WSJEurope/"Myanmar" 22.12.98

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate wih an influential
following abroad, opposes all forms of economic and commercial
engagement with Myanmar. -- Wall Street Journal Europe Dec 22 1998

"Myanmar Hits Skids on Road to Stability"/Joining Asean Hasn't Provided
Expected Boost (Barry Wain, Staff Reporter)p.10

the story quotes only one source, a Mr. Stuart P. Larkin, 'Yangoon-based
independent analyst whose views are echoed by many private business
people...a former British fund manager, (author sic)a study commissioned
for foreign companies operating in Myanmar"

First, who is Mr. Larkin, does anyone know who he is, who commissioned
the report (SPDC) or a business lobby, the WSJ Europe suppresses that
information

Second, it ranks leading investors in Burma
"Singoapore, Thailand and Malaysia are among the top four investors in
Myanar". In what order please. "The other is Britian, ranking second,
largely explained by Premier OIl PLC's stake in an offshore gas field.)
Wain does not cite Unocal, nor Total, nor the pipeline by name. 

Does anyone have French, UK, US or other source rankings of investors in
Burma for 1998. Please post.

Re the EU, the WSJ Europe oddly, apparently not wishing to offend the
drug junta (also odd, refers only once to drugs in a reference to
survival during hard times by not declaring revenue "through undeclared
border trade, the smuggling of precious stones and timber, barter and
drug trafficking)- that is a very strange grouping of activities, making
opium drug trafficking as banal as selling stones. Thats the WSJ Europe
editorial line, is it?

Well, about the EU, odd that it counts on European readers, but says
only here "Indeed, the European Union has tightened restrictions on
Myanmar, refusing to hold its regular dialogue with Asean now that the
country is included." Nothing said about UK travel ban, SPDC ministers
banned from traveling to Europe, or members of their family, or European
Parlement resolutions condemning Total, Nippon, Unocal, Premier, and
Mitsubishi. Well, lets keep companies out of it right, but then again,
this is after all, a company business newspaper.

really, the wsj europe can do better. I am sending you the paper in
full, just to get some news on imf and world bank, and to show you how
bad a professional paper can be. Thank goodness I can listen to
Radiohead on my headphones while I type this otherwise it would be
intolerable.

dawn star
******

YANGON - When Myanmar joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
in July 1997, it expected an influx of foreign investors and tourists.
Instead, it got a dose of the economic turmoil that has devasted much of
the region.

While the country's backwardness instulates it agaainst the worst of the
contagion, it still has been hit hard. Growth has slowed, the nation's
currency, the kyat, has collapsed (oh, come on guys!sic)and foreign
investment has plummeted. To try to contain the damage, the government
seems to be turning its back on recent economic reforms.

Power cuts have reduced factory output, gasoline rationing has been
reintroduced and the cost of living has soared. Foreign-exchange
reserves remain critically low, despite extreme measures to conserve
them.

Altogher, the economy is in a 'poor state', according to an Australian
embassy report. Moverover, Stuart P. Larkin, a Yangoon-based independent
analyst whose views are echoed by many private business people, is
pessimistic about the medium term outlook, predicting higher inflation
and unemployment and a further decline in the kyat. (and he was paid for
that? sic)
'The regional economic crisis will continue to affect the economy for
another one to two years,' he says.

Funds Dry Up

Previously called Burma, Myanmar has been shunned by large sections of
the international community since the military brutally suppressed the
democracy movement and seized power in 1988. The Western world and Japan
stopped most aid in 1990, after Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy, which overwhelmingly won a general election, wasn't allowed
to take office.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate wih an influential
following abroad, opposes all forms of economic and commercial
engagement with Myanmar. The country (regime sic) relies heavily on
China for aid and arms.

Yangoon, once known as Rangoon, can't obtain funds from international
lending agencies to rebuild its dilapidated infrastructure. The US last
year banned all assistance by the IMF (sic), the World Bank and the ADB
(sic).
The ruling SLORC (sic) dissolved itself in November 1997 (??sic) ,
sacked 14 ministers while retaining the four top leaders and started
investigatiing some of the ousted officers and senior bureaucrats for
corruption. The replacement SPDC (sic) announced a renewed focus oon
economic development."

 ...."According to the IMF, the sharp decpreciation of the baht and other
regional currencies put serious pressure on the kyat in the middle of
last year. It lost one-third of its value in a few weeks, bottoming out
on the free market at 360 kyats to the dollar in December from 170 kyats
in March".

Hey guys, the black market exchange for thekyat, what is it today?

the article is longer but thats all for now...ds