i i hide captionAt the center of Yangon, the city's colonial heritage, Buddhist faith and emerging modern face are visible in a single block. Frank Langfitt/NPR At the center of Yangon, the city's colonial heritage, Buddhist faith and emerging modern face are visible in a single block. Frank Langfitt/NPR Decades of socialism and military rule kept Myanmar — or Burma, as it was known — poor and isolated. There was one upside, though. The economy was so lousy, there was no drive to demolish the big British colonial buildings in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, and replace them with the glass and steel towers that now define much of the skylines in East Asia. Today, downtown Yangon looks refreshingly different from practically every other sizable city in Southeast Asia. It's a colonial time capsule with block after block of old buildings featuring columns, domes, balconies, art deco trim, even a clock tower. hide captionTint Lwin teaches English in Yangon's colonial urban core. He worries that the building where he works, which dates to 1906, could fall apart if it isn't repaired in the next few years. Frank Langfitt/NPR Myanmar has opened up its political system, improved its relationship with the West and ushered in a real estate boom in the past several years. That's mostly good news for Yangon, but not for its remarkable architectural heritage, which has come into the cross hairs of developers trying to cash in on rising land prices. "These buildings are priceless," says Tint Lwin, who has taught English in a colonial-era building along the city's Pansodan Street for more than three decades. The building, constructed by a Baghdadi Jewish trader around 1906, has ocher-colored walls and Corinthian columns. Tint Lwin loves the atmosphere of the neighborhood, but worries it won't last. A modern mid-rise is going up across the road. The walls in his building are pitted with black mold, and rain has saturated some ceilings, leaving gaping holes. "I feel very unhappy because of the negligence," says Tint Lwin, who, like most Burmese men, wears a longyi, a traditional wraparound skirt. He says if the building's roof isn't fixed properly, "the rain will leak and destroy the whole structure." The British, who ruled Burma for decades, constructed most of these buildings in their own image. But Tint Lwin doesn't see them as symbols of oppression; he sees them as part of Myanmar's heritage. "You can't be xenophobic," he says, echoing the pragmatism of many here. "These are our assets. This British architecture is a unique one. Almost all in Myanmar like these buildings." hide captionYangon's Queen Anne-style High Court was partly abandoned when the government of Myanmar moved the capital to Naypyidaw in 2005. Frank Langfitt/NPR That includes Maung Nyan, a 19-year-old punk rocker, who lives on the building's fourth floor. He's sitting on the floor of his apartment, wearing a black My Chemical Romance T-shirt and playing the Ramones' "I Want to Be Sedated" on an electric guitar. Maung Nyan is rebellious by Burmese standards, but when it comes to construction, he's a traditionalist. "Because of the valuable architecture, I prefer this kind of old building to new buildings," says Maung Nyan, whose apartment is really a cagelike, cavernous stall with a wire-mesh door. "I'm also proud to live here. If it's possible, I'd like to stay here until I die." hide captionOtherwise rebellious, punk rocker Maung Nyan really appreciates the colonial building where he lives and doesn't want to leave. Frank Langfitt/NPR Yangon is a rarity in a part of the world where breakneck growth has transformed skylines within a generation. Earlier economic booms led to the destruction of most colonial-era buildings in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore in favor of modern office and apartment towers. In Hong Kong, for instance, a forest of glass and steel has risen around the old domed Legislative Council building, such that the one-time colonial icon is now hard to spot. "Yangon has captured a sense of time that has been lost in Singapore and Hong Kong," says Ian Morley, an assistant professor in the history department at Chinese University of Hong Kong. "You have this downtown environment, which is relatively intact. It's got a sense of historical integrity as it was built from the late 1800s and early 1900s." But there is no guarantee it will last. In recent years, soaring real estate prices have also driven the destruction of scores of old buildings in Yangon. That's why historian and best-selling author Thant Myint-U founded the Yangon Heritage Trust in 2012 with other preservationists. "The reason I got involved in this issue is because I saw some of these buildings were being knocked down for really no reason," says Thant Myint-U. "A developer, who could easily have built something a few blocks down, decided to knock down an old building because there was no sense of the value of these buildings." The Yangon Trust is working with the government to develop a zoning plan — the city didn't have one — and designate more buildings for protection. But preservation costs a lot of money. So, Thant Myint-U says, the city needs to tap private investment and turn old buildings into moneymakers such as hotels, museums and restaurants. hide captionYangon's colonial heart has a vibrant street life – unlike some of the tourist districts in other East Asian countries. Frank Langfitt/NPR That's what the owners of Gekko are doing. The Japanese restaurant opened in March in the same building where Maung Nyan, the punk rocker, lives. After decades of neglect, the restaurant's renovation required a lot of work. When, for the first time, co-owner Nico Elliott opened the back door onto an interior courtyard, the scene was disgusting. "We were up to about there, a meter and a half high, in sewage," says Elliott, pointing to a spot partway up a wall. There was also, he says, "a large colony of rats running around." hide captionNico Elliott opened Gekko, a Japanese restaurant, in this renovated space in a century-old building. The renovation cost more than $300,000, but Elliott says investors can turn a profit if they're willing to spend upfront. Frank Langfitt/NPR Elliott and his partners sunk more than $300,000 into the place. He says the government approval was time-consuming and focused on fees. "They weren't really interested in what we were doing," says Elliott, 34, who is from the United Kingdom. "It seemed they were more interested in how much cash was coming their way." The result, though, resembles an upper-end restaurant you'd find in London or New York, with exposed brick and preserved colonial touches, such as the century-old exposed I-beams from Scotland. Both labor costs and rent in these dilapidated buildings are low. So, Elliott says, a well-run business can make a profit margin of more than 30 percent, which would be considered terrific anywhere. "I hope these kinds of projects are the beginning of more people coming in and realizing that spending a little bit more than you'd spend on a new build is worthwhile to actually preserve something and sustain this place and these buildings," he says. Yangon city officials insist they support preservation, but say working with public opinion is tricky. Some people in Yangon have opposed renovation projects on historical grounds, including hundreds of lawyers who staged a protest in 2012 to oppose turning an abandoned courthouse into a luxury hotel. Others instinctively distrust any deal between the government and private business because of a long history of corruption and cronyism. And some residents actually want their buildings knocked down so they can get new, modern apartments. hide captionSome government buildings are falling apart inside. Frank Langfitt/NPR "We have to take time to change their minds on this, and we have to take time to preserve," says Toe Aung, who runs the city's new urban planning division. "But we can't take much time, because these [buildings] will be ruined in a short period." Thant Myint-U of the Yangon Heritage Trust says the city has to enact zoning and conservation laws this year to protect buildings — even in the face of developer opposition. "The next few months, the next year, is going to be absolutely critical, not just to what Yangon is going to look like over the next several years," he says, "but to what Yangon is going to look like over the rest of the 21st century."
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Thilawa Residents Formally Complain to Tokyo
RANGOON — Three residents from the Thilawa Special Economic Zone near Rangoon have filed a formal complaint to Tokyo about the negative effects of Japanese investment in the area. It is the first formal complaint filed under the objection procedures of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since the restructuring of Japan’s international aid body in 2008, according to NGOs Thilawa Social Development Group and Mekong Watch. An objection letter has been received by JICA examiner Dr. Sachihiko Harashina in person, the NGOs said in a statement on Monday. “The objection outlines damages that the villagers from the 400 ha. area of Phase 1 of the project have incurred in their relocation from their homes and land,” the NGOs said in the statement. These damages included “loss of farmland and access to farmland, loss of livelihood opportunities, impoverishment, loss of educational opportunities for the villagers’ children, substandard housing and basic infrastructure in the Myaing Tha Yar resettlement site and loss of access to clean water.” The statement warned that residents from another 2,000 hectare area that will be used in a later phase of the project would likely face similar problems. “The government and authorities are not listening to us villagers,” said Mya Hlaing, one of the three residents who filed the complaint, according to the statement. “We have tried to tell JICA how things really are in Thilawa by repeatedly submitting letters to JICA requesting appropriate resettlement and compensation measures, as required by their guidelines and international standards. JICA has not listened to our voices.” Minari Tsuchikawa, from Mekong Watch, a Japanese NGO that monitors Japan-related projects in Mekong Region, was quoted as saying, “Even while the examiners carry out their investigation, the Japanese government and JICA must take steps to ensure that there is no further deterioration in the standard of living of the affected people, and urgent measures are needed to understand and address the villagers’ living conditions and concerns.” She added, “How JICA handles this case will be a litmus test for other projects in [Burma].” JICA has a 10 percent stake in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone, while three Japanese companies hold 39 percent stake. The Burmese government and a joint venture of nine Burmese companies have invested the remaining 10 percent and 41 percent, respectively.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Putin’s Singapore Dream Costs Crimea Banks and Burgers
“Putin brought us back home without firing a shot,” Pivnenko said. “He’s like family now.” http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-22/putin-s-singapore-dream-costs-crimeans-their-banks-and-burgers Bloomberg News Putin’s Singapore Dream Costs Crimea Banks and Burgers By Evgenia Pismennaya May 22, 2014 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Men stand at the entrance of a closed McDonald's restaurant in Sevastopol on April 5, 2014. Photographer: Vasiliy Batanov/AFP via Getty Images President Vladimir Putin is trying to transform Crimea into the Singapore of the Black Sea. That effort so far has cost Russia’s newest republic its entire banking system and all three of its McDonald’s. After Putin annexed Crimea in March, the government in Kiev banned all lenders operating under Ukrainian law from the region. Now almost every bank on the peninsula, from billionaire Igor Kolomoisky’s Privatbank, Ukraine’s largest, to Italy’s UniCredit SpA (UCG) has been shuttered. Unlike UniCredit, which is refunding deposits, Privatbank simply pocketed the cash, leaving its clients to seek compensation from Russia. “Thank God they decided to return my money,” said Alla Anisomova, a retiree in her 60s who gets by on less than $300 a month. Anisomova is among the thousands of people who have flocked to the former Privatbank branch on Lenin Street in Kerch, a city on the eastern edge of Crimea, to apply for redress from Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency. The agency, which now controls the building, has pledged to return deposits of as much as 700,000 rubles ($20,000). Related: Ukraine Forces Suffer Worst Losses of Crisis Amid UnrestDeath Threats Haunt Eastern Ukraine as Gunmen Target Vote For Anisomova and Crimea’s other 600,000 or so pensioners, the headaches of navigating the new bureaucracy have an upside. Putin has increased their monthly stipends 50 percent and by July will raise them to double what Ukraine paid. Those payments are made through local post offices, in cash. Albania, Barbados The pension increases, deposit compensations and pay raises for 140,000 public workers are part of the $48 billion Russia may spend by the end of the decade to transform Crimea into a commercial hub similar to Singapore, according to Oleg Savelyev, head of the new Crimea Affairs Ministry. That’s about 10 times the annual output of the region of 2 million people. “I blew the dust off the book, ‘Singapore: From Third World to First’ by Lee Kuan Yew to have another read when I became minister,” Savelyev said in an interview in his office in the Economy Ministry in Moscow, where he was deputy minister before his promotion. “We will pursue Singapore’s model in Crimea, we’ll ensure a comfortable business environment there.” Lee, who ruled Singapore from 1959 to 1990, turned the former impoverished British colony into one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The World Bank ranks Singapore No. 1 on its annual ease of doing business survey. Russia is 92nd, just behind Albania and Barbados. New Russia “Regulatory principles in Crimea will be much better, simpler than in the rest of Russia,” said Savelyev, 48, who was added to the European Union’s sanctions list last month. “The region will not have the stifling bureaucratic system that Russia is notorious for. Our task is not to replicate the Russian model, but to create a much better one.” It’s not just banks that Russia has in mind for Crimea, there’s also gambling, tourism and wine. The peninsula will be designated a special economic zone, unique among the 84 regions of the world’s largest country. The casinos will probably be located in Yalta, acting Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov said. “Casinos won’t be scattered around Crimea,” Aksyonov said in an interview in Simferopol, the regional capital. “The zone will be confined to an area of 50 to 100 hectares.” Yalta, a resort city where Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov did some of their writing and czars Alexander III and Nicholas II built palaces, became the main holiday destination for Soviet workers under communism. Now the real estate along Yalta’s picturesque embankment is the most expensive in Crimea. Roosevelt, Churchill The main attraction is the Livadia Palace, where wax statues of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill commemorate their meeting in 1945 to discuss the reorganization of Europe after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. “Crimea’s economic potential is incredible,” Aksyonov said. “We’ll only need Russian aid during the transitional period. We’ll return the funds with interest.” Vladimir Gubanov, who runs a division of Massandra, the winemaker founded by Nicholas II before Russia’s last czar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks, said he couldn’t agree more. Orders for Massandra’s wines from Russian retailers have doubled and even tripled since annexation, Gubanov said. “Taxes in Russia are lower than in Ukraine and the number of potential investors is many times higher,” Gubanov said. Lawmakers in Moscow are working on a draft bill that will offer tax and other incentives to stimulate exports, according to Savelyev, the minister for Crimea. Businesses there will operate under English commercial law rather than Russian legislation to attract foreign investment, he said. ‘Boldest Dreams’ “We will try to put our boldest dreams into practice,” Savelyev said. Those dreams sound promising, but they aren’t helping business owners now, said Natlia Kochurina, who owns a 10-room hotel in Kerch, where ancient Greeks established a colony about 2,600 years ago. Tourism is one of the mainstays of the economy of Crimea, which National Geographic magazine named one of the world’s top travel destinations last year, calling it “a diamond suspended from the south coast of Ukraine.” Colonized by ancient Romans as well as Greeks, Crimea was part of the Ottoman Empire until Catherine the Great’s lover Grigory Potemkin engineered Russia’s peaceful acquisition of the peninsula in 1783, writing “Russia needs its paradise.” Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, a move Putin called a mistake that needed to be rectified. Presidential Election The peninsula attracted 6 million visitors last year, about 70 percent of whom were Ukrainian and 25 percent Russian. Kochurina said those numbers have plummeted since annexation as the government in Kiev urges people to boycott the region and skirmishes continue between federal forces and seperatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Elections to replace Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia amid bloody protests in February, are slated to be held May 25 in Ukraine. Add to that the fact that all transactions are cash only because credit and debit cards no longer work and Kochurina said she’s starting to wonder how long she can stay in business. “Our future looks very vague,” Kochurina said. Another economic pillar, shipping, is also foundering, according to Leonid Orlov, deputy head of Krym, one of Crimea’s five main ports. The wharves are empty and the loading cranes are idle, Orlov said in an interview in Kerch, which is separated from Russia’s southern Krasnodar region by the Kerch Strait. ‘Political Blockade’ “An economic and political blockade is in place,” said Valery Belyakov, the deputy head of the Temryuk port on the Russian side of the watery divide. “Crimea’s main ports are in a state of legal limbo.” The local government plans to close two ports, in Fedosia and Yevpatoria, as part of a massive overhaul of the peninsula’s infrastructure, Crimea’s Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliev said on his Facebook page. Authorities plan to construct a new terminal at Crimea’s only international airport, in Simferopol, and build ring roads around Simferopol and Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. They also plan to connect Sevastopol and Kerch, on opposite sides of the peninsula, by rail. The most ambitious project is the 5-kilometer bridge that Russia plans to erect across the Kerch Strait, a project that may cost as much as $5.8 billion, according to the Regional Development Ministry in Moscow. Build, Putin! The government plans to start accepting bids for the bridge, which will have a four-lane highway and two railway tracks, later this year, according to Sergei Kelbakh, chairman of Russian Highways, the state-run company overseeing the project. Companies from China, Turkey and South Korea have already expressed interest, Kelbakh said in an interview, declining to be more specific. Currently there are just two ways to reach Crimea directly from Russia, either on a two-hour flight from Moscow or a 30-minute ferry ride across the strait. “Build the bridge, Putin!” a passenger on the Nikolai Aksenenko ferry wrote in the ship’s comment log, identifying himself as Ustinov from Moscow and Sochi. “The ferry’s slow!” Aksyonov, the acting premier, acknowledged that any hope Putin has of replicating the commercial success of Singapore hinges on his ability to root out corruption. The practice is deeply entrenched in both Russia and Ukraine, which are ranked by Transparency International as the most corrupt major economy and the most corrupt country in Europe, respectively. ‘Like Family’ “I summoned the ministers and warned them against taking bribes,” Aksyonov said. “Those caught taking or giving bribes will be sent to work in Magadan,” Aksyonov said, referring to the region of northeast Russia that became a forced-labor hub during the Stalin era. Aksyonov said Crimeans are prepared for the “temporary economic difficulties ” that come with reuniting with Russia after six decades apart. That position was seconded by Yury Pivnenko, a retired fireman who supplements his pension by driving a taxi in Alushta, about 50 kilometers south of Simferopol. “Putin brought us back home without firing a shot,” Pivnenko said. “He’s like family now.” To contact the reporter on this story: Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at epismennaya@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Hellmuth Tromm at htromm@bloomberg.net Brad Cook
Friday, May 23, 2014
Connectivity is a challenge to ASEAN integration – Singaporean minister
By DANESSA O. RIVERA, GMA NewsMay 22, 2014 6:40pm 22 23 0 69 Connectivity is key to equitable development under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) starting 2015, a Singaporean official told business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Makati City on Thursday. The region should not just focus on forming an single-market because it is only one pillar of the AEC, Josephine Teo, Senior Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Transport in Singapore, said during the discussions on "Connect on Trade: Lifting Barriers to Growth." To have equitable development across the region and to be competitive globally, "you need connectivity," which remains a challenge, she said. "We need connectivity to make sure there is free flow of goods and services, equitable development, and increased competitiveness," she said. By 2015, the AEC sets in motion the creation of single market for the 10-nation bloc which include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Air, cyrber, land connectivity ASEAN connectivity has three key areas: air, cyber space, and land and rail. Air travel is expected to grow significantly in the region due to a growing middle class, Teo said. "The demand for air travel in our part of the world will grow tremendously, because the growing middle class will exceed North America and Europe combined," she noted. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects air passengers to grow by 800 million this year, of which half would originate from the ASEAN region. The ASEAN open skies policy can be patterned after the European single aviation market, Teo said, noting the region can expect a multi-fold increase in number of flights, including direct city links, as well as reduced cost in air transport for passengers and freight. A challenge to regional connectivity is the capacity of airports. "There's a lot of need and opportunity to invest in airport capacity," Teo said. To unleash the full growth capacity of the region, the AEC should also sign air transport agreements with other big economies. Teo said the region currently has an air transport agreement with China and in the works are Japan, Korea and India. – VS, GMA News
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Sunday, November 28, 2010
An Industrial Project That Could Change Myanmar
An Industrial Project That Could Change Myanmar
Friday, November 26, 2010
By THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, The New York Times
DAWEI, MYANMAR -- The vast, pristine stretch of coastline here is almost deserted, save for fishermen hauling their bountiful catches onto white-sand beaches. But a deal signed this month would transform these placid waters into a seaport for massive cargo ships. Cashew nut groves and rice fields would be plowed under and replaced with a warren of factories, refineries and a massive coal-burning power plant.
Myanmar, which is run by a repressive military regime that controls both economic and political life, recently captured the world's attention with its first elections in two decades and the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's leading dissident, from house arrest.
But the Dawei Development Project, as it is known, could have as much of an impact on Myanmar's future as the decades-old political chess games between the military and its opponents -- and perhaps more.
The deal, signed Nov. 2, calls for what would be by far the largest industrial area in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma. In an impoverished, relatively cloistered country where malnourishment is widespread, the factories and refineries could provide jobs on an unprecedented scale, not unlike the special economic zones that China and Vietnam set up in recent decades.
"We need tons of workers," said Premchai Karnasuta, the president of Italian-Thai Development, a conglomerate based in Bangkok that was awarded the contract after years of negotiations and surveys of the area. "We will mobilize millions of Burmese."
A work force on that scale seems years away; engineers at the company speak of hiring tens of thousands of people over the first five years of construction. But analysts see the project as a landmark development for the region in many other ways.
Foreign companies building plants here would be freed from the restraints of increasingly strict antipollution laws elsewhere in the region. For Thailand, the project would be a cheap and convenient way to export its dirty refineries across the border.
"Some industries are not suitable to be located in Thailand," Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai prime minister, said in explaining the project to viewers of his weekly television address recently. "This is why they decided to set up there," he said, referring to Dawei.
The project is also crucial for geo-strategic reasons: Construction of a deep-sea port would create a shortcut between Europe and Indochina. Companies in Thailand and the fast-growing economies of Vietnam and Cambodia could save fuel and time by bypassing the long journey through the Strait of Malacca, a detour of several thousand kilometers.
The project has backing at the highest levels of both the Thai and Myanmar governments, including Myanmar's dictator, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who appears to be treating it as an experiment in opening the largely state-controlled economy.
"Than Shwe said he wanted this project to be like the Shenzhen economic zone," Mr. Premchai said at a news conference this month, referring to the city where southern China's industrial transformation began three decades ago.
Virgin territory
Italian-Thai has been awarded a huge chunk of territory for the project -- 250 square kilometers, or about 97 square miles, more than four times the size of Manhattan. There are also plans to develop hotels and resorts further down Myanmar's wild and sparsely populated southern coast, which extends 500 kilometers, or about 300 miles, south.
The coastline here is a rare blank slate in an otherwise crowded part of the world. In addition to the power plant, the company is planning a steel mill, an oil refinery, a petrochemical complex, a shipbuilding yard, a fertilizer factory and many other facilities.
Workers have already broken ground -- construction on the road to Thailand is under way -- but there remains the possibility that the project will founder. Ethnic rebels inhabit the hills around the site, though they have been relatively quiet in recent years.
Sean Turnell, an expert on the Burmese economy at Macquarie University in Sydney, said he was optimistic about the project's prospects, provided that Italian-Thai can follow through with financing and that the Myanmar government does not interfere.
"Will the government really leave this alone? In the past they haven't been able to resist the temptation," Mr. Turnell said.
Italian-Thai -- which gets its name from a partnership formed five decades ago between an Italian engineer and a Thai medical doctor -- has been given exemptions from import duties and a 75-year concession to build and operate the heavy-industrial part of the project, as well as a 40-year concession for light industry, like garment factories. After that, according to the deal, the concession can be extended, or control can revert to the Myanmar government.
The company estimates that infrastructure for the project will cost $8 billion; it says it has secured the financing, from a private bank that it would not name. Other companies, including the Thai petrochemical giant PTT, have expressed interest but have been ultimately noncommittal.
One of the largest Thai banks, Kasikorn, said it would not offer financing for projects in Myanmar because of "political risk."
Anan Amarapala, vice president of the marine division of Italian-Thai, said Chinese companies had no such fears. "Japanese, Korean and Chinese companies have been flying in nonstop to meet us," he said in an interview.
The Thai government, for its part, is highly supportive of the project. It has been under consideration since the late 1990s, and all Thai governments, before and after the 2006 military coup, have supported it -- a rare example of unanimity across Thailand's fractured political landscape.
In that sense, the Dawei project highlights the ineffectiveness of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union on Myanmar's junta. Myanmar's neighbors, especially Thailand, China and India, have been rushing to do business with the country.
Mr. Premchai, the president of Italian-Thai, said there was so much interest from other nations that when the military government asked him for a decision, he could not hesitate. "They asked me, 'Are you interested in doing this project?' I thought if we didn't take it, the foreigners would definitely get it. So I said, 'I'll take it,"' Mr. Premchai said.
Chinese businesses are already dominant in many parts of Myanmar. A state-owned Chinese firm has begun construction of a pipeline that will carry gas and oil from another port in Myanmar, near the city of Sittwe, to southern China. The purpose of that project is much the same as Dawei's: bypassing the transportation chokehold of the Strait of Malacca and speeding up oil shipments from the Middle East for China's energy-hungry economy.
A free hand
For Thai companies, the business environment in Myanmar could hardly be more different from that at home -- or more convenient for them. In Thailand, new private development requires environmental impact reports and hearings with local residents, obstacles that have snarled a number of high-profile projects.
In Dawei, the government simply told local residents to leave.
A group of farmers interviewed in their fields said they had not been consulted about the project but were told by a local leader that they would have to move. They were offered land elsewhere, they said, but it was not suitable for grazing cattle or cultivating rice. The idea of working on the project itself did not seem to entice them, and no representatives from Italian-Thai had made any offers yet, they said.
"Maybe there will be opportunities," said one farmer. "But right now, we are in trouble."
Local residents said the residents of 19 villages, each home to about 5,000 people, would be forced to leave. That number could not be confirmed. Italian-Thai said it calculated that 3,800 households would have to move.
"We are still in the process of negotiating with the villagers," said Mr. Anan of Italian-Thai. As in most parts of Myanmar, which underwent a massive nationalization of assets in the 1960s, the land belongs to the state.
"It is totally different from Thailand," Mr. Anan said in an interview. "Thais would argue about compensation and go to court. That's not the case with this project."
For foreign companies, the project also means less environmental oversight. In the case of Thailand, new laws that require more environmental safeguards have slowed the expansion of the industrial complex at Map Ta Phut, the country's largest petrochemical facility.
Local residents at Map Ta Phut have pointed to data indicating higher cancer rates and polluted air and groundwater -- and government studies have backed them up. A group of residents filed a lawsuit that last year led to a court injunction on future development; the injunction was later lifted, after protracted negotiations.
By contrast, Italian-Thai officials said that there were no laws in Myanmar covering environmental protection but that they had conducted their own assessment of the likely impact in Dawei.
"You have to think of Myanmar as Thailand 50 years ago," said Surin Vichian, the project manager in charge of engineering. "There's nothing in the country but wilderness and cheap labor."
The Dawei project would help Thailand meet its energy needs while avoiding the brunt of the pollution from the power's generation. A massive 6,000-megawatt, coal-fired power plant planned for Dawei would transmit power to Thailand.
Thailand already relies heavily on Myanmar for energy; the Dawei project is only a few dozen kilometers south of a pipeline to Thailand built more than a decade ago by the U.S. oil company Chevron and the French oil company Total, and which supplies electricity for greater Bangkok. The sale of gas to Thailand, worth $4 billion last year alone, has been crucial in helping buttress the power of the military leadership in Myanmar.
The Dawei project includes a profit-sharing agreement with the Myanmar government, but executives from Italian-Thai said they could not divulge details.
A PowerPoint presentation prepared by Italian-Thai and obtained by the International Herald Tribune described the site, known as northern Maungmagan, as ideal. The water is deep enough to accommodate ships and oil-carrying supertankers with loads of up to 300,000 tons, it said. A number of islands help form a barrier for the port. The adjacent area is largely flat and has plentiful water supplies, making it suitable for factories and refineries that will manufacture plastics and other petrochemical products.
The city of Dawei does not seem entirely prepared for what is coming. It has four traffic lights, dilapidated British colonial villas and horse-drawn carts that clip-clop along potholed streets. The region's poverty and its decrepit infrastructure have left it isolated from central Myanmar, let alone the rest of the world.
The mountainous jungle along the Thai border to the east is so thick that smugglers bring in motorcycles from Thailand on bamboo poles, because there are no paths on which to ride them. But once the planned highway is completed, it is conceivable that Bangkok will be just a few hours' drive away.
The company said the first phase of construction -- the road to Thailand, a water reservoir, and the coal-fired power plant, among other projects -- would be completed within five years, while finishing the whole project would take a decade.
The Thais are drawing on their experience in building Map Ta Phut, the massive petrochemical complex linked to pollution and higher cancer rates. Somchet Thinaphong, who helped devise the master plan for Map Ta Phut, is the managing director of Dawei Development, which is to oversee the project.
"This will be exactly 10 times bigger than Map Ta Phut," Mr. Somchet said.
U.N. official to visit
A senior U.N. official was to visit Myanmar over the weekend to meet the country's military rulers and the recently released democracy activist Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomats said Friday, The Associated Press reported from Yangon.
Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff for the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, was probably coming to "feel the temperature" in the country following the first election in 20 years and the democracy leader's release from house arrest, one diplomat said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
China Setting Milestone as Economy Passes Japan's
China Setting Milestone as Economy Passes Japan's
China milestone: Economy seen overtaking Japan's, highlighting challenges at home and abroad
By JOE McDONALD
The Associated Press
BEIJING
China is set to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy in a resurgence that is changing everything from the global balance of military and financial power to how cars are designed.
By some measures it has already moved to second place after the U.S. in total economic output a milestone that would underline a pre-eminence not seen since the 18th century, when the Middle Kingdom last served as Asia's military, technological and cultural power.
China is already the biggest exporter, auto buyer and steel producer, and its worldwide influence is growing. The fortunes of companies from Detroit automakers to Brazilian iron miners depend on spending by China's consumers and corporations. And rising wealth brings political presence: Chinese pressure helped to win developing countries a bigger voice in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"Japan was the powerhouse driving the rest of Asia," said Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist for Nomura Securities. "Now the tide is turning and China is becoming a powerful influence on the rest of Asia, including Japan."
China's rise has produced glaring contradictions. The wealth gap between an elite who profited most from three decades of reform and its poor majority is so extreme that China has dozens of billionaires while average income for the rest of its 1.3 billion people is among the world's lowest. Beijing has launched two manned space missions and is talking about exporting high-speed trains to California and Europe while families in remote areas live in cave houses cut into hillsides.
Japan's people still are among the world's richest, with a per capita income of $37,800 last year, compared with China's $3,600. So are Americans at $42,240, their economy still by far the biggest. But Japan is trapped in a two-decade-old economic slump, the U.S. is wrestling with a financial crisis, and China's sheer economic size and the lure of its vast consumer market adds to its clout abroad.
Its explosive growth has driven conflicting shifts in Asia and beyond, triggering a scramble for commercial opportunity but fueling unease that the wealth is helping to finance a military buildup to press the communist government's claims in the region.
"I think everyone in the region is trying to benefit from Chinese economic dynamism but at the same time is trying to make sure China does not become a regional hegemon," said Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian newspaper.
Exactly when China passes Japan formally will be unclear until after this year ends. It depends on shifting exchange rates and data reported in different forms by the two governments.
Chinese GDP in 2009 was $4.98 trillion and Japan's was $5.07 trillion. In 2010, Chinese GDP was $1.335 trillion for the April-June quarter a period for which Tokyo has yet to report. China is growing at 10 percent a year, while Japan's expansion this year is forecast at no more than 3 percent.
"On that basis, the crossover probably happened last quarter," said Julian Jessop, chief international economist for Capital Economics in London, in an e-mail.
Beijing appears to take it for granted that it already has overtaken Japan.
"China already is the world's second-biggest economic body," said a deputy central bank governor, Yi Gang, in a policy discussion posted July 30 on the foreign exchange agency's website.
Australia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries as China's voracious appetite for iron ore, coal and other commodities drove a mining boom that kept its economy growing through the global crisis.
That booming trade prompted Australia to reconsider its stance toward China, previously seen as a communist aggressor. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin-speaker who was a diplomat in Beijing, called for closer political, economic and academic engagement with the Chinese government.
But Rudd also displayed Australia's independence from Beijing by talking about human rights, Tibet and China's Muslim minorities issues Chinese leaders want other countries to keep quiet about. And Australia affirmed its longtime security alliance with Washington a counterweight to China's growing might. Rudd's successor, Julia Gillard, has given no sign of a major change of direction.
In the long historical view, China's 21st century rise is a return to the status it held for most of the past 2,000 years as "Zhong Hua," or the Central Brightness, East Asia's economic and military giant and a beacon of technology and elite culture to societies from Vietnam to Korea to Japan.
China's was the biggest economy, with its workshops and textile mills accounting for up to one-third of global manufacturing. But it went into steep decline in the 19th century as its rulers resisted mimicking Japan's embrace of Western technology. By the 1930s, China produced just a few percent of global factory output.
After a civil war, communist takeover and political upheaval, free-enterprise reforms pioneered by leader Deng Xiaoping opened the door for hundreds of millions of Chinese to work their way out of poverty.
Since those reforms began in 1979, China has grown into the world's low-cost factory, its biggest exporter and producer of half its steel. It wants to evolve beyond cheap manufacturing and is trying to build up technology industries but has had little success so far.
Last year, the World Bank ranked China 124th among economies in per capita income, behind Latin America and some African nations, while Japan was No. 32. The United States was 17th.
Yet already, China's consumers are so avidly courted by global companies that products from autos to home appliances destined for sale worldwide are designed with their tastes in mind. This year, French luxury goods maker Hermes Group unveiled a brand, Shang Xia, to be designed specifically for Chinese customers.
Unlike Japan, which renounced aggressive force after its World War II defeat, Beijing sees itself as Asia's rightful military leader. It has openly possessed nuclear weapons since the 1960s and is spending heavily to build up the Communist Party's military arm, the 2.5 million-soldier People's Liberation Army.
Beijing's military outlays are the world's second-highest and have tripled since 2000 to an estimated $100 billion last year, though well behind Washington's $617 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
China's demand for oil, iron ore and other raw materials is pumping money into developing economies as far-flung as Angola and Kazakhstan that supply them. Chinese companies are making inroads into Africa in search of resources and markets.
"Now, Africa has an alternative development model," said Derek Scissors, a Heritage Foundation scholar in Washington. Instead of Western investment with environmental or other strings attached, Scissors said, "they now see the Chinese as an alternative: 'We don't want to deal with you. We'll get some Chinese state-owned company to put $1.5 billion into this mining project.' "
Chinese pressure helped to trigger the biggest changes in decades in the U.S.- and European-dominated World Bank and IMF, which agreed to give China, Turkey, Mexico and other developing countries a bigger say in picking leaders and deciding policy.
The boom has helped communist leaders pay to cultivate "soft power" educational and media activity to win hearts and minds abroad.
Of course, even after slipping to third place, Japan is still rich and comfortable the Switzerland of Asia.
The society that created hybrid cars and the Walkman has 99 percent literacy and the world's longest life expectancy at 83 years. Tokyo is the capital of fine dining, with more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris.
Toyota has overtaken General Motors as the biggest global automaker at a time when China companies have yet to establish their own brand names.
Now, with Japan in the rear view mirror, can China catch up with the United States?
Yes, say many analysts.
China could match the U.S. in total output as early as 2020, said a World Bank forecast in June. But still, it said per capita income would be one-fourth the U.S. level, comparable to Malaysia or Latin America.
Achieving even that will require China's unelected, secretive leaders to radically change their state-dominated economy.
They need to promote technology and education, fight rampant corruption that is stoking public anger and resist temptation to favor government-owned companies at the expense of a dynamic private sector that creates jobs and wealth.
Success is far from guaranteed, warn the World Bank and others.
They say China, Mexico and other developing countries easily can stall at middle-income levels if they fail to develop an educated, creative work force and legal systems to support innovation or if they allow entrenched companies to stifle competition.
"Are they going to pass the U.S. in total GDP? Yes, very likely," said Scissors. "Are they going to move into upper-middle-income status? That's a much tougher thing."
———
Associated Press writer Tomoko A. Hosaka in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Global Post - Proposed dam to flood Burma, while powering China
The Global Post - Proposed dam to flood Burma, while powering China
A large dam being planned in Kachin state will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people.
By Ryan Libre — Special to GlobalPost
Published: January 31, 2010 09:18 ET
MYITKYINA, Burma — On the first morning of each New Year, hundreds of people come to pray on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in northern Burma.
This year, they prayed that their villages, farms and churches would not be drowned.
A large dam will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people over the next two to three years. The Myitsone dam, constructed by the Burmese military government and the China Power Investment Co., calls for a 500-foot-wide by 500-foot-high dam face, and is projected to produce between 3,600 to 6,000 megawatts of electricity by 2017.
The dam will inundate 300 square miles in Kachin state, flooding 47 villages, including the Mother of Peace shrine where the traditional New Year's prayers are held.
But the capital of Kachin state, Myitkyina, already has affordable power 24 hours a day. So, why displace thousands of people in Burma when they already have power?
Because when the Myitsone dam is complete, the hydroelectric power will go to Yunnan, China. In addition, the water reserves will irrigate a mega-plantation inside the protected Hukawng Valley in Burma, now home to the world's largest tiger reserve, furthering the displacement of people and destruction of the environment.
The dam will generate an estimated $500 million in gross annual revenue for the Burmese government, which has long been criticized for its gross human rights abuses — including but not limited to the recent trial, conviction and sentencing of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the brutal crackdown of Buddhist monks in September 2007.
Kachin is extremely rich in natural resources. Jade, gold, teakwood and silicone are exported in large quantities, and the mountainous, fertile terrain offers many hydropower sites. But because the Burmese government tightly controls resources and politics, the Kachin people have little say in their land and little benefit from its exploitation.
Construction jobs are earmarked for Chinese migrants, not the local people of Kachin. The opening ceremony for the Myitsone dam was held with high-powered officials from both the Burmese and Chinese government. The few local villagers who were present had been
instructed to attend. Chinese work camps already have been built near the Mother of Prayer shrine, and the first truckloads of workers are gearing up for construction.
Caravans of Burmese soldiers have arrived to secure both the dam site and the Chinese labor camps. The signs pointing the way to the dam site are up, not in the local language, Jinghpaw, but in Chinese.
Burmese gold miners and loggers from the south also have come north with help from military contacts to start extraction, industrial and commercial enterprises. Like many Kachins, the local villagers facing displacement are poor and pious.
The Burmese government and China are also collaborating on a pipeline to bring oil from the Bay of Bengal through lowland Burma and the Shan state to Yunan, bypassing the long maritime route through the bottle-necked Strait of Malacca, according to the China Daily.
Bilateral investment, trade and arms deals with China bankroll the Burmese military government, despite sanctions by many of the world's largest economies, according to the BBC.
Lacking the basic rights to express their opposition, people in Burma have been unable to protest the dam and pipeline projects. The Burmese military is bankrolled by the vast
Burmese resources it extracts and sells, and it maintains power despite widespread popular opposition and international condemnation, according to the Burma River’s Network, which represents communities in Burma affected by dam projects.
Twenty-five large dams are planned or are under construction in Burma, the Burma River Network said, and Kachin locals say they worry about the dams' safety. In 2006, two dams in Kachin state broke under stress after heavy rains. One of these dams failed and destroyed hundreds of patty fields and farms. The other, the 2.5 megawatt Chying Hkrang dam, relatively small in comparison to the 3600-megawatt Myitsone dam, collapsed killing five people.
Kachin people have voiced worries about the Myitsone dam's planned location 24 miles above the state capital and 62 miles from Burma’s earthquake prone Sagaing fault line.
"If I have to move, I will not move downstream to the capital," said a local pastor. "I could never get a good night sleep because I think this dam will also break."
The Mother of Peace shrine sits on an island where the Mali and Mai rivers converge to create the great Irrawaddy River. The New Year's prayer ceremony is deeply religious and apolitical. Villagers ask for forgiveness for their sins, and they pray for health, safety and peace.
"I will pray silently and directly to God for a miracle, to stop the dam project," said one villager. "I will not voice this prayer out of concern for my safety. I have no illusions that the government cares what I think."
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Report: Pipeline pumps billions in Myanmar junta's pockets
Report: Pipeline pumps billions in Myanmar junta's pockets - Summary
Posted : Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:59:32 GMT
Author : DPA
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Bangkok - Myanmar's ruling junta is hiding billions of dollars in revenue from natural gas sales in two Singapore banks, a Washington-based human rights group claimed Thursday. EarthRights International (ERI) said international pressure would not work against the military government as long as it has vast sums of easily funds and the world community needs to put pressure on the banks in question.
ERI claims in a report released in Bangkok, "confidential and reliable" sources said Singapore's Overseas Chinese Development Banking Corporation (OCBC) and DBS Group are "offshore repositories of Yadana gas pipeline revenues."
Since commercial production started on the Yadana gas pipeline in 2000, Myanmar's government has earned about 4.83 billion dollars from the sale of natural gas to Thailand, ERI said.
Through using an old exchange rate of 6 kyat to the dollar, instead of the current value for Myanmar's currency of nearly 1,000 kyat to the dollar, only 28 million dollars of that revenue made it into Myanmar's national budget. The remaining roughly 4.8 billion dollars has been deposited in accounts in the two Singapore banks, the 110-page report said.
The two banks in question have so far declined to comment. A DBS spokesman told the German Press Agency
Copyright, respective author or news agency http://www.earthtim es.org/articles/ show/285098, report-pipeline- pumps-billions- in-myanmar- juntas-pockets- -summary. html
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Myanmar junta siphons gas revenue offshore-report
Thu Sep 10, 2009 7:01am EDT
BANGKOK, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has transferred billions of dollars from a gas project into two banks operating in Singapore, contributing to "high-level corruption", a U.S.-based environmental group said on Thursday.
A report by non-profit Earth Rights International (ERI) said the junta had transferred $4.83 billion since 2000 from a gas pipeline, money that was kept off the national budget and stored in the banks operating in the city-state.
"Rather than contribute to Burma's economic development, the billion dollar revenues from the project have instead contributed to high-level corruption," the report said. The money, it said, came from the controversial Yadana gas project involving energy companies Chevron Corp (CVX.N) of the United States, France's Total (TOTF.PA) and Thailand's PTTEP (PTTE.BK).
The two banks and the Singaporean government were informed of the group's findings last week, ERI said. All had yet to respond.
"As long as Myanmar's regime has easy access to these funds we feel it will have little incentive to change," Matthew Smith, one of the report's authors, told a news conference.
"We urge the international community to use this as leverage to help the people of (Myanmar). We fully expect the Singapore government and the banks to do the right thing."
Despite a broad range of sanctions placed on Myanmar by the United States and the European Union because of political repression, its vast reserves of natural gas have been a financial lifeline for the regime. (For a factbox on sanctions on Myanmar click on [ID:nLD673386] )
ERI estimated the military government had received 75 percent of the revenue generated by the Yadana pipeline, which runs from the Andaman Sea to western Thailand.
ERI said the junta managed to keep the $4.83 billion off its national budget accounts by using a 30-year-old exchange rate from dollars to the local kyat currency, which produced a sum in kyat far smaller than the real amount generated.
"Singapore has very tight laws regarding corruption and misappropriation of public funds," Smith said. "These accounts should be red-flagged until the banks have the opportunity to cooperate with the authorities."
China's largest oil and gas producer, the China National Petroleum Corporation, is due to start construction of nearly 4,000 km (2,485 miles) of dual pipelines from Myanmar's western Arakan State to China's Yunnan province next month. [ID:nBKK40759] .
The deal is expected to provide the government, which has ruled the country since a 1962 coup, with at least $29 billion over 30 years. (Reporting by Bangkok Newsroom; Editing by Alan Raybould and Nick Macfie)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved http://www.reuters. com/article/ fundsFundsNews/ idUSBKK356607200 90910?rpc= 401 &
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China tip-off 'sparked' fighting
Myanmar said information about the arms cache came during a meeting on transnational crime [Reuters]
A senior Myanmar official has said that last month's clashes in the northeast of the country were sparked after a Beijing tipped them off about the location of an illegal arms factory.
Up to 30,000 people fled across the border from Kokang into northern China during the fighting which followed the raid on the arms factory in the mainly ethnic Chinese region.
An estimated 37,000 refugees streamed across the border from Myanmar into China's Yunnan province, but many of them have reportedly returned home in recent days.
Myanmar officials showed a number of diplomats and journalists around the site of the purported factory, which was raided by troops on August 8.
During the visit, Brigadier Phone Swe, Myanmar's deputy home affairs minister, said that Chinese officials informed them about the factory during a ministerial meeting on combating transnational crime.
Phone Swe's comments appeared to be an attempt to show that relations with close China remained on a steady keel, after a rare public request from Beijing that Myanmar calm the situation which had led to the influx of refugees.
Economic ties
China has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with Myanmar's military government, largely estranged from the West, ensuring China's access to its mineral wealth.
Michael Vatikiotis, the regional director for the centre of humanitarian dialogue, said that the area had become a strategic concerns for China.
"They [China] have made it very clear to the Myanmar authorities that the want to see stability"
Michael Vatikiotis, regional analyst
"One of the reasons for their concern is that they have just signed and prepared for the construction of oil pipelines that run from the coast of Myanmar up to the border and across to Yunnan," he told Al Jazeera from Singapore.
"They have made it very clear to the Myanmar authorities that the want to see stability."
However, Vatikiotis said that Beijing was unlikely to throw its weight behind the ethnic Chinese over the border in Myanmar.
"I think that is not very much in character with China which is a great respecter of sovereignty, I think what they have been supporting until now is the status quo."
Earlier, the Myanmar government had said that the fighting had begun after ethnic Chinese raided a police checkpoint and took 39 police officers hostage.
Full-scale fighting broke out after 15 of the hostages were killed, and according to state media in Myanmar the clash left 11 soldiers and eight ethnic Chinese rebels dead.
Myanmar officials have claimed that calm has been restored in Kokang but many refugees remain unconvinced.
Election agreement
Meanwhile, the new leader of an ethnic Chinese political group said he would participate in general elections next year, the first in nearly two decades.
The issue of whether to take part in elections has been a point of contention among ethnic groups, which are being asked to put down their weapons and join the government-controll ed border guards.
Fighting has forced some 30,000 refugees to flee across the border into China [AFP]
Phe Sauk Chen, the head of the new Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee, which was formed after other local leaders fled, told reporters during Tuesday's trip that his group also agreed to join the government's border security guards.
So far the larger ethnic groups, including the Kachin and the Wa, which has a militia estimated at more than 20,000 fighters, have refused to take part in elections.
But the issue caused division and led to the resignation of five senior leaders from the Kachin Independence Organisation earlier this month.
Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma [the country's former name], said the leaders planned to take part in the polls.
Critics have called the scheduled elections a sham designed to cement the military's grip on power. The Kokang were the first among 17 armed ethnic groups to reach a peace agreement with the government in March 1989. http://english. aljazeera. net/news/ asia-pacific/ 2009/09/20099106 237748444. html
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Junta Gas Profits Stashed in Singapore Banks: ERI
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Thursday, September 10, 2009
At a Bangkok press conference on Thursday, Earthrights International (ERI) launched two reports alleging that oil giants Total and Chevron are linked to “forced labor, killings, high-level corruption and authoritarianism” in Burma.
The reports, titled “Total Impact” and “Getting it Wrong,” examine how revenue from the Yadana gas project sustains military rule in Burma and undermines Western sanctions.
The NGO also said that two Singapore-based banks—Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and DBS Group—function as “offshore repositories” for junta revenues accruing from the Yadana gas project.
Security guards gesture to photographers to stop taking photos of the DBS Group bank in Singapore in April. The bank is accused of laundering the Burmese junta’s siphoned gas profits. (Photo: Reuters)
The report said that Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council has earned almost US $5 billion from the gas pipeline project.
By using an outdated exchange rate, the junta declares a fraction of the revenues to the State budget, enabling it to siphon the rest off. The junta calculates revenue at just 6 kyat to the dollar when the de facto rate is closer to 1,000.
According to a confidential International Monetary Fund (IMF) report obtained by ERI, revenue "contributed less than 1 percent of total budget revenue in 2007/08, but would have contributed about 57 percent if valued at the market exchange rate."
The report says these rates allow the regime to list a mere $29 million of the Yadana earnings, leaving around $4.8 billion unaccounted for, which ERI believes to be lodged in the Singapore banks.
ERI’s Matthew Smith said that the information about offshore accounts in Singapore comes “from confidential and reliable sources,” but could not go into more detail.
“We expect the Singapore government and banks to do the right thing based on Singaporean law relating to money laundering, which prohibits any such transactions and requires banks to report these,” he added.
According to Smith, the two banks were informed in writing during the past week about the content of the reports, but ERI has yet to receive a response.
ERI is an environmental NGO based in the US, but was founded by Ka Hsaw Wa, an ethnic Karen and former Burmese student activist in exile since his involvement in the 1988 demonstrations against military rule.
ERI says that Total, Chevron and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Export and Production (PTTEP)—the other non-Burmese company involved in Yadana—have earned a combined $1.3 billion since commercial production started in 2000.
The gas is piped into Thailand where it generates electricity for the Bangkok area, and in total makes up 60 percent of Burma's gas exports to Thailand. Total has been a major investor in the Yadana project since 1992, holding a 31.24 percent stake, with Chevron on 28 percent.
In a recent Newsweek interview, Total CEO Christophe de Margerie said that critics of the company's operations in Burma can “go to hell,” adding that the gas imports into Thailand have helped reduce air pollution in Bangkok.
In a June 26 letter to ERI published in the “Total Impact” report, Vice-President Jean-Francois Lasalle refused to answer a number of questions sent to Total by ERI. According to the letter, this was because ERI “presents allegations as facts,” and is “more interested in harassing our companies, in line with a divestment agenda, than in a real dialogue about how to improve people's lives.”
Total has cited its socioeconomic work in the pipeline area, and the “overall improvement in living conditions for the 50,000 people” who live in the pipeline area. Total refers ERI to a report by US-based CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, which gave the findings of a 20-day impact assessment of the oil company's operations related to the Yadana project.
However, the positive CDA report was dismissed as a whitewash by ERI, with report author Naing Htoo saying CDA’s methodology was deeply flawed, given that CDA lacked autonomy after being hired by Total to do the impact assessment.
ERI accuses Total and Chevron of complicity in human rights abuses throughout the history of the project. While the oil companies claim abuses have ceased, Naing Htoo says that this is “simply untrue.”
The authors quote locals living in the pipeline area, and the report’s authors say that “forced labor, killings and other abuses are being committed by Total and Chevron's security forces while the companies mislead and lie to the international community about their impacts.”
ERI said it believes that the impact of the CDA assessments is troubling, as these could be taken at face value by other oil companies and policymakers, in turn potentially having an impact on the issue of sanctions and engagement with the Burmese junta, based on false or flawed premises.
ERI said that the gas revenue windfall insulates the country's military rulers from the impact of international sanctions, which were tightened after the August 11 verdict returning Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest.
Total and Chevron have operations in Burma that pre-date the introduction of US and EU sanctions, so are not bound by those. In any case, EU sanctions against Burma currently only cover arms exports, wood, minerals, gems and metals, thereby exempting Total.
Elf, a former French oil company now part of Total, was complicit in numerous corruption scandals involving shady deals with African petro-states, before three senior Elf executives were jailed and the company merged with Total.
“As long as the regime has access to such vast revenue it has little incentive to reform or change,” Smith said. “The elites are hiding billions of dollars of the people's revenue in Singapore, while the country needlessly suffers under the lowest social spending in Asia.”
As well as long-standing rumors about Burma’s resource revenue being stashed in Singapore, the ill-gotten gains of elites in North Korea and Zimbabwe are also thought to be held in the city-state.
US financial giant Merrill Lynch estimates a third of Singapore's 60,000-odd millionaires are Indonesian, whereby Jakarta's wealthy beneficiaries of corruption and cronyism have moved their holdings away from the anti-corruption efforts undertaken by President Yudhoyono.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 16762
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Junta Media Highlights North Korean Anniversary
By WAI MOE Thursday, September 10, 2009
Burma’s state-controlled media reported on North Korea’s 61st anniversary celebration on the front page of The New Light of Myanmar on Thursday, reflecting the junta’s close relationship with Pyongyang.
The paper reported that Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the chief of Military Ordnance and head of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, attended the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held in a hotel in Rangoon on Wednesday.
Rangoon Mayor Brig-Gen Aung Thein Lin also attended the North Korean party. Both Tin Aye and Aung Thein Lin have traveled to the Communist country for arms deals between two states.
North Korea and Burma officially reestablished diplomatic ties in April 2007. Burma cut relations with North Korea in 1983 following a bomb attack by North Korean agents on a visiting South Korean delegation led by then President Chun Doo Hwan. Chun Doo Hwan narrowly escaped death or injury, but four South Korean cabinet ministers and 13 other officials were killed by the blast.
Renewed North Korea-Burma ties have been highlighted in international media recently because of reports that said North Korea has provided arms and technology to the Burmese military.
The state-run newspaper ran the North Korean anniversary story on the front page. The Korean Central News Agency did not report on the Rangoon event.
Burma and North Korea both give priority to the role of the military in their country’s affairs.
Since 1994, the North Korean People’s Army was granted the “supreme repository of power.” Since 1962, the Burmese army has played the leading role in governing the Union of Burma.
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 16759
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Friday, September 4, 2009
The Irrawaddy - A Child of Rubbish
The Irrawaddy - A Child of Rubbish
By SOE LWIN, Thursday, September 3, 2009
RANGOON—Twelve-year- old Maung Chan Thar has only known poverty despite having a name that means “master of wealth.”
His parents gave him the name in the belief that it would bring good fortune to their eldest son.
With a meager household income, Maung Chan Thar's family of eight has to struggle to put enough food on the table each day, let alone buy clothes or things needed for school by his three younger brothers and two younger sisters.
Four years ago, when Maung Chan Thar was just eight, his parents sent him onto the streets to earn money because they could no longer afford to keep him at school.
Carrying a sack on his back, he has been working in the streets ever since, looking through the piles of rubbish on the streets, roaming the railway tracks, collecting empty water bottles, plastic bags—whatever he can resell.
The piles of rubbish at the markets and railway stations are his sources of income. On a good day, he can make the equivalent of more than US $1, but normally Maung Chan Thar only earns about 70 or 80 cents.
“I am so happy to see my mother smile when I put cash in her hands,” he said.
Maung Chan Thar is the second income earner in his family after his father, who makes about $1.50 a day pedaling a trishaw.
Though he is an important source of income for his family, his parents cannot take care of him.
Like tens of thousands of other street children in big cities such as Rangoon and Mandalay, Maung Chan Thar’s clothes are filthy and in tatters. His hair has not been washed for months, and his nails are long and dirty.
Maung Chan Thar thinks things are alright, however. He knows that in his job what matters is collecting as much recyclable material as possible.
"I hate seeing my younger brothers and sisters crying in hunger, so I work hard," he said, sifting through a pile of garbage near Kyimyindaing Railway Station. “I don’t want them to ever do work like this. I want them to keep going to school.”
When he started on the street, he was often bullied by stronger street children, who would sometimes steal what he made.
"I will never forget when three larger boys beat me up and took all my money,” Maung Chan Thar said. “When I got back home, my father beat me up again for being so weak."
Maung Chan Thar has learned how to avoid such incidents, and he has many friends who will come to his help him if someone picks on him.
His worries are far from over, however. The municipal police and staff from the Yangon [Rangoon] City Development Committee are constantly making arrests.
The risk of arrest is higher when he sleeps at railway stations or bus stops in the downtown area, he said. Since his home is located in Shwepyithar in the outskirts of Rangoon, he often sleeps downtown with his friends if it is too late to go back.
“I’ve never been arrested,” he said. “I’m good at avoiding the police.
“People look down on street children like us, thinking we are thieves,” he said. “When we go around below large buildings picking up plastic bags, residents sometimes threaten us. We have to switch collecting sites quickly when that happens.
“I don’t understand why they look down on us like that,” Maung Chan Thar said, adding that he always followed his mother’s advice.
“My mother always told me never to steal or beg, but to work hard and be honest,” he said.
Though Maung Chan Thar seems destined to keep doing his lowly job, he firmly believes he will be rich one day.
“Every night my mother has this dream in which I am a rich man,” he said, squatting on the rubbish.
“Perhaps I will find something very precious in this rubbish one
Friday, June 12, 2009
Burma gas sales surge but little cash leaks out
By Amy Kazmin in Rangoon
Published: May 11 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 11 2009 03:00
Strong exports of natural gas have swollen Burma's foreign exchange reserves
to a record high but have not been used by the military regime to boost
health or education spending for the impoverished population, the
International Monetary Fund says in a report.
In its annual evaluation of Burma's economy, the IMF says the global
economic slowdown and the devastating May 2008 cyclone, which killed 140,000
people, have taken their toll. Gross domestic product growth slowed to about
4.5 per cent last year, from 5.5 per cent a year earlier.
Spending on extravagant showcase projects - such as the new political
capital, Naypitaw - is being financed by printing money, fuelling inflation
of about 30 per cent. Social spending, meanwhile, remains the lowest in
Asia, according to the IMF.
The report, which has not been publicly released but was obtained by the
Financial Times, says Burma's prospects "look bleak" if it fails to sweep
away socialist legacies - including the multiple exchange rate system and
stifling economic controls - or improve the deteriorating business climate.
How Burma's rulers use the revenue from natural gas exports to Thailand,
through pipelines operated by Total and Petronas, is also under scrutiny.
Gas revenues are added to the budget at the 30-year-old official exchange
rate of Kt6 to the dollar. The black market rate is about Kt1,000.
As a result the gas money has had "a small fiscal impact", accounting for
less than 1 per cent of budget revenue in 2007-08, instead of 57 per cent if
valued at market rates. The IMF has urged the regime to report gas sector
revenues at the market exchange rate to stabilise state finances.
The downbeat assessment comes as independent agricultural experts warn of
rising distress among Burmese farmers after a steep fall in prices at
harvest.
Analysts fear there will be a significant drop in rice planting in the
monsoon season, which begins soon, as heavily indebted farmers try to reduce
costs.
"The rural economy here is on the verge of some type of collapse," said one
Rangoon-based expert. "Rice farming is not profitable."
Analysing Burma's economic performance is challenging because of the paucity
of accurate and timely data. Many western policymakers still see Burma as
largely cut off from the global economy, especially after the US and EU
tightened sanctions following a harsh military crackdown on mass protests in
September 2007.
The IMF says the impact of western sanctions has been "moderated by strong
regional trade links", although the region's woes are hitting Burma's
natural gas, other commodity exports and remittance flows from millions of
Burmese working abroad.
"A lot of people thought that, since they have no banking system, they would
escape the impact of the crisis," said one diplomat. "But it's such a simple
economy, so dependent on commodity prices."
Burmese authorities have acknowledged the slowdown, though they still see
growth as a robust 10 per cent. Exchange reserves stand at $3.6bn (€2.7bn,
£2.4bn).
The IMF says growth will be about 4 per cent - "insufficient to reduce
poverty" without major reforms.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/795043a4-3dc2-11de-a85e-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
==============================
HIV/AIDS | New York Times Examines HIV/AIDS Treatment Access in Myanmar
[April 1, 2009]
The New York Times on Wednesday examined antiretroviral treatment access in
Myanmar, which ranks among the lowest countries worldwide in international
assistance per capita. Medecins Sans Frontieres runs 23 clinics in the
country, and the clinics serve as the primary source of antiretrovirals for
HIV-positive people in Myanmar, according to the Times. According to MSF,
240,000 people are living with HIV in Myanmar, and 76,000 are in urgent need
of antiretroviral access. In addition, about 25,000 HIV-positive people die
annually in the country.
MSF clinics have provided 11,000 HIV-positive people with drug access, but
the group has said that it cannot increase its budget in Myanmar without
taking funding away from projects elsewhere. MSF last year announced that it
had stopped accepting new patients to continue providing treatment to
current clients. This year, the group has accepted about 3,000 new patients.
"When we stopped last July, it was devastating for the staff," Joe
Belliveau, MSF operations manager, said, adding, "They couldn't even treat
the ones dying on their doorsteps."
The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria this year has
applied for government permits to bring antiretrovirals into Myanmar, and
the Times reports that the number of HIV-positive people with treatment
access likely will increase. Currently, fewer than 20% of HIV-positive
people in need of drugs receive them -- either from international groups or
in small amounts from the government -- according to an MSF report released
in November 2008 (Mydans, New York Times, 4/1).
Online A New York Times photography slideshow is available online.
http://www.globalhealthreporting.org/article.asp?DR_ID=57803
==============================
Tuberculosis | Myanmar To Take Nationwide Census on TB Patients, Health
Ministry Says
[April 7, 2009]
Myanmar plans to take a nationwide census on the number of people with
tuberculosis beginning this month, officials from the Ministry of Health
said Sunday, Xinhuanet reports. According to Xinhuanet, Myanmar is one of
the 22 countries with the highest TB burdens worldwide.
According to the health ministry, about 130,000 TB patients were treated
successfully in 2008. The country reported an 87% TB case detection rate and
an 85% treatment success rate in 2008, the ministry said. The country spent
about $440,000 in fiscal year 2007-2008 to treat TB patients. According to
Xinhuanet, Myanmar is increasing efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria
to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. There are about
100,000 new TB cases annually in the country, Xinhuanet reports (Xinhuanet,
4/5).
http://www.globalhealthreporting.org/article.asp?DR_ID=57895
=============================
Nargis highlights extreme needs in rest of Myanmar
01 May 2009 18:06:00 GMT
Written by: A Myanmar writer
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or
for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
When Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar last year it triggered a
humanitarian effort on a scale never before seen in the impoverished nation.
Attention from the media, donors and relief agencies prompted the brutal
regime to open its doors to foreign aid in the disaster zone.
In stark contrast, aid workers say the rest of Myanmar continues its
downward spiral with chronic food insecurity and health crises going largely
unchecked, resulting in tens of thousands of preventable deaths every year.
Figures from the United Nations show 10 percent of the population fall below
the poverty line, meaning 70 percent of their income is spent on food.
"That's 5 million people who are extremely vulnerable in terms of food
security and that's a lot in a country that's food surplus," said Chris
Kaye, country director of the United Nations' World Food Programme.
WFP says it's working to prevent a hunger crisis in northern Rakhine State,
where successive poor harvests, rising food prices as well as political
issues concerning the statelessness of the Muslim Rohingya minority have
contributed to a dire situation.
Other critical areas where WFP is providing food include Chin - the poorest
state in the country - where rat infestations have destroyed large parts of
last year's harvest, and former poppy farming areas in Shan state, where
villagers are facing a challenging transition from lucrative, easy to grow
poppy crops to subsistence farming.
HEALTH
In 2007, the government spent only $0.70 per person on healthcare, according
to medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Myanmar has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis (TB) in the world with
tens of thousands falling victim to the illness each year. In addition, a
multi-drug resistant strain of TB is also spreading, for which there is
currently no treatment in Myanmar.
Malaria remains the number one killer, and although the treatment is
available, it costs between $3 and $4 - still expensive in a country where
many people earn less than $2 a day.
Worse, a new strain of malaria that is resistant to artemisinin - the latest
and most effective drug to treat the disease - has been found in western
Cambodia, and there are fears that migrant Myanmar workers in the
Thai-Cambodia border area may bring it into the country.
HIV/AIDS also kills thousands a year due to lack of affordable drugs, aid
workers say. Myanmar has about 240,000 people living with HIV. And only a
fifth of the 75,000 or so needing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) receive
it.
But Frank Smithuis, MSF Holland's head of mission, says it's unfair to blame
the Myanmar government for the lack of ART.
"Of course it would be good if the Myanmar government spent more on ART," he
added. "But if you look at other countries in the area, take Laos and
Cambodia, national governments do not pay for ART, it's donors that actually
pay."
Andrew Kirkwood, country director for Save The Children UK in Myanmar,
agrees.
"One third of all children under five are malnourished, and about 100,000
kids under five die every year mostly of malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia,
three diseases that we know how to treat exactly for pennies," he said.
"It's obscene that the international community isn't trying to do more about
that."
TO FUND OR NOT TO FUND?
Aid to Myanmar is a controversial issue and like everything else about the
country, politicised.
Donors have a range of concerns, from whether their aid actually reaches
those who need it most to the junta's well-documented human rights abuses,
not to mention the debate over whether areas such as healthcare and food
security are the government's responsibility.
Overseas development aid in Myanmar has always been low. According to U.N.
figures from 2005, Myanmar received less than $3 per person in aid while
other developing countries in the region such as Laos and Cambodia received
over $50 and $37 respectively.
But Save The Children UK, which has 1,500 staff in the country, says the
last year's cyclone relief efforts should show it is possible to provide
effective humanitarian aid.
"Hopefully, if there's a silver lining in the Nargis experience, it has
demonstrated to the international community just what can be done inside the
country with assistance," Kirkwood said.
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/58220/2009/04/1-180659-1.htm
==========================
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Data shows Japan's economy shrank less than thought in Q1
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/435264/1/.html
Posted: 11 June 2009 1625 hrs
TOKYO: Japan's economy shrank less than initially thought in the first quarter, data has shown, as hopes grew of a recovery from its worst recession since World War II.
The world's second biggest economy contracted 14.2 per cent in the first three months of 2009, according to revised government figures, an improvement on the 15.2 per cent shrinkage reported last month.
Improved sentiment for a rebound in the economy was reflected in the stock market, where shares broke the 10,000 point barrier for the first time in eight months.
"Optimism about a recovery is increasing," said Ryuta Otsuka, strategist at Toyo Securities. "Risk money which had fled to bond markets is beginning to return to stocks and commodity markets."
The new data also said the Asian powerhouse shrank by 3.8 per cent in the January-March period against the previous quarter, less than the initial estimate of a 4.0 per cent fall.
However, the annualised 14.2 per cent drop was still Japan's worst on record.
Tokyo voiced optimism at the performance in the Nikkei, which touched 10,022.23 in the morning, breaking the psychologically important 10,000 mark for the first time since October 8.
"The cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso has implemented a number of economic stimulus packages, which are kicking in throughout the nation," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told a news conference.
Japan, Asia's number one economy, entered recession in the second quarter of 2008 as demand slowed sharply for its autos and big-ticket export items, and the downturn has since become Japan's worst since World War II.
Recent economic data, including gains in industrial output, have brought rays of hope of a budding recovery.
But they have been tempered by rising unemployment and a drop in wholesale prices that threatens deflation. Wholesale prices fell 5.4 per cent year on year last month, their sharpest drop in 22 years.
Shinko Research Institute economist Norio Miyagawa shrugged off the revised economic data and said: "Japan remains in a weak growth trend."
He also said consumption would likely stay lacklustre while still piled-up inventories could weigh on industrial production.
On a more hopeful note, he said that "on-quarter figures in the April-June period may turn to positive as strong demand from China and other countries could help push up" Japanese exports.
Daisuke Uno, chief market strategist of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., was sceptical about the stock market's recent optimistic sentiment.
"The real economy is not improving, with capital only flowing into speculative markets," he said. "Demand needs to improve first... Optimism and pessimism will likely come in turns for a while."
- AFP/so
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Burma after Nargis
http://www.e-ir.info/?p=1266
Written by Sean Turnell on May 12, 2009 – 7:26 am
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One year ago Cyclone Nargis struck southern Burma. This ‘natural’ disaster brought about the death of at least 140,000 people, made homeless 800,000 more, and caused severe hardship for the inhabitants of much of the Irrawaddy Delta.[1] The land of the Delta is Burma’s (and once the world’s) ‘rice bowl’, and so the destruction wrought here a year ago has been greatly damaging to food security amongst the poor throughout the country.
Of course, the people of Burma are not unused to suffering. For nearly fifty years, however, this suffering has been almost entirely man (sic) made, the product of a military regime that has ruled the country since 1962 and whose brutality is matched only by its ineptitude in managing the economy.[2] This regime now styles itself the ‘State Peace and Development Council’ (SPDC), but its appetite for undermining the institutions necessary for a vibrant market economy, while at the same time embarking upon ill-informed and irrational economic policy-making, remains little diminished.
Cyclone Nargis brought with it then a different type of suffering from Burma’s traditional government-induced variety, but the latter did not take long to reassert its primacy. Infamously, this included the refusal by the SPDC to allow foreign relief into the country in the first crucial weeks following the cyclone. Shamed before the world, the regime later relented, but up to the present it continues to make life difficult for aid and relief workers. For foreign aid workers this largely amounts to restrictions upon their movements and a certain routine harassment. For local aid respondents the punishment for good deeds rendered have been much more serious, and at the time of writing some 21 local aid volunteers languish in prison for having the temerity to distribute aid from outside the channels determined by the SPDC, and/or for letting the world know something of the pitiful state of their fellow citizens.
The difficulties of aid delivery in Burma is not a story, alas, that (many) international aid agencies and NGOs that operate in the country are anxious to share publicly, even if in private they mostly acknowledge the problem. It’s a reluctance familiar to long-time observers of Burma and the ‘politics’ that pervades the discourse on the country, but the vehemence of the response to critics of post-Nargis reconstruction has been surprising nonetheless. Special umbrage seems to have been taken, in particular, to a recent joint report into human rights abuses after the Cyclone by the Emergency Assistance Team (EAT, a Thailand-based NGO) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights (hereafter EAT/JHU Report), which was described (in somewhat blustering and hysterical terms) as being both ‘inaccurate’ and ‘a disservice to the courageous and resilient survivors of Cyclone Nargis’. [3]
The motivation of the international aid ‘industry’ in Burma in striking out against an organisation such as EAT/JHU is perhaps easy to understand. International aid agencies need to maintain relations with the Burmese authorities to undertake their work, and (as the behaviour of the SPDC in the first weeks following Nargis and beyond amply illustrates) they are well aware of the suspicions that the SPDC attaches to their activities. Nevertheless, the response to the EAT/JHU report is overdone and overwrought. International agencies have a duty to be true to their mandate, but so do others, unconstrained by the self-censorship of vested interest, to truth and to calling the situation as they see it. For too long have Burma’s military rulers been allowed to lurk in the darkness, and for too long have the Burmese people suffered in silence.
Twelve months on from Nargis, and it is apparent that the Cyclone’s economic impact has been more in the way that it has revealed some of Burma’s most intractable problems, rather than in being a cause of them. Prime amongst these problems, however, is growing household indebtedness. The lack of financial capital is clear at all levels and sectors of Burma’s economy, but it is at its most critical in agriculture and rural areas, the source and location of the activities through which most Burmese attempt to eke out a living. Burma’s agriculture sector is now devoid of new and affordable credit, while the cash economy more broadly is collapsing under the weight of existing debt and the near-total absence of wage employment.[4] The lack of affordable credit in rural areas will have dire consequences which, in the short-term, include the phenomenon of cultivators being forced to sell the entirety of their crop immediately at harvest (and at fire-sale prices that barely cover costs) in order to meet debt and other obligations, only to ‘buy back’ food for their own consumption at exorbitant prices later. Longer-term, the absence of rural credit means that few small cultivators in Burma now use fertilizer or other inputs critical to improving yields. The productivity of Burmese agriculture is falling, and its rich alluvial lands are being degraded and despoiled. In the wake of these short and long run trends, in 2009 Burma - once the world’s largest rice exporter - faces the real prospect of widespread food shortages.
The absence of a functioning system of rural credit is the direct result of the policies and practices of the country’s military regime (commercial banks are forbidden to lend to farmers, for instance), and of their wilful indifference to providing a solution. Any long-run and sustainable fix to Burma’s credit system (and many other areas of its economy) will only come with the application of plausible rights to property, commerce, and the retreat of the state from its present suffocating dominion, but in the short-run great relief could be provided via the simple infusion of cash into existing institutions. Burma currently receives between $1 and $2 billion a year from its sales of natural gas to Thailand, but these funds are kept far from the country’s public accounts. Squirreled away offshore and in local banks accessible only to the top leadership of the SPDC, Burma’s gas earnings are today employed in constructing the country’s new jungle capital of Naypyidaw, in buying military equipment from China, and in funding other schemes and proclivities that have long characterised the oftentimes bizarre aspects of the country’s policy-making processes.[5]
Burma’s people need money, but Burma’s state apparatus does not. International aid agencies, as well as the UN and affiliated bodies, have been vocal in pressing the international community to provide more aid to Burma. In this, and of itself, they are right. Likewise, however, it is right to emphasise that prime responsibility for improving the lot of the people of Burma belongs to those who would claim to rule over them. Burma’s military rulers have long shirked their responsibilities even as their means for achieving them has grown. Holding the SPDC to the duties that must accompany their (violently) self-appointed reign might reasonably be the least of the responsibilities discharged to the rest of us.
Sean Turnell is Associate Professor of Economics at Macquarie University, Sydney, and an Editor of Burma Economic Watch. His work has been cited by media including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Times, Australian Financial Review, The Australian and many others. He has made appearances in the electronic media for the BBC, ABC, SBS, Bloomberg Television, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Sky-News and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] These numbers are drawn from the ‘Post-Nargis Joint Assessment’ taskforce (PONJA), established under the Tripartite Core Group that comprises representatives of Burma’s government, ASEAN, the UN and its agencies. The PONJA report on the damage wrought by Cyclone Nargis can be downloaded at: http://www.aseansec.org/21765.pdf, accessed May 8, 2009.
[2] For a recent analysis of the unfortunate decline of Burma’s economy in recent decades, see this author’s recent book, Fiery Dragons: Banks, Moneylenders and Microfinance in Burma, NIAS Press.
[3] The EAT/JHU Report, After the Storm: Voices from the Delta, which was published in March 2009, can be found at: http://www.jhsph.edu/humanrights/locations/asia/BurmaCyclone.html, the collective response of 21 aid agencies to it at: http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs07/Joint_INGO_Response_to_After_theStorm.pdf, and a final rejoinder from the EAT/JHU team at: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RWST-7RBQVW?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=mmr
[4] Some idea of the crisis in Burma’s rural sector, and especially that occasioned by credit problems, can be gleaned from the recent (January 2009) ‘Special Report’ of a joint food security assessment mission to Burma by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). This report can be accessed at: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/ai478e/ai478e00.pdf.
[5] For more on some of these issues, and especially on the SPDC’s larceny with respect to Burma’s gas earnings, see the author’s Burma’s Economy 2008: Current Situation and Prospects for Reform, available at: http://www.econ.mq.edu.au/Econ_docs/bew/BurmaEconomy2008.pdf.
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