Business News on Burma (March 5 & 6

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Business News on Burma (March 5 & 6, 1996)

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Business News on Burma on March 5 & 6, 1996
---------------------------------


Repressive Burma Gaining Investment from Asia despite Western Concerns

By P.T. Bangsberg, The Journal of Commerce 

 Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News 

Mar. 5--Once Southeast Asia's wealthiest country, Burma has slithered into a
morass of poverty and political instability. Now it wants to change that with
the help of the outsiders it once shunned. 

Despite rich natural resources and a generally literate people, the country
is treated like a pariah by many Western countries that are upset at the
military government's treatment of dissent and human rights. 

Liz Claiborne and Levi Strauss & Co. of San Francisco both stopped sourcing
garments from Burma. The Macy's unit of Federated Department Stores and Amoco
Corp. of Chicago also withdrew. 

Unocal Corp. of Los Angeles, Texaco Inc. of White Plains, N.Y., and PepsiCo
Inc. of Purchase, N.Y., still operate there despite pressures from human
rights groups. 

As with Vietnam before it, however, champions of the philosophy of ethics in
business are finding moral disapproval doesn't carry the weight it once did. 

Foreign investment totaled $2.75 billion through March 1995 and was forecast
by the government to hit $4 billion by the end of 1995. Final figures haven't
been published. 

Britain, France and the United States are the largest providers of direct
investment at $1.35 billion, nearly all in oil and gas exploration in remote
areas. Asian firms have left them well behind in other industries likely to
produce much faster returns. 

The long U.S. boycott of Vietnam had been shot full of holes by enterprising
Asian companies long before it was officially lifted two years ago. One
result was that U.S. companies lost out on lucrative opportunities to rivals
from Japan to Australia. 

A new report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council implies the same
could happen in Burma, a Texas-sized 260,000 square miles housing 44 million
people nestled between India, China, Thailand and Laos. 

At the end of World War II, the self-governing British colony was the
region's powerhouse, thanks to oil and other natural resources. By 1987, the
United Nations classified it as a less-developed nation. Per capita income is
less than $250 a year. 

Tun Kyi, the army general who holds the post of trade minister, said Burma
has achieved average annual growth of 7.5 percent in the last few years. UN
data show growth of 6.4 percent for 1994, up from 6 percent in 1993. 

While foreign investment poured into Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
and other near neighbors, Burma shut itself away in a bid for self-reliance
reminiscent of North Korea's. 

The first free, multiparty elections in 30 years were won by the democratic
opposition in 1990 and promptly disallowed by the ruling military. 

In an attempt to revive the economy, focus is now being placed on foreign
investment policy as a key component of economic reforms by the governing
State Law and Order Restoration Council. 

SLORC's five-year plan targets primary products and export-oriented
industries for development. Wholly foreign-owned firms and duty-free imports
of capital goods are permitted and a three-year income tax holiday is on
offer. 

The government is promising that investments won't be expropriated and that
profits can be repatriated. 

"If investments under negotiation in mining, energy and export-oriented
manufacturing come to fruition, Burma could gain substantial foreign exchange
inflows to stimulate business," the Hong Kong trade council reckons. 

"The labor force is highly productive and with the average salary around $18
to $25 per month, the country is very attractive to labor-intensive
industries such as garment manufacturing," said Jackie Wu, a trade council
economist who recently led a mission to Burma. 

There is a literacy rate of about 80 percent, a large proportion of whom
speak English. Unemployment stands at 60 percent, the council estimates. 

"Such a large pool of literate workers available at very competitive wages
has the potential to change Burma's manufacturing landscape very quickly,
given some modern machinery," it said. 

Mr. Wu also said that no quotas are imposed on products exported from Burma
to the European Union, "and it enjoys the lowest tariffs under the
Generalized System of Preferences." 

Hong Kong clothing and textile companies are beginning to recognize the
country's advantages for exporting to Europe, he said. 

In resource terms, Burma possesses, besides oil, significant deposits of
copper, zinc, lead, gold, silver, jade and other precious gems, the TDC
report says. 

Against those advantages, Burma's transport links need massive investment,
with the road and rail links seriously overburdened. 

Telecommunications also need upgrading. With only one fixed line for every
1,000 people, there is a six-month waiting list for a telephone, despite an
installation cost of $1,500. 

LIZ,FD,AN,UCL,TX,PEP, 

END!A8?JC-BURMA 
*****************

UNOCAL Announces New Myanmar Gas Discovery

LOS ANGELES, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Unocal Corporation (NYSE: UCL)
today announced the discovery of a potentially significant new gas field
located about six miles (10km) south of the previously discovered Yadana
field in the Andaman Sea offshore Myanmar.

Further studies are under way to prove the commerciality of the
offshore Myanmar discovery.  The field could easily be produced through
the Yadana platform complex.

The Moattama 5A-1 exploratory well, drilled in comparable horizons
to the Yadana field, was drilled to a total depth of 5.074 feet and two
drill stem tests yielded a cumulative flow rate of 26 million cubic feet
per day (mmcf/d) from 180 feet of gas-bearing pay.  The new field has
been named "Sein," meaning "diamond."

The exploratory well is the first well completed under the six-well
1996 exploration drilling campaign being conducted on Moattama blocks 5
and 6 by a consortium led by Total, SA., operator of the project.

Co-venturers participating in the consortium include:  Unocal
Myanmar Offshore Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Unocal Corporation (28.26%);
Total (31.24% interest); Thailand's PTTEP International Limited (25.5%);
and the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (15%).

In February 1995, the co-venturers signed a 30-year gas sales
contract and pipeline agreement calling for deliveries of 525 mmcf/d to
Thailand beginning in mid-1998.  Most of the Yadana natural gas produced
will be shipped via a 36-inch, 416-mile (669km) pipeline to a 2,800-
megawatt electric power plant southwest of Bangkok.  A separate sales
agreement calls for 125 mmcf/d of gas to be supplied to Myanmar for
domestic use.

CO:  Unocal Corp.; Unocal Myanmar Offshore Co. Ltd.; Total; PTTEP
     International Limited; Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise

ST:  California

IN:  OIL

SU:  DSC
***************

ASEAN: China Sees Trade Ties as Key to Economic Stability

LOS ANGELES, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Unocal Corporation (NYSE: UCL)
today announced the discovery of a potentially significant new gas field
located about six miles (10km) south of the previously discovered Yadana
field in the Andaman Sea offshore Myanmar.

Further studies are under way to prove the commerciality of the
offshore Myanmar discovery.  The field could easily be produced through
the Yadana platform complex.

The Moattama 5A-1 exploratory well, drilled in comparable horizons
to the Yadana field, was drilled to a total depth of 5.074 feet and two
drill stem tests yielded a cumulative flow rate of 26 million cubic feet
per day (mmcf/d) from 180 feet of gas-bearing pay.  The new field has
been named "Sein," meaning "diamond."

The exploratory well is the first well completed under the six-well
1996 exploration drilling campaign being conducted on Moattama blocks 5
and 6 by a consortium led by Total, SA., operator of the project.

Co-venturers participating in the consortium include:  Unocal
Myanmar Offshore Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Unocal Corporation (28.26%);
Total (31.24% interest); Thailand's PTTEP International Limited (25.5%);
and the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (15%).

In February 1995, the co-venturers signed a 30-year gas sales
contract and pipeline agreement calling for deliveries of 525 mmcf/d to
Thailand beginning in mid-1998.  Most of the Yadana natural gas produced
will be shipped via a 36-inch, 416-mile (669km) pipeline to a 2,800-
megawatt electric power plant southwest of Bangkok.  A separate sales
agreement calls for 125 mmcf/d of gas to be supplied to Myanmar for
domestic use.

CO:  Unocal Corp.; Unocal Myanmar Offshore Co. Ltd.; Total; PTTEP
     International Limited; Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise

ST:  California

IN:  OIL

SU:  DSC
**************



02:47 03-05-96