Bangkok Post, 10 March 2000Junta wage grab hits expatriate BurmeseCitizens required to remit 50% of incomeRalph Bachoe Cash-strapped Burma has come
up with its latest scheme to rake in as much foreign currency as possible to
replenish its almost empty coffers.
Burmese citizens working overseas must now remit in foreign exchange 50% of
their annual income under a new regulation issued by the Directorate of Labour.
This is in addition to annual income tax of 10%. Originally, the 50% ruling applied only to sailors working on foreign
vessels. That has now been cut to 30% with another 10% tax of their gross
earnings. In return for the remittance, the Myanmar (Burma) Foreign Trade Bank will
issue the said amount in Foreign Exchange Certificates to the persons
concerned-that is the applicant's family or representative through the former's
account at the bank. The FEC rate fluctuates between 325-330 kyat to the US dollar while the black
market pays two to three kyat more. The official rate is about six kyat to the
dollar. The three new regulations for registration under the Law Related to Overseas
Employment by the directorate comes with many provisions, making it almost
impossible to evade. They affect: A. Those working overseas under their own arrangements who have
returned temporarily on leave; B. Those who will go abroad after securing
employment; and C. Those applying for passports to work abroad. Those who apply under categories A and B "shall sign the bond for the
following provisions in the presence of two guarantors together with parents or
guardians in the presence of an officer from the directorate". They will "undertake to regularly pay 10% of the income every fiscal year to
the Myanmar embassy in the country of employment or in countries where there are
no embassies to the Internal Revenue Department through the Myanmar Foreign
Trade Bank;"Undertake to legally remit in foreign exchange 50% of the
applicant's salary to the applicant's family or representative through the
applicant's account at the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank (the Myanmar Foreign Trade
Bank will issue the said amount in FEC to the persons concerned)". Category C applicants have to produce an original employment letter which has
to be endorsed by the embassy in the country concerned, or by a notary public in
countries where there are no Burmese embassies. Workers cleared by the Overseas Employment Registration Screen Board are
"required to deposit 200 FEC [dollars] to the Non-Refundable Account of the
Directorate of Labour at the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank in the form of a service
fee". The $200, though, according to Burmese expatriates, could be halved by paying
the immigration people $100 to obtain the D, or departure form. Attached to these new regulations are provisions such as producing proof of
leave from the employer and income tax returns during employment, work permit,
education clearance (from the Burmese authorities), proof of resignation for
government personnel. The new stipulations have put many expatriates in a dilemma. Questions have been raised such as: how can I live on half my salary and pay
school fees and what if I don't have immediate relatives in Burma. The most pertinent concerns students with work visas who have come out on
Burmese passports. They pay to secure "appointment letters" from so-called
"overseas employers" to further studies the junta does not allow. Some expatriate employees, who still have a few more years before their
passports expire, are reluctant to go home. At least for the time being. The Nation, 11 March 2000
FROM THE EDGE: Japan, Korea take up Burma
diplomacy
Burma's military junta is desperate to end Western pressure and the blockade
of foreign capital and international aid to the cash-starved country.
Equally frustrated are members of the world community who seem to have
exhausted all measures to persuade or force the regime in Rangoon to cede even
the slightest political compromise.
For over 10 years, Burma has been a testing ground for two different
political approaches. The West, led by the United States and the European Union,
has pursued a tough policy of pressure and isolation. Asia led by Asean, on the
other hand, has adopted a soft approach under the guise of "constructive
engagement".
Both have claimed some minor successes such as the release of pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and two superficial dialogues between
Suu Kyi and the ruling generals, but realistically the two have failed to force
tangible democratic reforms and human-rights improvement.
This failure has generally been the result of insincerity and a lack of
political will to implement the policies of both parties in their true spirit.
Constructive engagement has turned out to be a mere tool for economic
engagement, since political engagement constitutes "an interference in domestic
affairs" - a principle which Asean has so much guarded against. Isolation has
never been truly isolation as the Western countries have turned a blind eye to
their national firms investing in Burma on the pretext that "we are not
encouraging nor discouraging economic activities in Burma".
The double standard of both the West and Asean plus Japan has played into the
hands of Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which has
over the years shrewdly exploited the lack of a unified universal approach to
force political change in Burma.
Meanwhile, international organisations and humanitarian agencies both inside
and outside Burma have grown increasingly listless over the sheer lack of global
interest in the social dimensions of the country.
They see social disasters looming on many fronts. There has been no proper
higher education in Burma since the pro-democracy uprising in 1988. The health
system has collapsed, with a severe shortage of medicine and equipment, not to
mention doctors, nurses and medical staff. Child mortality and malnutrition,
drug addiction, the uncontrollable spread of the HIV virus and other deadly
diseases, internal and external migration (either voluntary or forced) and
trafficking in women and children are all on the increase.
In pursuit of a workable Burmese political formula to break the deadlock,
global political players seem to have overlooked the immediate humanitarian need
to cope with these social emergencies.
In October 1998 a new global initiative was adopted by a group of Asian and
Western countries at a meeting in England. The United Nations promptly conveyed
to Rangoon an offer from the World Bank of US$1 billion in humanitarian and
technical assistance in return for democratic and human-rights improvement.
But it did not take long for the SPDC to shoot down the proposal on the
grounds that the country "is not a monkey awaiting a hand-out banana".
Since then the international community has been at its wit's end how to break
the political deadlock in Burma, said a New York-based senior UN official in a
recent interview. While he remained optimistic that changes would take place, he
admitted that the UN did not have a new initiative to push the junta into a
political dialogue with the NLD.
An option of employing a peace-broker similar to American emissary George
Mitchell, who successfully helped broker the Northern Ireland peace process,
also ran into the difficulty of finding an influential and respectable person to
do the peace brokerage.
In the meantime the overall political, economic and social conditions in the
country have grown worse. According to the World Bank's August 1999 draft report
"Myanmar-Burma: An Economic and Social Assessment", Burma's economic gains of
the past decade have fallen short of meeting the human-development challenge
facing the country.
"Poverty is still widespread, and many social indicators show a dismal
picture," the report stated. "Reform measures, partial and some reversed, have
not been enough to eliminate deep-seated structural distortions and economic
imbalances. Liberalisation efforts have stalled in recent years, with persistent
delays in pursuing fundamental economic reforms and further deterioration of
macroeconomic imbalances."
In recent months there has been growing debate among global aid agencies and
relief thinkers that humanitarian assistance should not be held hostage by
another party, pending a breakthrough in the political conflicts in Burma. The
military junta, the National League for Democracy - which officially won the
1990 general elections but was not allowed to rule - and over a dozen armed
ethnic groups should not block or place any conditions on humanitarian aid to
the Burmese needy.
Last weekend in South Korea the same group of diplomats and government
officials who had met in England in 1998 resumed their talks to assess the
overall situation in Burma, to evaluate their $1-billion approach and to seek a
new formula to break the political stalemate and end human misery there.
As the $1-billion initiative had been rejected on the grounds of being a
haughty Western attempt to use money to buy off the regime, the Seoul meeting
came up with a more Asian flavour.
According to a senior Thai official who attended the Korean gathering, there
was no tough criticism of the Burmese regime as initially feared. Participants,
particularly those from Japan and South Korea, agreed that there was a pressing
need for the international community to help Burma develop its human resources
and reform its economy.
"Every party involved is concerned about the future of Burma and is looking
for a way to help encourage positive development in the country," he said.
Although Japan has not confronted the United States in its tough Burma
policy, the Asian economic giant has been supporting the Burmese junta in
various UN meetings. Although Tokyo has not resumed its Official Development
Assistance (ODA), it has been providing various forms of financial and material
aid under humanitarian and technical programmes to Burma. There has been talk
that Japan, the single largest aid donor to Burma before 1988, will increase its
aid or even resume its ODA to the country.
Although South Korean President Kim Daejung is personally sympathetic to the
Burmese democracy movement, he and his country have not publicly condemned the
military regime for its harsh crack-down on political dissent. Moreover South
Korea has established a large economic presence in Burma over the past decade.
It will not be a surprise if in the coming months Japan and South Korea, with
Asean members backstage, play a more active but quiet diplomatic role to
persuade the SPDC and the NLD to come to some sort of a peace dialogue. The West
was given its chance; now it is the turn of East Asia to perform.
BY Yindee Lertcharoenchok AFP, 10 March 2000 Myanmar has awarded a US$20m concession contract for a 221-room hotel to
Thai-based Allure Group. The company will construct the hotel along the Thai
border, under the build-operate-transfer scheme. The development will be
returned to the government in 30 years. |