Weekly Business Roundup (February 20, 2009)

By WILLIAM BOOT

Thailand Plans Doubling of Burma Cross-Border Trade Points

The new Thai government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is proposing to open up the border with Burma to more trade links.

It wants to double the number of official cross-border trading points to six, and is also offering financial support for the creation of a so-called east-west trade corridor—something long mooted by India.

The proposals were presented to the Burmese military government during a Thai trade delegation visit to Burma earlier this month, led by Abhisit’s special adviser Photipong Lamsam. The visit attracted little media attention.

Thailand is Burma’s biggest trading partner, mainly through gas purchases and investment in major hydroelectric projects.

Bangkok media reports suggest that the Abhisit government envisages greater trade opportunities after junta-promised elections in 2010, but diplomatic sources told The Irrawaddy that the latest impetus is more likely driven by the global economic slump which is now beginning to bite Thailand.


UK Travel Firms Defend Business Links with Burma

Several British tour operators have defended their business links with Burma after a report by a human rights group accused them of sending tourists to hotels and resorts financially linked with the military regime.

UK-based Tourism Concern says the tourist destinations include “establishments blacklisted under European [Union] trade sanctions because they are owned or directed by members of the regime and regime associates.”

In a report this week on tourism in Burma, the human rights group named 20 British companies connected to regime-linked projects, notably on the Ngwe Saung coast, where it says that 16,000 people have been evicted from their land and lost their livelihoods through displacement since 2000.

The projects had “involved the compulsory dismantling and relocation of several villages from the coast,” the report says.

“The regime continues to view tourism as a lucrative economic sector for
expansion and development, particularly in terms of generating foreign direct investment and currency exchange.”

Several of the named British tour operators defended their tourism business in Burma.

“There is a lot of potential harm you can do by isolating a country. At this point in time we have no reason to believe that [Tourism Concern’s claims] are the case,” Bales Worldwide told the British industry magazine Travel Weekly.

Among other British companies named are Audley Travel, Trans Indus and Abercrombie and Kent.

“The tour operators maintain that travel does not benefit the regime, but helps its people,” Travel Weekly reported.

Tourism Concern says it will push the British government to tighten and enforce EU restrictions.

"It is the responsibility of tour operators to ensure they abide by European legislation and do not provide financial benefits to the military dictatorship," said Tourism Concern director Tricia Barnett.


Bangladesh Seeks Direct Banking Links with Burma

Bangladesh is stepping up its commercial contacts with Burma despite conflict over dispute sea boundaries.

A trade delegation led by a top figure in the Bangladesh central bank is currently visiting Rangoon.

According to Bangladeshi media the delegation will remain in Burma for eight days and have “detailed discussions with the concerned authorities.”

The president of the Bangladesh-Myanmar Business Promotion Council is in the delegation, along with several bank officials.

The delegation’s aims include establishing direct banking links and open letters of credit to ease commercial transactions.

Border trade between the two countries has increased in recent months.

But there have also been border tensions in the wake of a confrontation in September-October last year between the navies of the two countries over a Burmese government-approved exploratory drilling rig moving into disputed territorial waters in the Bay of Bengal.

The rig, chartered by South Korea’s Daewoo, was hunting for gas and oil.
It later withdrew.

“The election of a new democratic government in Dhaka has spurred efforts to regenerate the Bangladesh economy and the country’s neighbors are clearly first targets,” said the commercial attaché at a Bangkok embassy, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Bangladesh is also attempting to copy India by trying to use Burma as a conduit to other markets, for instance Thailand and Yunnan in China.”


Burmese Businessman Linked to Mystery Stock Rise in US

US market regulators have halted trading in a mysterious Canadian company linked with a Burmese businessman after its stock inexplicably rocketed in value from a few cents to US $28.50 per share.

The unexplained rise placed the value of Future Canada China Environment Inc at more than US$1 billion, even though it has no known business activities, reports the Vancouver Sun newspaper.

The paper said the stock value rocketed after the apparent involvement of Michael Hua Kyaw Myint Hu, boss of the Vancouver register firm NAH Development Group Inc.

Trading was stopped by the US Securities and Exchange Commission pending inquiries.

The firm claims to have wide interests, ranging from property development to forestry, energy, minerals and biological products. However, no trading information on the company can be found and Internet links to NAH Development blank out.

It’s unclear how the stock value of Future Canada rocketed.
Hua Kyaw Myint Hu is known to have left Burma under mysterious circumstances.

According to the Vancouver Sun, he was helped to move to the US and subsequently Canada by the US government Drug Enforcement Administration.