Time to shop, but not for democracy

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By MATTHEW PENNINGTON(SYDNEY MORNING HERALD)in Rangoon			Date: 8
July,97A leading Burmese property developer has established a gleaming
newdepartment store down the street from humble Rangoon headquarters of
MsAung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
Fifty metres from the ramshackle office where the NLD party meet and
plan how to outwit the military authorities, the Yuzana company has
established a two-storesy shopping, hotel and office complex.
UNcaorned at the prospect of the occational street blockade, the Burmese
construction giant opened Rangoon's latest "one-stop" shopping
experience on Shwegondine Road in a blaze of State media publicity on
June 7. 
" over the past five years after the government opened up the economy in
1989, so many store have started up.People have more money in their
pockets now," said Yuzana's managing director, Dr Myat Hlaing.
He said that despite having democratic oppsition on its doorstep,
business had been booming  at the centre."They 're doing politics. We're
doing business."
The Yuzana centre is the firm's second major store in Rangoon,as
traditional open plan marketplaces in the Burmese capital begin to give
way to air-conditioned shopping centres. While the purchasing power of
the average Burmese was still small, labour costs were low (starting at
$40 a month) and owing your own store meant you paid on rent, Dr Myat
said.
To keep price down, mark ups are on average about 10 per cent, much
lower than Thailand or Singapore, so the secret is to keep up a high
volume of trade.
A week before opening, barbed wire barricades manned by riot police and
armed soldiers had sealed off Shwegondine Road , as the Government make
sure that the NLD did not convene a party congress there.

Agence France-Presse