Myanmar’s budding democracy

YANGON, Myanmar — What am I doing out of the country a few days before our election? I thought it would be a good idea to step back from the heat of our election campaign. It would be good to get a perspective of things. The budding democracy and booming economy of Myanmar seems a good place to do that.

Why Myanmar? I was last here 14 years ago and I had been curious to see the changes in its domestic politics and the economy first hand. I also got intrigued by a glowing review of Myanmar from the ADB, gushing about it as the fastest growing country in Asia.

 When I first visited in 2002, I saw a Yangon as if it was frozen in time, the 50s.  Yangon did not have the adrenaline rush of Saigon. It didn’t have much of the infrastructure one would associate with its neighbors. Life seemed so easy going amidst the lush greenery of the surroundings.

I wrote in 2002 that “maybe the ruling junta will wake up one morning feeling like Lee Kuan Yew. Any positive shift in the political winds will enable the country to shift from mere survival mode. The country has huge potentials and could be an important competitor in the tiger race among the ASEAN countries.”

 Myanmar did wake up and now their experiment in democracy seems to be holding up. That in turn is moving the economy. The mere act of opening the country to the world had primed the economy for growth. 

Yangon’s international airport was primitive in 2002 but now… while it isn’t quite Changi may soon be better than NAIA. They are expanding their terminal building to accommodate more and more visitors.

The biggest change I noticed as we drove to our hotel is increasing traffic congestion. There are a lot more cars on the road. If Mar Roxas were here, he would rejoice and call those traffic jams a definite sign of progress. The city is also no longer as green and is fast turning into an urban concrete jungle.

One thing is very obvious. They are determined to catch up with their ASEAN peers. Unlike us, they didn’t even let a serious natural calamity slow them down. As the ADB pointed out, despite flooding that devastated one-fifth of the country’s farm land, Myanmar’s economy is expected to grow 8.4 percent in 2016 and early 2017. The ADB’s Asian Development Outlook 2016 says this is the highest rate in Asia and the Pacific.

 It apparently all began in 2011 when a series of political and economic reforms started bringing Myanmar out of a largely self imposed isolation from the world. The economy of Myanmar has experienced strong growth, exceeding six percent gross domestic product expansion every year since 2012. They showed much could be done in five years or in less time than one presidential term for us. 

Many feared that a cyclone could derail the country’s fragile economic and social gains.

“In July–August 2015, a cyclone and intense monsoonal rains caused widespread flooding and landslides that displaced more than 1.6 million people, killed 132, and devastated one-fifth of all cultivated land,” stated the Asian Development Outlook 2016 report.

The economic cost was estimated at $1.5 billion, equal to a staggering three percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Agriculture, which accounts for 30 percent of GDP and more than 60 percent of employment, was devastated by the disaster.

But the people of Myanmar managed to rebuild devastated areas and provide relief to affected people with the help of the international community. The storm did little to slow down the rest of the booming economy, the ADB reports, with garment exports increasing by 28 percent to $2 billion. Natural gas exports slightly increased as well.

Tourism was also a major driver of the economy with 4.7 million arrivals in 2015. Spending by tourists rose by 19 percent to $2.1 billion in 2015. In comparison, last year we had a little over five million foreign visitors generating some $5.5 billion in tourism earnings.

Myanmar has become so promising some of our biggest conglomerates from Ayala to Metro Pacific have started to look at Myanmar’s potentials. A Google search revealed a report from abs-cbnnews.com that three years ago, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala already announced they have been looking at Myanmar. 

“We’ve sent a number of teams to Myanmar from different companies quite a few times now... Our job is to get comfortable with the country and to begin to understand the government structure, the regulatory structure,” Zobel de Ayala said in a briefing.

He shared Ayala Corp. is currently in talks with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel) for a possible telco venture in Myanmar.

“SingTel is taking the lead... We are now working with SingTel to potentially participate and be allowed to enter a bid for telecommunications. But we are looking at other opportunities to take up real estate space in Myanmar and the banking space as well,” he added. I am told that Manila Water is now here. Ayala is also poised to enter the property development sector, some Pinoy expats here told me. 

MPIC has also started to look but have not found a good opportunity for a tollway. But I was told that they found the potential for water treatment may be more promising.

In healthcare, MPIC and its Singaporean sovereign wealth fund partner are also looking at establishing a presence in several Southeast Asian countries including Myanmar. Pinoy expats here told me this is one great need. 

Already doing business in Myanmar is Liwayway Oishi. Carlos Chan built a factory for Oishi snacks here in 1998 when investing in this country is considered a really brave pioneering act. United Drug is an even braver pioneer here. Many Filipinos are also working in hotels as staff and entertainers. On the drive to our hotel, I saw a brightly lit showroom of Prestige Cars. Apparently, Palawan Gov. Alvarez is here as the exclusive dealer of BMW cars.

The thing with Myanmar is that they need almost everything in a hurry. Power availability is a big problem. They were depending on big dams for power and the drought diminished the ability of hydro resources to meet increasing power needs. They need all types of infrastructure from transport to water systems. Telecoms is a very competitive sector yet service quality remains poor, like ours. There are other problems.

ADB pointed out that Myanmar is facing significant economic challenges. Like all countries in Asia, it is affected by moderating growth in China. But that impact is being lessened by closer economic relations with its other neighbors, India and Thailand, according to the Asian Development Outlook 2016 report.

ADB reports that some regions remain affected by conflict driven by ethnic and sectarian tension. Myanmar’s economy is narrowly based, the ADB outlook report tells us, “with growth depending on natural resource exports, construction, and tourism.” Reforms are underway to address corruption, encourage the growth of the private sector and diversify the economy. 

The big risk in Myanmar now, the ADB thinks, is “the capacity of the new government to maintain reform, and vulnerability to bad weather.” They could say the same thing too about us. But ADB is bullish on Myanmar and projects continued strong economic growth at 8.3 percent, still one of the highest rates in Asia.

May 9 election

Readers have been asking who I am voting for this Monday. I am only sure of voting for Leni Robredo for Vice President because her rivals are ordinary politicians who do not have her grassroots service record. For President, I am still deciding between Miriam or Grace.

 For senators, off the top of my head, Osmena, Ople, Gordon, Romulo, Alunan, Pangilinan, Petilla, Guingona and Bello. I will try to complete the list on Election Day. For party list, I am voting for RAM only because their principal nominee is Gen. Danny Lim. The general was eased out of Customs by the Daang Matuwid administration because he was determined to clean up Customs and stepped on powerful toes at the Palace. 

In the meantime, I am enjoying some time away from the electoral noise which had become unbearable lately.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco