BANGKOK ― Fifteen years ago this month, the world’s eyes turned to Southeast Asia and then to South Korea and across the Asia-Pacific region as what would become known as the Asian financial crisis unfolded, ending a period of business euphoria about the so-called Asian miracle.
In Thailand, after a decade of economic growth averaging 9 percent per year, the bubble burst first, when the government was forced to float its currency in July 1997. The crisis spread, as the value of currencies and equities in South Korea, Indonesia and elsewhere plummeted. Once booming economies were brought to their knees. Construction projects halted, businesses closed shop, and thousands lost jobs.
How soon we forget. Today, there is a new euphoria emerging, with again Bangkok at its heart. This time though, the focus is west of the border in Myanmar.
With Thailand as a gateway, more and more businesses are finding their way to Myanmar to talk shop. They hope for a new chapter in the tale of Asia’s economic growth ― one to follow earlier chapters on Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea.
Opportunities that companies from China once dominated are opening. General Electric just signed a medical equipment deal with two hospitals in Myanmar, becoming the first U.S. company to restart business in the nation since Washington eased sanctions.
Representatives from business and the development world are rushing in to scope out opportunities for involvement. International finance institutions and aid agencies are also rushing in, at times with little sense of cooperation or coordination.
One can understand why. In an initial assessment by staff of the Asian Development Bank, the multilateral financial institution on whose Board of Directors I once sat, the message is clear: the infrastructure of a once rich nation was left to deteriorate through the decades. The 1962 adoption of a “Burmese Road to Socialism” was a road to ruin, with the economy coming to a virtual standstill.
According to the ADB staff assessment, opportunities exist across the board to invest in and upgrade Myanmar’s energy, transport, urban development and water, agricultural and natural resources, and education sectors. Mining, hydropower development and forestry are also identified as priority sectors with a caveat. In these areas, a compromise, the ADB assessment argues, will need to be reached between the country’s overall economic development and long-term conservation of its resources.
Much has been written about the extensive role of China in Myanmar and the rise of large emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China ― the BRIC. Yet, as elsewhere, it is not just China that companies must contend with. Businesses also face what I have termed a new lower-cased “bric” that poses perhaps an even larger challenge ― bureaucracy, regulation, interventionism and corruption.
New entrants in Myanmar face an uncertain bureaucracy, regulations that are unequally applied or enforced when they exist at all, interventionism by government at the expense of market forces, and crony capitalism, if not outright corruption. The reemergence of ethnic and religious tensions also suggests the added challenge of sectarianism.
Yet, as the saying goes, without risk, there are no rewards.
From infrastructure to financial services, how can multinationals, whether Korean or American, invest in a way that helps ensure the long-held dream of doing business in Myanmar doesn’t become a nightmare? Investing responsibly remains a challenge when there are so many grey areas, and few rules and procedures in place.
While at the ADB, I spoke regularly on the importance of focusing on the “3 Ps of responsible development,” namely a focus on people ― on results and ensuring development efforts and dollars ultimately reached the people most in need; on planet ― on ensuring development did not short-change the future for the present, particularly when it came to natural resources extraction; and on partnership ― on ensuring development was done in coordination not just with other development agencies but also increasingly with civil society and the private sector.
My view that the private sector played a critical role in a country’s emergence from poverty was not without its detractors. The push-back though was often less about the role of the private sector in theory, but the behavior of a few businesses in reality.
As the Asian economic crisis spread from Bangkok 15 years ago, new scrutiny came to bear on the roles of governments and of private sector players, including financial institutions and speculators, in building and bursting economic bubbles.
Today, as companies from Seoul to Washington descend on Myanmar in ever increasing numbers, they might well ponder whether they are taking part in the start of a Burma bubble or Myanmar economic miracle. At the end of the day, business executives, shareholders and stakeholders alike also must consider not just how much money is to be made in Myanmar, but also how that money is to be made. Risk management will be critical in what remains very much a frontier state with weak institutions and governance.
Time will tell if we are witnessing a mad rush to Myanmar, but one lesson that also should not be forgotten by the business and development communities is that being first in is no guarantee of the best or most sustainable results.
By Curtis S. Chin
Curtis S. Chin is a senior fellow and executive-in-residence at the Asian Institute of Technology, and a managing director with RiverPeak Group. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank (2007-2010). ― Ed.
