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Myanmar: Government vows more reforms as it sees economy taking off this year
The government has plans to intensify reforms to boost growth and further attract foreign investments as it sees the economy taking off this year, said Union Minister U Kyaw Win of the Ministry of Planning and Finance.
The new government – which took over in the late 2015 – has finished the transitional phase and has already set up measures to address the budget deficit, trade deficit and inflation, Minister U Kyaw Win told delegates at the Myanmar Investment Forum.
“Myanmar is like a plane running on the runway in 2016, but it is ready to take off in 2017,” he told local and foreign businesspersons who attended the forum.
“Our mission is also trying to fix things… to boost the economy,” he said.
To accomplish this mission, U Kyaw Win said the government will not only focus on protection of national interests but will also tackle the challenge to attract more foreign investments.
“We will prevent the monopoly which has persisted in Myanmar due to years of protectionism. We need to renew old laws which have censorships and the new investment law is the first one the government has already renewed,” he said.
To minimize the trade deficit, the ministry is pushing for an import substitution with more focus on the manufacturing sector in the country.
It is to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in acquiring land, securing finance and accessing new technology.
“To face the challenges of joining the ASEAN economic community, SMEs play vital role. If the SMEs are not enough, they need to forge joint ventures with foreign investors,” U Kyaw Win said.
Filling the infrastructure gap is also one of the major priorities for the new government, especially in the power supply industry. The government is inviting the private sector to get involved in infrastructure projects.
The government is also trying to amend the tax collection system with the combination of old laws and new governmental procedures to make revenue collection in line with international standards.
The Planning and Finance Minister said everybody who needs to pay tax must pay without exemption.
But taxpayers will be treated with fairly.
The deputy minister for the Ministry of Commerce, U Aung Htoo told participants that although Myanmar was isolated from a large part of the global economy for many years, it has been implementing reforms since 2010 that paved the way for the country’s re-integration into the international community,
He said that Myanmar’s trade has increased from US$25 billion in 2013-14 to US$29 billion in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
U Aung Htoo said the government is committed to further liberalisation of the trade sector.
He said that the way forward for the trade and investment sector in Myanmar was through simplification of trade procedures, reducing non-tariff measures and encouraging formal and normal trade from informal and local trade.
Myanmar will also be taking advantage of – and will be fully utilising – the GSP offered by industrialised countries and opening the trade sector for foreign enterprises, especially for wholesale and retail.
The country will also work on improving export financing, export processing zones, promoting domestic trade, special economic zones, bonded warehouses, logistic hubs, dry ports, river port and cold storage, promoting private sector development and import substitution and export-led economic growth.
Among those who attended the forum were businesspersons and officials from China, Japan, Australia, the US and Germany. More than half of the participants were from China, asking questions about land acquisition, tax discrimination, exchange rate fluctuation and documentation processes.
Source: http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/business/26307-government-vows-more-reforms-as-it-sees-economy-taking-off-this-year.html