November 2019 saw five foreign life insurance companies gain licences to operate fully owned subsidiaries in Myanmar, heralding the start of a new chapter in the industry’s history. At the same time six joint ventures between foreign and local insurers were also licensed, with this, too, set to have a strong impact on the dynamism of the sector. The opening up of the market to these foreign…
Myanmar has enjoyed one of the most rapid and successful deployments of telecommunications infrastructure around the world, in part due to a regulatory framework that allows multiple operators to share the use of cell towers. This has ensured building and maintaining infrastructure is cost effective for the companies involved, as they can on-board additional tower tenants at close to zero cost. Lay…
Myanmar’s start-up ecosystem is coming into its own amid the development of several clusters in Yangon and an easing of business conditions in the country as a whole. Myanmar rose by six places in the World Bank’s “Doing Business 2020” report to 165th out of 190 economies after introducing a mandatory online platform for company registration and reducing incorporation fees, among other…
Although Myanmar’s installed generation capacity is 5 GW, actual generation capacity sits between 2.9-3.1 GW. With the Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MoEE) predicting that daily demand will increase by another 1.5 GW over the next few years, the authorities are looking at avenues to boost production levels. The World Bank expects demand to be even higher, forecasting an average annual…
Despite being Myanmar’s most valuable export commodity, there is still an imbalance in the supply and use of gas. The country produces 1.8bn standard cu feet (scf) of natural gas per day, but consumes just 100m scf per day. In addition, there is an extensive network of natural gas pipelines that run through most of the energy demand hubs in the country. Nonetheless, Myanmar still imports…
Mandalay is booming on the back of rising international investment and government efforts to foster the northern city as an engine of national growth. Local officials expect the economy to grow by 8.1% in 2019, outpacing national GDP growth of 6.1% and the city’s 2018 growth rate of 7.2%, the regional chief minister, U Zaw Myint Maung, told local press in March 2019. “Situated between India…
The year 2019 marked the second anniversary of ASEAN’s inaugural bond issue under the organisation’s common Green Bond Standards (GBS) – a RM2bn ($480m) issue by the Malaysian government-controlled asset manager, Permodalan Nasional. Since then, the green bond market in Asia Pacific has won many accolades, with 2018 seeing the region record the second-highest volume of outstanding, climate-aligned…
In January 2019 the Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) gave the green light for banks to raise the share of home loans in their portfolios to 5% of the total and to extend debt instrument maturities beyond the previous limit of three years. The move saw credit extended to the real estate sector surge by 200% in the first quarter, albeit from a small base, in the process enfranchising thousands of…
In a bid to address an existing infrastructure deficit, Myanmar is ramping up activity in the transport sector, which is expected to encourage further economic development. In March 2019 State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Thailand’s Prime Minister PrayutChan-o-cha officially opened the second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, two decades after the first one was built in 1997. The Thai-funded…
Myanmar has a total of nine coastal ports and more than 400 inland river ports. Its location close to major shipping routes and some of the world’s emerging economic powers, combined with a growing openness to international trade, could see the country unlock much-needed investment in maritime infrastructure in the decade leading to 2030. High Potential Myanmar’s coastal ports are at…
