Executive summary: "This paper sets out policy recommendations for accelerating the development of the Myanmar economy by expanding international trade and foreign investment, and through greater integration into the regional and world economies. Openness will move the Myanmar economy towards its comparative advantages and facilitate the inflow of technology and ideas, lifting production, domestic consumption and community welfare. Myanmar?s trade performance has considerable ?catch-up? potential. Analysis shows that, with greater openness, the country could double its exports and imports. Moreover, if Myanmar is able to match or exceed the rates of productivity growth experienced by East Asia?s most successful industrialisers during their periods of domestic reform and economic liberalisation, more than doubling its per capita income within a decade is a realistic prospect. A well-functioning private sector is the fundamental engine of such growth. Myanmar should lay the foundation for private sector-led economic development by enhancing macroeconomic stability, deepening financial markets, creating an enabling regulatory environment, improving the education, skills and health of its workforce and overall population and improving access to markets, electricity, infrastructure, credit and technology. The government?s ability to provide economic stability and public investment to meet the development priorities that are critical to private sector growth is limited by low revenues, weak policy review capacity, underdeveloped public financial management and a centralised governance structure. This paper provides strategies to overcome these problems through improved institutional capacity for policy review, government decision-making and macroeconomic management and increased fiscal and administrative capacity. This will also support the growing political autonomy being conferred on state and regional governments. Greater economic openness will have a fundamental effect on the composition of the Myanmar economy. It offers the prospect of diversifying the economy by reducing dependence on natural resource exports in favour of other activities in the rural, manufacturing and services sectors. Complementing greater openness, domestic reform that encourages improvements in agricultural productivity would raise incomes for the majority of the population in the near term. Facilitating labour-intensive manufacturing and supporting service activities would further raise trade, investment and income-earning opportunities. Attracting foreign investment is critical to transforming Myanmar?s economy and growth outlook. The country?s success in attracting and benefiting from foreign direct investment will ultimately depend on the development of the infrastructure and institutions that are fundamental to the broader reform effort. They should be transparent, be liberalising and reflect a principles-based approach to regulating both domestic and foreign investment. Substantial and strategic investment in infrastructure is needed to support the development of Myanmar?s domestic markets and their integration into the international economy. This will be a challenging task, requiring a nationally coordinated approach to prioritise projects. While such integration will intensify the forces concentrating activity in the central states and regions, development need not be similarly concentrated. Active steps to share the gains from growth will help sustain that growth, underpin peace and raise welfare for all of Myanmar?s people. Myanmar?s transition is supported and embraced by its regional neighbours and increasingly by the global community. Its membership of ASEAN should be the guiding focus in a trade and investment diplomacy that emphasises broad and non-preferential liberalisation and seizes vital opportunities for regional and global engagement to reinforce domestic reform. This paper provides a vision of how Myanmar can more than double the incomes of its people over the next decade. By getting national development strategy right, Myanmar can sustainably raise living standards, improve the welfare of all of its people and re-establish its weight and role in the international community in the decades to come..."