Promises, Pitfalls await investors in Burma's frontier economy

14.03.2012

Burma, sealed off from Western investors by a thick shell of sanctions, could be open for business as soon as this year.

But even if the US Congress and White House stay on course, and finally reward the authoritarian state’s recent reforms by cracking that shell, what will investors find underneath?

The answer, experts suggest, is plenty of promise and plenty of pitfalls.

“We’re very excited. Everyone is,” said Song Seng Wun, executive director of research operations at the Malaysia-based CIMB Group, one of Southeast Asia’s largest investment banks.

“But we’re also mindful that there are a lot of doors in this long series of corridors to open,” he said. “This is a country that has to start almost from ground zero in writing its investment laws.”

The former British colony-turned-army-controlled pariah is still convincing Western heads of state that its fledgling parliament is legit. As the rest of Southeast Asia chugged along in the last two decades, Burma has been frozen in place by civil wars, state oppression and sanctions.

But Burma, officially titled Myanmar, appears ready to boom.