As Myanmar returns to the world stage, Thailand can play a key
supporting role in the early stages, says ambassador.
Thai investors should seize the
opportunity to invest in Myanmar within the next three years before the Asean
Economic Community is formed in 2015, according to Thailand’s ambassador.
Pisanu Suvanajata said Myanmar
was about to enter three golden years as it begins to take its place once more
on the world stage after decades of isolation.
Next year, the country will host
the SEA Games in Nay Pyi Daw, which will also be the first time it will open
its new capital to the world.
In 2014, as the chair of the
Association of South East Asian Nations, Myanmar will be the venue for numerous
high-level ministerial and leaders’ meetings throughout the year. That will be
followed, if all goes according to plan, by a general election in 2015.
All of these events are being
closely watched by the member countries of Asean and by the world as a whole.
Mr Pisanu said the Thai
government would support Myanmar as it takes a leadership role in these
activities, the same way Thailand supported Laos when it staged the most recent
SEA Games.
“The results of these two events
(the SEA Games and the Asean meetings) will help the Myanmar government win the
popular vote in the next general election. So the next three years will be the
golden years for Thailand too,” he said.
“I’m confident that the
relationship between Thailand and Myanmar will not be negative in the three
years ahead.”
However, the ambassador cautioned
that three years from now, Myanmar might not need to depend so heavily on
Thailand and Asean as it did in the past.
Myamnar’s neighbours stood by it
for years and insisted that their policy of engagement with the military regime
was the best way to bring about change, despite widespread criticism from the
international community that Asean wasn’t taking a tough enough stand.
Now Myanmar in the past year or
so has become the darling of Asia with investments pouring into the country and
a lot more projects waiting in the wings as sanctions imposed by major western
powers wind down.
Myanmar President Thein Sein told
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra during his visit to Bangkok last June, his
first outside Myanmar in 10 years, that he saw Thailand as a model for
development, said Mr Pisanu.
The Thai ambassador said he had
observed many positive results in the brief time since Myanmar began its moves
toward democratization, such as rising GDP numbers. Rising income levels and
investments have all spurred the economic growth of the natural resource-rich
country.
He urged Thai businessmen to seek
good opportunities in Myanmar and to speed up their activities before other
foreign investors arrive, causing more competition.
Makers of consumer products and
other goods that are no longer viable to manufacture in Thailand should
relocate to operate in Myanmar, said Mr Pisanu.
He admitted that many Thai
investors had visited Myanmar but few had made commitments to do business there
yet.
“They need Myanmar to be ready
for investment but they have not seen the risk and high return. Myanmar might
not be ready at the moment but its economy is turning around fast and its
readiness will be evident soon,’’ said Mr Pisanu.
Thai investors, he said, should
have a clear position and must be prepared to move quickly, and in this respect
the Thai embassy can help them.
He added that various projects
now under way, notably the Dawei deep-sea port and industrial megaproject, were
likely to go ahead as planned. However, Italian-Thai Development Plc (ITD), the
Bangkok-based lead contractor, may have to accept a diminished role.
ITD has been struggling to raise
funds amid concern that the new government of Myanmar is not as enthusiastic
about Dawei as the former junta was. The Thai company may have to bring in
equity investors to get the project moving, but Mr Pisanu affirmed it would go
forward.
“I am confident that this project
will move ahead as planned,” he stressed.
Mr Pisanu said there were many areas
that Myanmar was looking to focus on, and that the country had developed trust
that it could rely on Thai companies to undertake a lot of the work.
Among the areas the country needs
to invest in is infrastructure such as roads, airports and power. Other
priority areas include healthcare, power generation and supply, and education.
He added that other larger Thai
companies such as industrial estate developers were keen to invest but he
wanted more small and medium-sized industries to also look at Myanmar as the
country still was competitive in many industries.
Interestingly, the number of
Myanmar people entering Thailand has increased significantly during the past
year, he said, adding that they tended to consume services in Bangkok,
especially health and dental care and beauty services.
However, Mr Pisanu also warned
the Myanmar and Thai governments to be aware of the drug problem as greater
movement between the two countries starts to take place. Both sides, he said,
need to seek serious cooperation as the problem will likely intensify after the
road link between Dawei and the Eastern Seaboard of Thailand is completed.
Thanida Tansubhapol and Umesh
Pandey
Business & Investment Opportunities
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