In her first major international speech since her release from house arrest in November, Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke for the first time about investment opportunities in Burma.
In an articulate pre-recorded message to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Suu Kyi lauded the potential for investment in Burma to a gathering of world leaders, businessmen, politicians, academics and civil society representatives.
Following growing criticism of her party's intransigence on the existing economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia, Suu Kyi acknowledged that the people of Burma has been left behind while their neighbors develop economic ties with the junta, and exploit Burma's abundant natural resources at the expense of internal political conflict in the country.
“We have already missed so many opportunities because of political conflicts in our country over the last 50 years,” said Suu Kyi in her speech. “Despite an abundance of natural resources, Burma's development has lagged far behind its neighbors.”
At first glimpse, her speech leads to the conclusion that Suu Kyi admits the sanctions have failed and have restricted Burma's development; even more so when she went on to encourage foreign investment, albeit with principles attached.
“I would like to request those who have invested or who are thinking of investing in Burma to put a premium on respect for the law, on environmental and social factors, on the rights of workers, on job creation and on the promotion of technological skills,” she said.
Does this speech mark a radical U-turn in Suu Kyi's attitude toward sanctions? Did she simply want to make a point about foreign investment? Or is she offering yet another olive branch to the generals, touting herself as a cheerleader for the new government?
“I don't think her speech was a departure from her past approach,” said Prof. Sean Turnell of Macquarie University in Australia, a longterm economic expert on Burma. “What she said was not only sensible and reasonable in terms of social justice, but also in terms of sound economics.
“She really called for an infusion of foreign investment in Burma that was both in and of itself intrinsically beneficial in terms of Burma's longterm economic development, and for the sort of environment that would maximize the benefits of such investment.”
Indeed, the speech proves Suu Kyi's commitment to the people of Burma to improve the lot of the common citizens while sacrificing the political platform of her party, which was coincidentally denied the right to exist by Burma's Court of Appeal on the same day she gave this speech at Davos.
Has her speech lessened the contentious debate about Burmese sanctions? Several Rangoon-based economists have recently analyzed whether the existing economic sanctions really hurt the ordinary people or the junta and its business circle.
Heading back to 1997 when the first US economic sanctions were imposed on the Burmese regime, more than 75 percent of Burma's population was agrarian or reliant on the agriculture industry for their livelihoods.
Then, as now, the traditional export markets for Burmese agricultural produce are largely within Asia, with a very tiny market in Africa, and nothing in North America or Europe. As the Asian countries did not impose economic sanctions on Burma, and in many cases actively engaged with the junta, no barriers existed in Asian trade and investment in Burma.
Therefore, the rise or decline of trade between Burma and its Asian neighbors has never had anything to do with the Western sanctions. Of course, at the same time it is fair to say that Asia's eagerness to do business with the junta is the major reason for the ineffectiveness of the economist sanctions. But on the whole, US and EU trade has played a minuscule role in the country's economy since long before sanctions hit the table.
The US financial sanctions blocked the junta's US Dollar transaction in its international trade, but Burma's business elite are still able to use the Euro and other currencies. Therefore, the junta's ability to sell natural gas to Thailand has remained unhindered, and it has in recent years been able to expand the market to China.
Natural resource exports such as oil, gas, gems and teak are thriving businesses, but ones which require a huge investment up front. Indisputably, these contracts have remained the domain of the military generals, their families and their cronies, and they do not affect the common people of Burma.
The tiny portion of the country's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) from the industrial sector goes only to local markets.
Monday 14 February 2011
Suu Kyi's Davos Speech: A Radical U-Turn?
via irrawaddy.org
