Myanmar Country Profile

Country Name ‘Myanmar’

Presented By Mahmudur Rahman ID#1035080Evana L.Choudhury ID#1130694Tonima Shetare Nur ID#1130607Abida Sharmin ID#1130636Sharmin Ahmed ID#1231104

Myanmar At a Glance

• Capital: Naypyidaw• Currency: kyat• Population: 56 million • President: Thein Sein• Government: Presidential system,

unitary state, Republic, Constitutional Republic

• Official language: Burmese Language

Social and Culture

Geography:• Area: 678,500 square kilometers • Is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia, • 40th-largest in the world. • It lies between latitudes 9° and 29°N, and longitudes 92° and 102°E. • As of February 2011, Burma consisted of 14 states and regions, 67

districts, 330 townships, 64 sub townships, 377 towns, 2914 Wards, ‐14220 village tracts and 68290 villages.

Climate• Northern regions of the country are the coolest, with average

temperatures of 21 °C (70 °F). Coastal and delta regions have an average maximum temperature of 32 °C (89.6 °F).

Social and Culture

• Population : About 56 million• Ethnic groups Barmar 68%

Shan 9%

Karen 7%

Rakhine 4%

Chinese 3%

Indian 2%

Mon 2%

Other 5%

Social and Culture

• Culture : A diverse range of indigenous cultures exist in Burma, the majority culture is primarily Buddhist and Bamar. Bamar culture has been influenced by the cultures of neighboring countries. This is manifested in its language, cuisine, music, dance and theatre.

• Religion

Social and Culture

• Education : The educational system of Myanmar is operated by the government agency, the Ministry of Education. Universities and professional institutes from upper Myanmar and lower Burma are run by two separate entities, the Department of Higher Education of Upper Myanmar and the Department of Higher Education of Lower Myanmar.– There are 101 universities, 12 institutes, 9 degree colleges and 24 colleges in

Burma, a total of 146 higher education institutions.

Social and Culture

• Media :Due to Burma's political climate, there are not many media companies in relation to the country's population, although a certain number exists. Some are privately owned, but all programming must meet with the approval of the censorship board.– On 20 August 2012, Myanmar announced that it will stop censoring media

before publication.

• Sport : The Lethwei and Pongyi thaing martial arts are the national sport in Burma.

Economy at a glance

Economy Of Myanmar

Rank 77th

Currency Kyat

Fiscal year 1 April – 31 March

Trade organizations WTO, ASEAN, BIMSTEC

GDP growth 5.5%

GDP by sector Agriculture: 43%, industry: 20.5%, services: 36.6%.

Inflation (CPI) 8.9%

Population below poverty line 32.7%

Labor force 32.53 million

Unemployment 5.5%

Economy at a glance

Main industries Agricultural processing; Wood and wood products ; Copper, Tin, Tungsten, iron; cement, construction materials; pharmaceuticals; fertilizer; petroleum and natural gas; garments, jade and gems.

Export goods Natural gas, wood products, pulses, beans, fish , rice , clothing , jade and gems.

Main export partners Thailand 38.3%, India 20.8%, China 12.9%,Japan 5.2%

Import goods Fabric, petroleum products, plastics, fertilizer, machinery, transport equipment, cement, construction materials, crude oil; food products, edible oil.

Main import partners China 38.9%, Thailand 23.2%, Singapore12.9%, South Korea 5.8%

Industries of Myanmar

• Agricultural Products– Rice: The major agricultural produce is rice which covers about 60% of the country's

total cultivated land area. Rice accounts for 97% of total food grain production by weight.

– Rubber: Rubber plantations are being promoted in areas of high elevation like Mong Mao.

– Sugar: Sugar plantations are grown in the lowlands such as Mong Pawk District.

• Garment ProductionIn March 2012, 6 of Thailand's largest garment manufacturers announced that they would

move production to Burma, principally to the Yangon area, citing lower labor costs.

• Illegal Drug Trade– Myanmar is the largest producer of methamphetamines in the world, with the majority

of yaba found in Thailand produced in Myanmar.– Burma is also the 2nd largest supplier of opium (following Afghanistan) in the world.

Industries of Myanmar

• Oil and Gas Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) is a national oil and gas company of Burma.

The company is a sole operator of oil and gas exploration and production, as well as domestic gas transmission through a 1,200 miles (1,900 km) onshore pipeline grid.

The Yadana Project is a project to exploit the Yadana gas field in the Andaman Sea and to carry natural gas to Thailand through Myanmar.

Sino-Burma pipelines refer to planned oil and natural gas pipelines linking the Burma's deep-water port of Kyaukphyu (Sittwe) in the Bay of Bengal with Kunming in Yunnan province, China.

• Gemstones The Union of Myanmar's rulers depend on sales of precious stones such as sapphires,

pearls and jade to fund their regime. 90% of the world's rubies come from the country, whose red stones are prized for their purity and hue. Thailand buys the majority of the country's gems.

• Tourism Since 1992, the government has encouraged tourism. However, fewer than 750,000

tourists enter the country annually.

Political and Legal structure

• Under the new constitution, the president and two vice-presidents will be selected by the parliament. Legislative--The newly approved constitution calls for a bicameral parliament. The lower house will have no more than 440 members and the upper house no more than 224. At least 25% of the legislature will be military, selected by the Chief of Defense Services.

Political and Legal structure

• Political parties: National League for Democracy (NLD) is the primary opposition party; National Unity Party (NUP) is the primary pro-regime party; the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) is a pro-regime socio-political organization; there are also many smaller ethnic parties

• Legal System : Judicial--The legal system is based on a British-era system, but with the constitution suspended, the military regime now rules by decree and there is no guarantee of a fair public trial; the judiciary is not independent. The new constitution provides for a supreme court, a constitutional tribunal, and lower courts

Legal structure

Legal structure

• The legal system of the Union of Myanmar is a unique combination of the customary law of the family, codified English common law and recent Myanmar legislation. The principles of English common and statutory law were implanted in Myanmar by the British law codes of the pre-independence India Statutes. These statutory laws based on and incorporating the English common and statutory law of the time, include the Arbitration Act, Companies Act, Contract Act, Evidence Act, General Clauses Act, Negotiable Instrument Act, Registration Act, Sale of Goods Act, Transfer of Property Act, Trusts Act and the Civil and Criminal Procedure Codes.

Political Situation of Myanmar

• Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country that was formerly known as Burma, has been under military rule in one form or another since 1962, when General Ne Win staged a coup that toppled a civilian government. The current junta, formed in 1988, threw out the results of a democratic parliamentary election in 1990 that was overwhelmingly won by the party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

• Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, is the daughter of Aung San, one of the heroes of the nation’s independence from the British Empire in 1948. For 15 years, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.

• Since taking office in March 2011, after deeply flawed elections, President U Thein Sein, a former general, has moved swiftly toward democratization, breaking sharply from the highly centralized and erratic policies of the past

Political Situation of Myanmar

• Mr. Thein Sein’s government freed a number of political prisoners and took steps to liberalize the state-controlled economy. It made overtures to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest in 2010.

• In response, in January 2012, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, returned to political life, running candidates in parliamentary elections. In April, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to Parliament and her party won nearly every seat in the elections — a startling result after her years of detention and the violent suppression of her supporters.

• Still, the Parliament remained overwhelmingly controlled by the military-backed ruling party.

• In September 2012, Mr. Thein Sein used an address to the United Nations to declare that the country’s changes were “irreversible,” and to publicly praise Ms. Aung San SuuKyi

Political Situation of Myanmar

• In mid-November, during a trip to Southeast Asia, President Obama made a historic visit to Myanmar to “extend the hand of friendship” as the country begins to throw off military rule and emerge from decades of isolation.

• During his visits United States of America and European Union’s removes some of the investment and other restrictions that were imposed on Myanmar for the last few years.

• IMF (international monetary fund) reestablished its office at Myanmar and expresses its interest to give loan for the development programs.

Trade practices between Bangladesh and Myanmar

• Bangladesh and Myanmar share a good deal of history, geography, culture and politics of both colonial and postcolonial perspectives. At present there are three types of trade between Bangladesh and Burma, – Official trade– Informal trade – Border agreement

In 1996, a border trade agreement was signed between the two governments. This allows businessmen to open letters of credit up to US$ 5000 dollars per day.

Commercial exchanges between the two countries mostly take the most of informal trade. Bangladesh imports agricultural products, spices, rice and fish from Myanmar and exports pharmaceutical products, small amounts of ready-made garments and Bangladesh-produced cosmetics, which are very popular in Burma

Obstacles to the trade development

• Bangladesh and Myanmar are the two geographically contiguous developing countries; despite similarities in the two nations trade relations between them are quite negligible. The main obstacles to the development of trade are– The total absence of a working banking system in Burma.– Burmese restrictions on visas for Bangladeshi businessmen.– The wholly artificial exchange rate of the Kyat against the dollar, which remains

unchanged at 6 Kyat while the unofficial rate is 400 Kyat to the dollar. – Trade and business are subject to the stop–go policies of the Burmese authorities. Trade

depends on access to key military personnel in Rangoon and Situation and policies can change overnight.

– Disagreements as to the maritime boundaries in the waters of Bay of Bengal. – The status of Rohingyas.

Evidence of Collaboration

• Evidence of Collaboration: Myanmar and Bangladesh – A unique case of Bangladesh–Myanmar cooperation at practical grass-roots

level is the successful microcredit project replicated by the Grameen Trust in the Delta Zone of Myanmar, bringing together 13,000 families within its loan network with an excellent record of recovery. The project which is sponsored by UNDP is run by six Bangladesh staff members of Grameen.

– Arab–Bangladesh Bank set up a representative office in Rangoon. To promote bilateral trade and facilitate trade transaction, the two countries are establishing direct banking system to replace trade payments settled through the third countries of Thailand and Singapore.

– Square a leading Bangladesh pharmaceutical company set up an office in Rangoon.

Evidence of Collaboration

– During the July-April period of fiscal 2011-12, Bangladesh exported goods worth $11.05 million to Myanmar and imported goods worth $45.10 million, as per data from the commerce ministry, Bangladesh Official statistics show that Myanmar exported 23,000 tons of marine products to Bangladesh annually, standing as Bangladesh's fifth largest marine products importing country out of 30.

– Bangladesh and Myanmar are actively pursuing a settlement through bilateral negotiations and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Both maritime baselines and the legal principles for defining exclusive economic zones will be key issues in the proceedings

Why Myanmar?

Government Dedicated to Reforming the Economy Suspension of Economic Sanctions Increased International Support Location Natural Resources Geography Increasing Trade Integration Improving Transport Connectivity Under-penetrated, Growing Domestic Consumer Market Future Upgrade of Stock Exchange

Emerging mutual Benefits

Contract Farming Import of natural resources Easy communication Under penetrated, growing domestic consumer market Manufacturing and textile industries.

Impending obstacles and threats

Potential competitorsPolitical uncertainty Infrastructure Problem