Category Archives: Myanmar (Burma) News

Myanmar Investment News

Fashion industry going strong Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , ,

fashionReposted from Myanmar Business Network

Undaunted by the former sanctions regime, Myanmar’s home-grown garment industry is thriving, industry experts say. They attribute the success to the industry’s ability to cater to local tastes.

Over the past five years, local garment brands have been taking over more space because of their competitive price and good quality, some say. Unlike export-oriented businesses, they can employ and pay staff year-round without the need to wait for orders from overseas.

“We can pay the same wages throughout the year, without night-work and overtime, because we are operating the factory regularly. We know the tastes of Myanmar women and what kind of designs they prefer. Normally we copy the designs from Thai garments,” said Daw Sein Lae Lae, owner of Dear Brand garment factory in Shwe Pyi Thar township. The factory has more than 400 workers. More…

Mandalay to build 20 hotels providing over 1400 rooms Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , , , , ,
Mandalay Hill Resort Hotel

Mandalay Hill Resort Hotel

Reposted from Eleven Myanmar

Twenty hotels providing over 1,400 rooms will be built in Mandalay to meet growing demands for hotel rooms, according to Mandalay Region’s Hotels and Tourism Department.

“The number of tourist arrivals kept increasing in Mandalay over the years, but we never have any hotel shortages before. At present, about 20 hotels are being built in Mandalay with permission from the authorities,” said Myo Myint, head of hotels and tourism department (Mandalay Region).

He said the rise of hotel industry in Mandalay is due to the relaxation of restrictions on hotel construction licenses and a growing interest of businessmen in the hotel industry. More…

Green Earth Power to develop Myanmar’s first solar plant Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , , ,
Myanmar Deputy Minister for Electric Power Aung Than Oo, fourth left, and Supasit Skontanarat, Green Earth Power (Thailand) managing director, right, on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding for Myanmar

Myanmar Deputy Minister for Electric Power Aung Than Oo, fourth left, and Supasit Skontanarat, Green Earth Power (Thailand) managing director, right, on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding for Myanmar

Reposted from The Nation
By Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

210MW to come onstream in less than two years

Myanmar will host the world’s third-largest solar power plant within 21 months, providing the country with an extra 210 megawatts of electricity to satisfy industrial needs.

Green Earth Power (Thailand), the developer of the power plant, on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power for the country’s first solar power plant. Total project value is US$275 million (Bt8.15 billion).

Paul Bernard Yang, president and chairman of GEP, said the company would sign the power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Ministry of Electric Power within the next 90 days.

The solar plant is scheduled to be completed within 18 months after the PPA is signed and would have the capacity of 210MW to produce up to 350 million kilowatt-hours. More…

Ministry of Information granted licenses to 10 more private daily newspapers Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , ,

MTE 655 Page 1_13_page_001Reposted from Myanmar Business Network

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information Tuesday granted 10 more private daily newspapers for publication in the country in addition to the 16 permitted earlier, signifying a further step taken by the government in media reform.

The 10 newly-granted daily newspapers significantly include two English dailies — Myanmar Freedom Daily and International Herald Tribute.

The International Herald Tribute, owned by a U.S. company, will be reprinted as the original one to be published in Myanmar.

The other eight dailies are National Times, Eleven News, Nagani, Dana Economy, Warasein, News Watch, Pyi Myanmar and Myanmar Post.

The granting of the 10 new dailies has brought the total number published or to be published in Myanmar to 26. More…

Indonesia’s Top Cement Firm Plans $200m Burma Factory 1

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , , , , ,
PT Semen Indonesia Chief Executive Dwi Soetjipto poses for a photograph at his office in Jakarta on April 29, 2013.

PT Semen Indonesia Chief Executive Dwi Soetjipto poses for a photograph at his office in Jakarta on April 29, 2013.

Reposted from The Irrawaddy
By JANEMAN LATUL & ANDJARSARI PARAMADITHA

JAKARTA — PT Semen Indonesia plans to build a $200 million factory in Burma in 2014 as it expands its business in Southeast Asia to take on Thai rival Siam Cement Pcl, the head of country’s biggest cement maker said.

The Burma plan is the latest expansion strategy by the Gresik-based company, which became the first Indonesian state-owned firm to make an overseas corporate acquisition when it bought a majority stake in Vietnam’s Thang Long Cement in 2011.

“If everyone is in Vietnam and Myanmar and we just play in Indonesia, then, like playing chess, we will be squeezed,” Chief Executive Dwi Soetjipto told Reuters on Tuesday, while listening to rock music in his spacious office in Central Jakarta.

“That’s why we put our bishop in Vietnam and our knight in Myanmar.” More…

Myanmar banks prepare for joint-ventures Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , ,

120530-myanmar-bank-1a.grid-6x2Reposted from Myanmar Business Network

Banks in Myanmar are preparing for joint ventures with foreign lenders, even though they will not be allowed until the Central Bank of Myanmar is made independent in 2014, the Myanmar Times reported.

A spokesperson at the deputy director general level of the Central Bank in Nay Pyi Taw said joint ventures would be allowed once the Central Bank Law was enacted by parliament and the bank is made autonomous. However, parliament will not sit again until late June 2013. The spokesperson added that bank officials are already writing the rules and regulations for when the law, which was returned to parliament by the President’s Office for review, is passed by parliament.

“Our rules and regulations need to protect domestic banks but at the same time we need to open up to international banking because our banking sector has been left behind for 50 years,” he said. The Central Bank will approve foreign banks in four stages, he said: representative offices, joint ventures, subsidiaries and wholly owned branches. More…

Ford joins U.S. business stampede into Myanmar 1

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

fordthai-4_3_r536_c534Reposted from USA Today
By Chris Woodyard

It joins other companies in looking to do business in the formerly repressive nation

Ford Motor is formally announcing today that its car and truck lineup will go on sale in Myanmar, joining other American companies rushing to get a foothold in the Asian nation long treated as an international pariah.

Rather than going in directly, Ford says it will partner with a subsidiary of Myanmar-based conglomerate Capital Diamond Star Group. Ford says it will offer a full line of vehicles by the end of the year.

It joins other U.S. companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Caterpillar in coming to the nation also known as Burma that was off limits for years because of human-rights abuses tied to a repressive military junta. With reforms in place under a new government in Myanmar, the trickle could become a stampede of business wanted to tap another promising emerging market. More…

Maverick operator Digicel takes on the big boys in Myanmar Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , ,

A security personnel wears a cap bearing the brand of Digicel as he mans a gate at a soccer match at Aung San stadium in YangonReposted from Reuters
By Jeremy Wagstaff

(Reuters) – Cellular operator Digicel Group Ltd jumped into Myanmar early and big, hiring staff, funding local sports, negotiating land deals for thousands of cell tower sites and signing up hundreds of partners for retail outlets.

The strategy helped propel it onto the shortlist for a mobile license in one of the world’s last mobile frontiers, putting an operator that ranks 65th globally in terms of customers up against giants such as Vodafone Group Plc.

Whether its strategy pays off or not, industry insiders say, Digicel, largely unknown outside the Caribbean and some Pacific islands, has shaken up a usually conservative industry. More…

U.S. Seeking To Invest in Myanmar, Boost Trade Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , ,

us myanmarReposted from Myanmar Business Network

The U.S. government was seeking ways and means to make investment in Myanmar, prioritizing the sectors that could bring improvement in daily of ordinary people, Acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis was quoted by local media as saying Saturday, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.

Addressing the meeting with students and officials of social organizations Friday, Mr. Marantis underlined that the most important point was to realize a market-oriented economic system in Myanmar and that market liberalization was the key to economic development, said the New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

He went on to say that the U.S. government would carry out economic cooperation with Myanmar and work to boost bilateral trade, according to Xinhua. More…

U.S. Seeking To Invest in Myanmar, Boost Trade -Xinhua Reply

by • Myanmar (Burma) News • Tags: , , , ,

us-and-myanmarReposted from The Wall Street Journal

YANGON, Myanmar–The U.S. government was seeking ways and means to make investment in Myanmar, prioritizing the sectors that could bring improvement in daily of ordinary people, Acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis was quoted by local media as saying Saturday, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua. More…