Foreign Investment in Myanmar Decli

[darnott@xxxxxxxxxxx]

      Foreign Investment in Myanmar Declines

      Xinhua, Rangoon, 4 June 2001. Foreign investment in Myanmar totaled 
4.03 million
      U.S. dollars in two projects in the first two months of this year, 
dropping by
      52.54 percent from the same period of 2000, according to the latest 
figures
      issued by the country's Central Statistical Organization.

      The investment, which came from Singapore and Canada during the 
two-month period,
      respectively amounted to 3.53 million dollars and 500,000 dollars in the
      manufacturing and mining sectors.

      In 2000, a total of 152.8 million dollars came to Myanmar from nine 
countries
      and regions, mainly from the Republic of Korea, Britain, China and 
Canada. The
      investments were mostly injected into the sectors of manufacturing, 
oil and
      gas and agriculture.

      According to official statistics, since the opening up to foreign 
investment in
      late 1988, Myanmar had drawn a total of such contracted investment of 
7.34
      billion dollars in 356 projects as of the end of 2000. Of the leading 
foreign
      investors, Singapore ranked the first with 1.504 billion dollars, 
followed by
      Britain with 1.401 billion and Thailand with 1.264 billion.

      However, due to the Asian financial crisis in mid-1997, there emerged 
a trend
      of down sliding in Myanmar's annual foreign investment.