Monday, 11 November 2013 Business in Myanmar easier than you think - The Fine Print, Legal & Tax Insight --------------------------- Over the past few days, my clients have been keen to discuss the findings of the World Bank’s Doing Business 2014 report. It ranked Myanmar as the seventh-worst country in the world to do business in – definitely a place where doing business is not advisable. I think we should consider a few things when we come across these kinds of reports. First, readers should invest some time to read the full version of the report and not only the final ranking. There are suggestions to the government on how to align the current legal system with more developed legal systems (ie updating contract and company law, improving the enforceability of agreements and so on). The efforts of the current government in modernising the country and liberalising some crucial industries are highlighted as well, showing that the country is moving in the right direction. So we can say that despite the outcome, the outlook is certainly positive. Furthermore, Myanmar was not assessed in previous reports, and the World Bank would not have been as effective in analysing Myanmar without prior context to draw from. To some extent, I believe this caused the Bank’s analysts to penalise Myanmar. I also find that these reports can also be easily influenced by political issues, such as in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index issued by global civil society organisation Transparency International. In the 2013 edition, it ranked Myanmar fifth-last in the world. Based on my personal experience and that of other long-serving investors and lawyers in Asia, I can certainly state that Myanmar is not even the most corrupt country in Southeast Asia. Ultimately, investors are aware that Myanmar is still considered a high-risk country to do business in. Myanmar is a frontier market which has had very little influence on the international standard of new investments. Those interested in investing in Myanmar are motivated by the potential for large returns, and understand to some extent the risks involved. If the World Bank had taken that approach to its ranking system, then Myanmar would have finished far better. Alessio Polastri is managing partner of Polastri Wint & Partners. source: The Myanmar Times mmtimes/index.php/business/8732-business-in-myanmar-easier-than-you-think-the-fine-print-legal-tax-insight.html
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:27:38 +0000
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