP), which was created from a social movement of a similar name set up by the for-mer junta.

The USDP has 14 people on the panel and seven members

-pointed as lawmakers as part of a 25 percent legislative quota allocated to the armed forces, a

persecution by the former re-gime, wants to change.

Myanmar lawmakers are as-sessing changes to the constitu-tion ahead of next year’s parlia-mentary election.

A vote in the bicameral legis-lature to change the constitu-tion to allow Suu Kyi to become president is still possible, al-though political analysts say it is extremely unlikely it would be passed because the military and its USDP allies dominate parliament.

Her party, however, said it was not over yet.

“We can’t say Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has no chance of be-coming the president until the union parliament approves it,” said spokesman and senior par-

“We need to wait till the com--

tions at the parliament.”Myanmar’s constitution was

crafted by the former junta as the basis for the country’s grad-ual transition to democracy. The semi-civilian government has surprised the world with reforms that were unthinkable under direct army control and managed to convince Suu Kyi and the NLD to join parliament.

Reuters

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Myanmar Summary



Myanmar Summary

Ball Corp Becomes First US Investor in Thilawa SEZ

Phyo Thu

American packaging and

poration is to set up a one-line beverage can manufac-turing plant in the Thilawa Spe-cial Economic Zone (SEZ).

company to invest in the much-touted Thilawa SEZ, 20 kilome-

tres southeast of Yangon.Last month Ball announced

that it will open a can plant in Myanmar, without specifying the factory location.

A contract agreement was signed between Ball Corp and the Myanmar-Japan Thilawa Development (MJTD) Co Ltd for the establishment of the plant. The signing came on the

heels of US Secretary of Com-merce Penny Pritzker’s Myan-mar visit earlier this month.

The US Embassy in Yangon said in a statement that the plant will employ local work-

contribution” by a US company to Myanmar’s development.

“The United States believes that responsible investment by US companies in this coun-try can support broad-based economic development, help deepen continued political and economic reforms, and high-light the highest standards of corporate social responsibility,” the statement said.

The one-line plant is expected to begin production in mid-2015 with investment in the fac-tory to the tune of $40 million, Ball Corp said.

ity to produce beverage cans for Coca-Cola Pinya Beverages under a long-term agreement, as well as other local, regional and multinational customers, it said.

During an event highlighting

US investment, including Ball’s new plant, Pritzker said the Ball factory opening is “already en-couraging further engagement

tablished in Myanmar. “Coca-Cola is one of these

companies. Coca-Cola re-opened operations here in 2012, began manufacturing lo-cally one year ago, and has al-ready committed to buy more than half of the cans produced at Ball’s new facility,” she said.

“When our [American] busi-nesses make investments, they bring with them the highest standards, including a commit-ment to corporate and social re-sponsibility,” she added.

More than 45 companies from various countries are in the pro-cess of setting up manufactur-ing plants and industries in the SEZ, state-run media reported.

MJTD was formed by two My-anmar companies and two Jap-anese companies, with stakes split 51 percent for Myanmar and 49 percent for Japan.

The two Myanmar compa-nies are Thilawa SEZ Manage-ment Committee and Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Co Ltd (MTSH), while the two Japanese companies include MMS Thilawa Development Co Ltd and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The land lease procedure for Phase 1 of the Thilawa Class A Area, which is about 396 hec-tares (978 acres), started last month.

The commercial run of the SEZ is expected in mid-2015.

Japan Gives $75m for Construction, Rural

Zwe Wai

Tassistance worth $75.7 million for the develop-

some areas of Myanmar.Three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were

signed between Deputy Minister for National Planning and Economic Development Daw Lei Lei Thein and Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar Tateshi Higuchi in Nay Pyi Taw recently.

billion ($41.3 million) for the construction of the new

cation projects.

Myanmar Summary

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Myanmar Summary

Myanmar Summary

Yusen Logistics Opens

Aye Myat

Japanese freight forwarder and logistics services pro-vider, Yusen Logistics has

Yusen Logistics (Myanmar) Co Ltd sees Yusen Logistics’ pres-ence increase to 40 countries around the world, Yusen said in a statement.

Hiromitsu Kuramoto, presi-dent of Yusen Logistics Co Ltd, said: “With our medium-term business plan ... Yusen Logis-tics will continue to push ahead with our expansion program in the ASEAN region.

“We are continuing to build on our established infrastruc-ture, rolling out networks to mirror clients’ changing sourc-ing patterns.”

Hiromitsu said with the grow-ing importance of logistics in

US to Help Myanmar Improve Highway Safety

Aung Phyo

The United States will help Myanmar improve the safety of the Yan-

gon-Mandalay highway where hundreds of car accident cases

years.The United States Agency

for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Construction signed a letter of agreement recently on this re-gard.

US architecture and engi-neering experts will train and mentor Ministry of Construc-tion engineers and technicians in international highway safety standards as they construct safety enhancements along a ten-kilometre section of road.

This demonstration section, funded in cooperation with the US Government, will serve as a model for ongoing improve-ments implemented by the Ministry of Construction along the full length of the highway,

the US Embassy in Yangon said in a statement.

“As the economy grows, trans-portation infrastructure will have to accommodate more

-bassador Derek Mitchell.

“But this issue is about more than economic development; it is about saving lives. I am pleased the United States will be able to improve a small sec-tion of the Yangon-Mandalay Highway, and work with the Ministry of Construction to help address very real concerns about safety standards.”

The Yangon-Mandalay High-way, which is the main ground route from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw and runs through the cen-tre of the country, stretches 386 miles between Yangon, the country’s commercial cen-tre, and Mandalay, a city of ap-proximately one million people. Three thousand vehicles drive the highway every day.

Increased speed and a lack of standard highway safety meas-

ures have resulted in a dispro-portionately high number of vehicular fatalities on this road.

to 2014, over 700 highway acci-dents have claimed the lives of over 360 victims.

Myanmar, Yusen Logistics’ pro-vision of valuable logistics ser-vices will contribute to the de-velopment of the country.

Yusen Logistics

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mmbiztoday.com

mmbiztoday.com June 19-25, 2014| Vol 2, Issue 24MYANMAR’S FIRST BILINGUAL BUSINESS JOURNAL

Myanmar Summary

Inside MBT

Myanmar Can Double Rice Exports Through Policy Reforms: WB

Report advises Myanmar to rethink its rice export strategy

Myanmar has the potential to more than

double its rice exports by implementing policy re-forms, a new World Bank report said.

In a bid to increase rice exports, Myanmar has to diversify and increase its rice production, open its rice milling sector to di-rect foreign investments and reduce export pro-cedure costs, thereby al-leviating rural poverty, said the report, Myan-mar: Capitalizing on Rice Export Opportunities, by the World Bank and the Livelihoods and Food Se-curity Trust Fund (LIFT) of Myanmar.

“Reforms are required as a policy environment conducive to supporting this refocus of the rice export sector is essential if anything is to change,” said Andrew Kirkwood, LIFT’s fund director.

Kirkwood said much of the policy change can be introduced without cost

May Soe San

“Consistent economic policies without anti-ex-port bias, alongside the

to improve farmer access

rates of return for Myan-mar rice exports, for its farmers and for the rural poor.”

Improving agricultural productivity and promot-ing rice exports have been among the top priorities for the current govern-ment. Despite its plan

to export four million tonnes of rice by 2020, the actual annual rice ex-port has reached only 1.3 million tonnes over the past years.

The current rice ex-port strategy favours the production of low qual-ity rice, which is largely sold to Africa and China, the report said, adding that farmers have earned

businesses have skipped necessary investments. It warned that the situation

is worsening as the global demand for low quality broken rice is shrinking.

“This is now a govern-ment call to capitalise on rice export opportuni-

incomes to smallholder farmers,” said Kanthan Shankar, the World Bank’s country manager for Myanmar.

“Rice production is a source of livelihoods for about 70 percent of the population. Higher and

port improves farm in-comes and food security of the rural poor, he said.

Shankar added that in-creasing rice exports will spur momentum for in-clusive growth and pover-ty reduction in Myanmar for the next decade.

The report said there are good market pros-pects for Myanmar to ac-commodate more diver-

Myanmar over the next 10-15 years, particularly in the European Union and Asian countries, earn higher incomes, and di-

ent markets. The obstacles in hitting

these marks are low pro-ductivity and poor rice quality at the farm level, undercapitalised and in-

costly export infrastruc-ture and procedures, the report noted.

Opening the rice mills to direct foreign invest-ments is, according to the report, a vital step to take to increase quality and volumes of rice export. Improving infrastructure and reducing export pro-cedure costs would also boost Myanmar’s export competitiveness, it added.

The World Bank report

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Contd. P 12...

Contd. P 12...

When Investors Turn into Bullies P-7

US Commerce Secretary Touts “Closer Ties” with Myanmar P-10

Myanmar’s Institutional Infra-structure Constraints and How to Fill the Gaps P-11

Myanmar Business Today - Vol 2, Issue 24

Documents

Transcript of Myanmar Business Today - Vol 2, Issue 24