Country Report Myanmar May 2009

Summary

The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC, the ruling military junta) will focus on protecting its grip on power, and will continue its policy of using violence and intimidation to contain its opponents.
There is little prospect that the junta will release Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the main opposition organisation, the National League for Democracy, ahead of the election that is planned for 2010.
The UN will keep up its efforts to persuade the junta to implement genuine political reform. Meanwhile, it remains unlikely that the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will take punitive action against the junta.
The government remains focused on spending heavily on the military, with few (if any) initiatives in the pipeline to support households and businesses or to stimulate the economy in the face of the global economic downturn.
Official data may continue to show real GDP expanding at an implausibly rapid pace, but the Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that growth will remain weak in 2009-10.
Based on the official price series, in 2009-10 inflation will fall from the high that it reached in 2008, but will remain in double digits.

The head of the SPDC, Senior General Than Shwe, has been promoting the planned 2010 election and has called on political parties to refrain completely? from undermining the pro-military constitution.
The junta has made new overtures to opposition ethnic-minority military groups. Given that the election is looming in 2010, the SPDC is under growing international pressure to demonstrate that the process will be inclusive.
The Asian Development Bank has suggested that recent buoyant growth in tax revenue partly reflects ongoing efforts to improve the administration of tax collection and to tighten up on tax evasion.
According to media reports, Myanmar recorded real GDP growth of 10.4% year on year in the first ten months of fiscal year 2008/09 (April-March).
In December 2008 inflation dropped to its lowest level in more than two and a half years, but it remained high, at 20.4% year on year.
Myanmars export revenue grew by only 6.8% year on year in 2008, while the import bill rose by 26.4%.
In late March China and Myanmar finalised a deal to build oil and gas pipelines running from the Bay of Bengal, through Myanmar and into Chinas neighbouring Yunnan province.

This report covers the following industry codes:
SIC Code: 2834;80
NAICS Code: 3254;62