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Myanmar attracts meagre
foreign investment
05:34 a.m. Dec 31, 1999 Eastern YANGON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Foreign direct investment approved in military-ruled Myanmar in the seven months to October 31 totalled a meagre $60.4 million, but represented an improvement on a dismal $24.95 million in the same period last year. Data from the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development received by Reuters on Friday showed the investment for this year was in nine projects -- two each from Thailand and Japan and one from Singapore, Britain, Indonesia, Hong Kong and South Korea. The ministry said five of the projects were in manufacturing, two in mining and one each in the hotel and tourism and livestock and fisheries sectors. Myanmar made a major shakeup in its investment commission earlier this month, replacing Vice-Admiral Maung Maung Khin as chairman with Science and Technology Minister U Thaung. But analysts do not expect a major pickup in investment without major policy changes. Yangon's efforts to obtain foreign investment have been hit by Western economic and political sanctions and the Asian economic crisis that broke two years ago. Investment for the whole of last fiscal year to the end of March totalled just $29.46 million, against $777.4 million the previous year. Realisation rates for approved projects have ranged from about 30 percent to more than 50 percent in recent years. In its most recent report on Myanmar, the World Bank said the country needed to improve its rights record, reform its two-tier exchange rate system, lift wide-ranging restrictions on private-sector activity and reform its inefficient state enterprise sector if it wanted to attract more investment. |