Myanmar - Indonesia opens business office in Burma

(Mizzima) – An Indonesian minister says Burma is now like Indonesia in the 1970s, and officials are gearing up to help the Indonesian private sector set up businesses in Burma.

State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan said the government would set up an entity called SOE Incorporated, which will open a local office and explore opportunities, the Xinhua news agency reported, quoting Burmese domestic media.

At its onset, SOE Incorporated would include Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), construction company PT Wijaya Karya and gas and oil company PT Pertamina, Dahlan said.

“We have sent a number of BNI, Wijaya Karya and Pertamina executives to observe conditions in Myanmar for six months. The executives are tasked with collecting information on how to do business in Myanmar so that a strategy can be devised to penetrate the market,” he told the Jakarta Post.

Dahlan noted that Burma’s democracy and human rights records were improving, and that the country was also a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation. Burma will assume the Asean chair in 2014, a reward for demonstrating improvements in human rights.

The newspaper said Indonesia has less business exposure and presence in Burma compared to other Asean countries, such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings, is believed to have invested about US$ 3 billion in Burma.

In February, Bloomberg News reported that Indonesia’s economy grew at the fastest pace since before the Asian financial crisis as rising investment and domestic spending countered a slowdown in export demand due to Europe’s debt crisis.

“Indonesia remains the standout in Asia,” said Chua Hak Bin, a Singapore-based economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Gross domestic product rose 6.46 percent in 2011, the statistics bureau said in Jakarta. The economy expanded 6.49 percent last quarter from a year earlier.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy has outperformed neighbors including Thailand and the Philippines as two rate cuts in the last quarter aided President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s efforts to boost GDP by an average 6.6 percent a year. The country regained investment-grade ratings from Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings after 14 years, boosting investment prospects as it plans transport and utility projects.

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