Asian firms bridge Burma gap.

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		Asian firms bridge Burma gap
		****************************

	When Heineken NV recently announced it was withdrawing from a $30 
million brewery investment in Burma, its Singapore partner said it would 
take over the share of the Dutch brewer.

	A couple of days later, Mr Thein Tun, one of Burma's wealthiest 
businessman, said he was negotiating with Malaysia's Asia-Euro Brewery 
Sdn Bhd to continue a separate brewer Carlsberg AS abandoned after months 
of pro-tests by human rights activists.

	As groups in the United States, Europe and Australia critical of 
the Burmese military regime intensify pressure on companies and consumers 
to boycott Burma, other firms - especially those from Asia - seem only 
too happy to step into the breach.

	A Western businessman "who frequently visits Burma said that if 
companies from the US and Europe were forced out of Burma, "more Asian 
companies will step in because they want to capitalise on the attractive 
business opportunies there."

	Since the Burmese armed forces seized power in 1988 and strated 
to open the State-controlled economy to market forces, foreign investors 
- including Australians - have committed over $US 3 billion ($3.8 
billion_) to a range of projects there.

	Heineken and Singapore-based food and beverage company Fraser and 
Neave Pte are partners in Asia-Pacific Breweries Pte.

	Through Asia_pPacific Breweries they had planned to take a 60 
percent stake in a brewery they would build in Rangoon with Mynamar 
Economic Holdings Pte, a public company which the Dutch brewer 
acknowledged was effectively controlled by the Burmese military.

	Now, Fraser and Neave will buy Heineken's equity in the Burma 
projects for an undiscloded price.

	Mr Simon Koh, an analyst in the Singapore office of brokers 
Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, said the move should prove beneficial to Fraser 
and Neavce's profitability in the long term because there were only two 
foreign brewing licensees in Burma.

	"There will be start-up costs, but in a few years' time Fraser 
and Neave will have a larger (market) share," he said.

	Burma, with its rich mineral, timber and fisheries resources, is 
rated by some analysts and businessmen as a new frontier for development 
in South-East Asia.

	However, Western lawmakers are considering economic sanctions to 
make the Burmese military ease political repression and talk seriously to 
Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who heads the 
opposition National League for Democracy.

	She has called on foreign investors to withhold projects that 
benefit and strengthen the State Law and Order Restoration Council junta, 
rather than the people of Burma.

	But Burma's ASEAN neighbours, as well as China and Japan - two 
other key economic players in Burma - refuse to go along with puntitive 
measures.

	The ASEAN countries, China and, to a lesser extent, Japan, argue 
that a policy of "constructive engagement", rather than isolation, is 
likely to be more effective in bringing about economic and political 
change in Burma.

	Western human rights groups vehemently disagree.

	Western activists aiming to make Burma "the South Africa of the 
90's" have now set their sights on multi-national oil comapanies with a 
major presence in Burma, including Unocal, Texaco and Atlantic Richfield 
of the US, and Total of France.

	However, Ms Carol Scott, director of corporate communications at 
Unocal's office in Singapore, said a shareholder proposal sponsored by 
Burma activist groups that would have required the company to review its 
international code of conduct was "defeated by over 95 per cent of our 
shareholders" at Unocal's annual meeting in June.

	Unocal and Total have a joint venture with Myanmar Oil and Gas 
Enterprise, a Burmese State-owned firm, to develop a huge natural gas 
project in the Gulf of Martaban, south of Rangoon, at a cost of $US 1 
billion.

	Starting in mid-1988, it will supply gas to Thailand by pipeline, 
and eventually to Burma as well.

	Texaco, in partnetship with Myanmar Oil and Gas as well as Nippon 
Oil of Japan and Premier Oil of Britain, is developing Burma's 
second-largest offshore gas field, also for sale to Thailand.

	Ms Scott said that the joint venture in which Unocal was involved 
had already apent about $US 2 million on :"self-sustaining social and 
economic projects" in Burmese villages along the gas pipelineroute and 
more spending on schools, health clinics, roads and beidges was planned.

	"Isolating Burma from the US through sanctions will only hurt the 
Burmese people," she said, adding that Unocal's involvement projects in 
Asia in the past 30 years had "taught us that promoting prosperity 
promotes a more open society".

[Micheal Richardson, Asia Editor, the International Herald Tribune, 27 
July 1996].

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