အရောင်ရင့်မှတ်တမ်း – နိုဝင်ဘာ ၂၀၁၆

kaiNovember 3, 201610min23310

Japan Pledges Billions for Myanmar’s Development

Money includes expected investment by private companies, government grants and loans by government-affiliated institutions

Shinzo Abe and Aung San Suu Kyi in Tokyo on Wednesday. ENLARGE
Shinzo Abe and Aung San Suu Kyi in Tokyo on Wednesday. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko/Press Pool

TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday pledged ¥800 billion yen ($7.7 billion) in public and private support for Myanmar’s development in a meeting with de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hoping to lift the democratically elected government there.

The figure includes expected investment by private companies as well as government grants and loans by government-affiliated institutions. It also includes ¥40 billion to help ethnic minorities lift their living standards and facilitate reconciliation after decades of conflict.

“Peace-building and national development are inseparable,” said Ms. Suu Kyi, a 71-year-old Nobel peace laureate, in a joint news appearance with Mr. Abe.

Her visit to Tokyo, the first since her National League for Democracy came to power in March, followed visits to China, India, the U.K. and the U.S.—major players in regional geopolitics. All are hoping that the opening of Myanmar, which has a population of 54.3 million according to the United Nations, in recent years could give their companies opportunities.

Mr. Abe said Japan would accelerate the development of the Thilawa special economic zone, a Japanese-led 2,400-hectare (5,900-acre) industrial park on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The 400-hectare first stage has attracted 78 companies from 15 countries so far.

Among them are machinery maker Kubota Corp., which hopes to sell tractors and combine harvesters to rice farmers in Myanmar, and Wacoal Corp., which began producing bras for export to Japan and Thailand in September.

Myanmar wants more Japanese companies to come, but lack of power supply remains an obstacle. Myanmar is a producer of natural gas, but it is mostly exported to China and Thailand, while its coal is of a low-grade variety not suited for power generation.

Myanmar business leaders will be joining Ms. Suu Kyi in the latter leg of her five-day visit, which concludes Saturday. “The dispatch of the mission is a strong message from Myanmar that it wants to partner with Japanese companies,” said Toshihiro Mizutani, an expert on Myanmar at the state-backed Japan External Trade Organization.

Japanese businesses have been watching whether the government led by Ms. Suu Kyi would continue the economic opening begun by former President Thein Sein and his military-led government.

Tokyo’s closeness with Mr. Thein Sein reportedly irked Ms. Suu Kyi, and a falloff in approvals for foreign investment this year further stirred concern in Japan.

But Ms. Suu Kyi’s visit to Washington in September and the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions in the following month have generated renewed optimism. Last month, Myanmar enacted a long-awaited investment law, which is expected to simplify the approval process for foreign investment greatly.

Mr. Abe said the two countries share basic values such as democracy and fundamental human rights and pledged that “Japan will fully support” Ms. Suu Kyi’s goals.

Write to Mitsuru Obe at mitsuru.obe@wsj.com


Obama on FBI: We don’t operate on innuendo

10 comments

  • kai

    November 16, 2016 at 11:19 am

    Donald Trump Says Electoral College ‘Genius’ After Calling It ‘Disaster’

    By TOM LIDDY

    Nov 15, 2016, 10:34 PM ET
    What a difference four years makes.

    A newly elected Donald Trump has changed his tune on the Electoral College, calling it “genius” after his win in the presidential election — a far cry from when he blasted it four years ago.

    Trump, despite trailing by nearly 1 million ballots in the popular vote, with 94 percent of the count in, won an Electoral College victory 290-232, with Michigan outstanding.

    A large part of that victory was claiming Rust Belt states that were considered largely safe for Democrats, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — a move that stunned observers. Trump won by narrow margins in both states
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/donald-trump-electoral-college-genius-calling-disaster/story?id=43564890

  • kai

    November 16, 2016 at 5:39 pm

    http://www.7daydaily.com/story/80921
    မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့မှ စာရင်းများအရ ၂၀၁၅ တစ်နှစ်လုံးတွင် မုဒိမ်းမှုပေါင်း ၆၈၂ မှုရှိခဲ့ပြီး သက်ငယ်မုဒိမ်းမှု ၂၃ဝ ကျော်ရှိခဲ့သည်။ ၂၀၁၆ တွင်တော့ ၁ဝ လအတွင်းမှာပင် မုဒိမ်းမှု ၇၆၁ မှုရှိခဲ့ပြီး သက်ငယ်မုဒိမ်းမှု ၃၈ဝ ကျော်ရှိခဲ့သည်။ ရန်ကုန်တိုင်းအတွက် ၁ဝ လအတွင်းသက်ငယ်မုဒိမ်းမှုပေါင်း ၇၄ ခု ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့ပြီး ထိုအရေအတွက်မှာ ရန်ကုန်တိုင်းအတွင်းမှာပင် လေးရက်လျှင် ကလေးငယ်တစ်ဦးနှုန်းလိင်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ စော်ကားခံနေရခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။

    Wed, 2016-11-16 08:30
    Issue No.
    အတွဲ (၁၅)၊ အမှတ် (၃၆)

  • kai

    November 17, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    election results. If only there were something they could have done!
    By Philip Bump November 16 at 9:30 AM

    Of America’s 320 million-odd residents, only about three-quarters are eligible to vote (mostly because they’re over the age of 18). Of the group that could vote in the presidential election, the U.S. Election Project’s Michael McDonald estimates that about 58.1 percent did — meaning that 41.9 percent of eligible Americans didn’t vote last week.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/a-lot-of-non-voters-are-mad-at-the-election-results-if-only-there-was-something-they-could-have-done/?Tid=sm_fb#comments

  • kai

    November 22, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    Cuomo Gives Inspiring Speech: ‘NY Still Knows What America Is Supposed To Be’
    by Jen Chung in News on Nov 20, 2016 12:06 pm

    At Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, Cuomo said that he and New York will fight against the spread of fear, “If there is a move to deport immigrants then I say start with me. I am a son of immigrants. Son of Mario Cuomo, who is the son of Andrea Cuomo, a poor, Italian immigrant who came to this country without a job, without money, or resources and he was here only for the promise of America.”

    http://gothamist.com/2016/11/20/cuomo_inspiring_speech_against_hate.php

  • kai

    November 22, 2016 at 3:33 pm

    ‘Calexit’: Proposal submitted for California to secede from US
    Monday, November 21, 2016 05:59PM
    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
    A group calling for California to secede from the United States submitted a proposed petition Monday seeking a ballot measure that would strip the state constitution of language that says California is an inseparable part of the nation.
    The U.S. Constitution does not provide for state secession.
    Experts say the only way to legally secede would be to change the federal Constitution, which requires the approval of Congress and 38 states.
    http://abc7.com/politics/calexit-proposal-submitted-for-california-to-secede-from-us/1619134/

  • kai

    November 23, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    Natural disasters push 26m into poverty annually: World Bank

    Posted 14 Nov 2016 22:21 Updated 14 Nov 2016 22:3
    A recent UN study of 117 countries, both rich and developing, estimated total global asset losses from natural disasters at US$327 billion (304 billion euros) a year.

    But if lost consumption – when medicine or schooling for example that was barely within reach before becomes unaffordable – is included, the bill totals about US$520 billion annually, the World Bank found.

    Based on a global survey of 1.2 million people in 89 nations, the report also showed that 26 million people fall below the income threshold of US$1.9 (1.75 euros) a day, a widely accepted measure of poverty.

    “This is surely a conservative figure,” Hallegatte told AFP.

    Myanmar’s Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which claimed some 140,000 lives, caused some four billion dollars in damage, according to the UN.

    But it also forced up to half of the country’s poor farmers to sell off land and other assets to relieve debt following the cyclone, pushing them deeper and more irretrievably into hardship — making the true cost much higher.
    http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/natural-disasters-push-26m-into-poverty-annually-world-bank/3288058.html

  • kai

    November 24, 2016 at 6:06 pm

    Mattis to Trump: Beer, Cigarettes Work Better Than Waterboarding
    Retired Gen. James Mattis “surprised” President-elect Donald Trump by suggesting that he rethink his position on waterboarding, telling him that “beer and cigarettes” were a better alternative in terror suspect interrogations.
    Trump said Mattis told him, ” ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ ”

    Military.com | Nov 23, 2016 | by Richard Sisk
    http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/11/23/mattis-trump-beer-cigarettes-work-better-waterboarding.html

  • kai

    November 30, 2016 at 9:20 am

    ‘I can’t take it anymore’: Ohio State attacker said abuses of Burma’s Muslims led to ‘boiling point’
    By Annie Gowen November 29 at 3:42 AM
    The Ohio State University student who carried out a knife attack on campus Monday wrote in a Facebook post shortly before the rampage that the abuse of a little-known Muslim community in Burma had driven him to the “boiling point,” writing, “I can’t take it anymore,” CNN reported.
    “Seeing my fellow Muslims being tortured, raped and killed in Burma has led to a boiling point,” Abdul Razak Ali Artan allegedly wrote on his Facebook page shortly before Monday’s rampage, where he injured 11 people with a butcher knife before police killed him.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/29/i-cant-take-it-anymore-ohio-state-attacker-said-abuses-of-burmas-muslims-led-to-boiling-point/#comments

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