Rakhine State war in Myanmar + SUOMI osio

Rakhine State war in Myanmar + SUOMI osio

Rakhine State

The fight at western Myanmar has been long between central government and Rakhine State or actually Rakhine people. Their nomad lifestyle is not very suitable for modern world as they move a lot between Myanmar  and Bangladesh. Myanmar considers them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and they try to defend their old lifestyle, not being bound to one place in life. Rakhine army "Arakan Army" has not been included in recent years peace talks, that has been happening between many other fighting Armies around Myanmar. Now the new parliament would like to start the peace talks between Myanmar army "Tatmadaw" and Arakan Army.  Tatmandaw has been against this development.

Peace would be important for Myanmar future to start developing the untouched long coastal area for tourism and fishing industry.

Other political news

Lately there has been debate and proposal to remove many "anti-opposition"  laws that are against human rights and international laws.  Many of them has been used against opposition members jailing them without court or placing their members to house arrest with the reason just opposing the ruling government peacefully.

Main laws considered are:

The 1975 State Protection Act, also known as the “Law to Safeguard the State Against the Dangers of Those Desiring to Cause Subversive Acts”, was enacted under the Burma Socialist Program Party. Many opposition figures, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, were imprisoned under it.

Several other laws like  the Electronic Transactions Law, the Unlawful Associations Act, and the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law are also looked in to.

Corruption

The new government has been announcing to make all sections of government as corruption free. Myanmar is, like many other Asian countries, corrupted country by western standards.  It appears in every section of business and government interactions and creates the problem with collecting taxes, serving people equally and generally placing people to different position when dealing with officials. Myanmar is not the only country that this happens by any means but it has been very open there, unlike many other countries. 

Now the Director U Tet Htut Aung is telling that the new civilian-led government had pledged to establish a corruption-free society.  The first public memos has also been published with instructions of maximum "gift" amount of cash that officials are allowed to take. As giving and receiving gifts has been a very big part of dealing with officials, this will be a long road to get 100% clean system. IMHO it must include the salary increases in all sections of government as with the current salary levels it is not possible to maintain house and family in Yangon, unless government support it with many other indirect ways.

According to the Asian Development Bank, Myanmar has one of the “lowest levels of tax yield in the world”. It said the actual tax yield was calculated at just 6.6 percent of economic output in the 2013 fiscal year.

The Business Anti-Corruption Portal, a guide to compliance partly funded by Western governments, warns investors seeking to do business in Myanmar, “Companies face a high risk of corruption in the tax administration in Myanmar.” “Irregular payments in connection with tax payments are commonly exchanged. Almost 40pc of firms expect to give gifts in meetings with tax officials. Businesses in Myanmar spend on average 188 hours per year preparing, filing and paying taxes.”

Rental prices drops in Yangon

The price to rent a decent "expat" apartment has been very high in Yangon, from low end USD 1000.- up USD 5000.- average being over USD 2000.- region. The reason has been sudden influx of foreign businessmen seeking the new market and lack of suitable apartments in Yangon. Since 2014 the situation has been improved a lot and the prices are already down over 20%. By the year 2017, there will be many new condominiums and the prices are expected to fall even further. 

While prices fall, the cost is still high compared to neighboring Thailand and with same price you can find a decent flat even in Singapore. So I would say the housing bubble will burst somehow in coming years but it also depends on how attractive business environment the Myanmar becomes in next few years.

Telecoms market news

Telenor reaches 15,5m users while MPT, the government owned telecom company , still has the lead with over 19m users and third operator OOREEDOO having 6 m customers.

Telenor Myanmar has more than doubled SIM cards sold since the first quarter of 2015, giving it an estimated 38 percent share of the local market, according to the company’s first quarter figures released yesterday. However, its base is growing more slowly than before. Despite this, the numbers seemed to defy expectations at Telenor’s top level.

“I think I’ve said for many quarters now that this cannot continue, but it does,” said Group CEO Sigve Brekke during the company’s financial results presentation. “One-and-a-half years into operation ... [Telenor Myanmar] is now cash-flow-positive for the first time.”  Telenor Myanmar’s operating cash flow margin came to 10pc, according to the results.

“And despite the aggressive rollout I expect them to be able to stay in the positive territory,” Mr Brekke said. Meanwhile, the company’s margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation – or operating profitability – reached 42pc. Revenues for the quarter came to NOK 1.7 billion (US$211.9 million), up 15pc from Q4 2015 and 124pc from Q1 2015.

I think this is pretty good result with such a short time in country's telecoms market. 

Also Ooredoo has got in to profit with their operation, having 6,9m customers by now since they start few years ago.

Internet

Main problem in Myanmar internet is not the supply of SIM cards or internet lines but the pipeline of data capacity out of country. If you build your service inside country, the response times are decent but getting to watch like Youtube videos, you better do it after midnight. Unless you pay top dollars for connections. This winter I paid about USD 135.- / month for 1MB "unlimited" internet connection but it was usable barely after midnight. Otherwise anything to do with online data was not possible to use.

Naturally the service in country improves as 5 years ago there was no Internet at all, the service today is much better ;)

SUOMI OSIO

Maanantaina 02.05-2016 oli Helsingissa FinPron järjestämä Myanmar seminaari jossa puhujina oli eri valtion sektoreilta asiaan liittyviä henkilöitä ja Aasiasta Myanmariin liittyviä FinPron henkilöitä. Seminaari oli mielenkiintoinen mutta silmiin pisti yllättävän vähälukuinen joukko maasta kiinnostuneita, vaikka seminaari oli ilmainen. Ehkä asiaan vaikutti myös muualla Suomessa järjestetyt osiot mutta olisi kuitenkin luullut että Helsingissä on enemmän yrityksiä, jotka haluavat tutustua yhteen maailman nopeimmin kasvavavista markkina-alueista.

 

Tärkeänä näen että hallituksemme ja viento organisaatiot pitävät melua kuitenkin avautuvista markkinista sillä on kuitenkin aina muutamia uskaliaita yrityksiä, jotka haluavat lähteä aikaisin markkinoille. Tilaisuudestahan puuttuvat niiden yritysten edustajat, jotka ovat jo etabloituneet markkinoille.

Rahoituksen osalta Myanmar asettaa edelleen suuria rajoituksia puutteellisen lainsäädännön takia ja paikallisten pankkien uutuuden tai Amerikkalaisten valuutta saarron takia. Tietääkseni yksikään Suomalais pankki ei ole tehnyt virallista edustussopimusta Myanmariin ja siten rahoituskuviot menevät aina jonkun kolmannen pankin kautta lisäten kuluja ja rahojen läpimenoaikaa. Jos mahdollista, Euroja kannattaa käyttää rahasiirroissa sillä kokemuksesta tiedän että USD siirrot saattavat jäädä matkalle Amerikan keskuspankkiin ja niiden takaisin saamisesta ei ole takeita ellei ole hyviä Amerikkalaisia lakimiehiä.

Lopuksi, jos teillä on asioita, joista haluaisi kuulla enemmän (Myanmarin osalta) niin otan mielelläni palautetta. Esim. pasi.simonen(at)kpt.fi