Reuter: Burma Seeking Export0orient

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Subject: Reuter: Burma Seeking Export0oriented Foreign Investment

Burma Seeking Export0oriented Foreign Investment

   By Deborah Charles
     BANGKOK, July 16 (Reuter) - Burma is seeking foreign investment in all
sectors, with emphasis on export-oriented projects, to help boost the
economy, government officials said on Tuesday.
     "We are promoting every area of business in the economy, by exploiting
our resources in cooperating with your capital and expertise," Thinn Maung,
director of the Myanmar (Burma) Investment Commission's directorate of
investment and company administration, told a seminar.
     "Generally speaking we would be promoting export-oriented projects,"
he said in a speech to the Thai Board of Investment's Greater Mekong
Subregion business workshop.
     Thinn Maung and other Burmese officials said the sectors with the
largest potential for foreign investors were in the downstream petroleum
and agriculture industries.
     Burma's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) opened
up the economy when it took power in 1988 and has been seeking foreign
investment to help the economy which suffered during more than a quarter
century of socialist rule and the isolationist policies of former leader
General Ne Win.
     Thinn Maung said as of July 15, the government had approved 196
projects from about 20 countries since 1988, for promised total direct
investment of $4.1 billion.
     To date, about $2.5-$3.0 billion has actually been invested in Burma,
he said.
     Under the Foreign Investment Law passed by the SLORC soon after it
assumed power, foreigners are allowed to invest in Burma through a wholly
foreign-owned or joint venture with any Burmese parter.
     Burma has set a 35 percent minimum and no maximum limit for the amount
of total equity capital that must be foreign-owned in any joint venture or
partnership between Burmese and foreigners, Thinn Maung said.
     Kyi Win, director of the Agriculture Ministry's department of
agriculture planning, told the workshop the agriculture sector is a
promising one for investors.
     He said traditionally the crop sector contributes about 40 percent of
Burma's gross domestic product, about half of its foreign exchange earnings
and employs more than 65 percent of the country's total workforce.
     Thinn Maung said only 13 percent of Burma's total 67.6 million
hectares of cultivable land is under cultivation.
     He also emphasised the energy sector and its potential.
     "In the oil and gas sector, discovery of new off-shore gas fields
developed by foreign investors on a production sharing basis shows that
this sector could well be the prime driving force in the development of the
Burmese economy in the near future," he said.
     "A lot of potential can be seen in the establishment of downstream and
related industries in this particular sector," he said.
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