• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.771-781
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to identify major drivers of Myanmar's long-term economic growth and draw implications to implement development policies. This study investigated Myanmar, as the country is the most recently opened economy in Southeast Asia. This study conducted simulation analysis based on scenarios by applying World Bank's Long-Term Growth Model, Penn World Table 9.1, and World Development Indicator data. This study makes extensive use of LTGM and the LTGM-TFP extension to improve the validity of models for data calibration. This study confirms the validity of the model with data calibration and specifies scenarios for simulation analyses by setting the growth trajectory of Vietnam due to common geographical, political, and economic conditions. Main findings include that Myanmar's economic growth rate will continue to fall below 3% in 2040 without proper improvement of growth drivers. The results of this study also provide that total factor productivity growth and female labor participation are key factors for Myanmar's long-term economic growth. This study advises policymakers in Myanmar to strengthen human capital, which is crucial for total factor productivity growth in Myanmar's context and directly affects economic growth. Further, labor market policies to promote female labor participation is important to sustain economic growth.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.146-170
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper addresses the concepts of FDI-Trade-Growth nexus in Myanmar's economy and empirically investigates the interrelationships of trade, investment and economic growth to reveal the growth model of Myanmar's economy. Additionally, this paper also addresses the cooperative strategies between Myanmar and South Korea through a case study related to South Korea's economic growth. Design/methodology - Our empirical model considers the interrelationship among FDI, trade, growth, labor force and inflation in Myanmar. This study employs ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) to conduct an analysis of the FDI-Trade-Growth relationships using the time series data from 1970 to 2016 and a conducted case study of South Korea provided for practical implication on cooperative strategies between Myanmar and Korea. Findings - Export equation was chosen through the diagnostic tests. Our main findings can be summarized as follows: Export in Myanmar is positively influenced by labor force, FDI, capital formation and negatively impacted by import and instable inflation rate in the long run. In the short run, GDP and import positively influence export. The Granger causality test proves that Myanmar is an FDI/labor force-led Growth economy, where FDI and labor force are main drivers of export followed by GDP in Myanmar. The case study of South Korea provided that Korea's tax and credit system for promoting export-led FDI industries and cooperative units for joint ventures between Korea and Myanmar in export-led FDI industries are recommended. Originality/value - No study has yet to be conducted on the interrelationships of macroeconomic factors from the perspectives of FDI-Trade-Growth Nexus in Myanmar under the assumption of labor force and inflation rate as fundamental conditions. The current study also covered a relatively longer period of time series data from 1970 to 2016. This paper also conducts a case study of South Korea's experience in order to evaluate the findings and provide better policy implications.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Business Review
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.40-55
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• 2016

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has the potential to provide economic opportunities and help raise the social and political status of countries. For developing countries, ICT can be used as a tool for economic growth and social advancement in a short period of time. The benefits of ICT, however, are not only economic in nature. It can help improve professional skills, teaching quality, job creation, agricultural production, community involvement, and information use, personal relationships, and time use. These benefits are examples of how ICT has become an indispensable part of our lives. Myanmar is a developing country and is ranked low in the ICT Development Index. In terms of ICT development, Myanmar today is facing many issues such as a lack of telecommunication infrastructure, ICT awareness, electricity, and budget for ICT development. Among the economic reforms implemented by the recent government, the telecommunications sector has been opened up as a measure of economic reform. As a result of this reform, the telecommunications sector has been growing rapidly. Myanmar, however, remains behind other Asian countries. This paper discusses Myanmar's ICT infrastructure status, progress that has been made in the country's telecommunications over the last fifteen years, and the challenges that lie ahead.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.64
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• pp.213-237
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• 2014

The medical-device market of Myanmar in the recent Asian region is where the influences of Thailand, China, India and Singapore are being shown considerably with the lift-up of economic sanctions by America and the West. However, although the global capital and liberalization have widened the openness and the international concerns, the relative Myanmar's medical environment demands an active assistance and improvement. The study, recognizing the importance of Medical-Devices and their market conditions emerging as key business for knowledge-based industry, aims to obtain consequential meaningful suggestions, pursuant to relative export-concentration and sustainable market growth of Medical Devices, by analyzing inter-nation trade intensity for key Medical Device items. To do so, this study selected 8 nations in total by reviewing three points: core Medicine-advanced countries, geographically adjacent countries to Myanmar, and relative export-concentration.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.177-201
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• 2011

Myanmar had fallen behind other southeast asian nations since Burmese way to Socialism settled down. However, historically second election in Myanmar hold in 2011 and dramatic changes in areas such as Special Economic Zone announcement, the very huge inflows of foreign direct investment in a year of 2009, the infrastructure building projects, a permit of the right to strike for Labour Organization in Myanmar etc. Particularly, Foreign investments and trade with neighbouring countries are actively growing and also with Korea. But investments of Korea in Myanmar relatively are not diversity, with limited sectors such as mining and sewing manufacturing. In this point of view, this paper is trying to make implications for strategies of entry and investments of Korea in Myanmar by using previous papers related to Myanmar economies, trade and foreign investments with updated statistical data. The implications for Korea is that recently Myanmar economy is in its early stages of development. Although it can occur huge demand of railway, road, communications and constructions related to social infrastructures essentially needed for development of a country, these sectors relatively need huge investments. On the other hands, textile and sewing industry relatively need smaller investments in which investors can utilize low labour cost and a position for export to third countries. But those firms which set up for those purpose in Myanmar might have trouble creating domestic markets in future. Moreover, due to demand which occur in the early stage of growth in Myanmar, trade volume tend to increase and trading is also possible to invest but Myanmar still have lots of problems with infrastructure such as road and logistics and we need to make pre-survey for the costs and benefits of our products Finally, Myanmar government is trying to promote and encourage some of industries such as export-oriented industry, import substitution industry and labour-intensive industry. It can also means they will accumulate capital which can be sources for Myanmar economic growth.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.89-102
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• 2022

This study is designed to investigate the effect of inflow FDI on the host country's economic growth and the role of absorptive capacity in this relationship. Eight developing countries in East Asia, including Mongolia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, are analyzed. Year data from 2000 to 2018 are used. Based on the study of Hansen (1999), the panel threshold effect model is used, and human capital, R&D, and infrastructure are set as absorptive capacity by referring to Wang and Hwang (2013). The analysis results are as follows. It is confirmed that FDI has a positive effect on the economic growth of the host country, and absorption capacity strengthens the relationship between FDI and economic growth in a positive direction. At this time, it appears that a threshold exists for the moderating effect of the absorptive capacity. It presents useful implications for economic growth in developing countries.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.3-11
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• 2021

Myanmar is an undeveloped country with high development value among Asian countries. Therefore, various countries including the U.S. are considering entering the market. In this respect, demand for real estate development project is forecast to grow on increased inflow of foreigners and Myanmar's economic growth. However, Myanmar is a high-risk country in terms of overseas companies, including national risk. In this study, we conducted an in-depth interview with experts (law, finance, technology, and local experts) after analyzing data on Myanmar to extract risk-causing factors. Through this, 106 risk factors were extracted, and the final risk classification system was established by conducting three-time groupings using the affinity diagramming. And the relative importance of each factor was presented using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique. As a result, the country-related risk, the fund-related risk, and the pre-sale-related risk were highly important. The research results are expected to provide risk management standards to companies entering the Myanmar real estate development type project.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.19-40
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• 2013

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) achieved relatively rapid economic growth over the past decade. Sustainable growth among member states, however, is put into question due to macroeconomic challenges, political risk, and vulnerability to external shocks. Developed countries, in contrast, have turned into less labor-intensive technologies to further expand their economies. In this paper, we review the science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies and statuses of the scientific and technological capabilities of the ASEAN member countries. Empirical results based on STI indicators (R&D spending, publications, patents, and knowledge economy indices) reveal considerable variation between the science and technology (S&T) competence and effectiveness of STI policies of ASEAN members. We have categorized nations into clusters according their situations in their S&T productivity. Under the Korean Innovation Model, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Brunei are classified as being in the institutional-building stage, while Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam in the catch up stage, and Singapore in the post-catch up stage. Finally, policy prescriptions on how to enhance the S&T capabilities of the developing ASEAN countries, based on the South Korea development experience, are presented.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.37-37
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• 2012

The study aims to evaluate the complexity of relationships between the riparian states - China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia - in the Mekong River Basin since the mid-1990s with special reference to the discourse on hydropower development. A special emphasis will be put on the influence of China on hydropower development. Although a variety of issues on the river basin have been discussed among the riparian states, none of them has been effectively implemented owing to the lack of China's commitment to the discussions for sustainable water management. Now, a new turning point is observed in the region with emergence of the issue on hydropower development, not only in the upper basin but also in the lower basin. The discourse on hydropower in Mekong has quickly drawn attention of the public, accelerated by the onset of construction of the Xayabury Dam in Laos since November 2010. The influence of China as the upstream country with its political, economic, and military power has increasingly grown in the region over the last few decades, and such trend recently intensifies together with an expansion of Chinese commercial interests in the region. Since the establishment of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in 1995, the four MRC members have striven to push forward a sustainable use of water resources in the basin. But the legitimacy of the MRC system has been eroded due to the lack of participation by Myanmar and China, and in particular, the Chinese absence has made the four riparian states blind about the change of water regime due to the Chinese dams upstream. Environmental damages due to hydropower development might be possible, including a drop of fish yields, crop production, and damages to the river's ecosystems. Vietnam and Cambodia have already expressed their concerns over the dam construction towards China as well as Laos by pointing out detrimental impacts of the dams to their economies. China's move to collaborate with the other riparian states since 2010 has given a positive signal in terms of sustainable water management in the river. However, this phenomenon never confirms China's proactive contribution to the cooperative activities within the framework of the MRC system. Laos' initiative to build a new dam in the lower basin alarms those who are opposed to dam construction in the fear of its far-reaching damages to the environment. The question goes back to the year-long debate on policy priorities given to economic growth or the environment. The riparian states require wisdom based on a consensus about sustainable water use rather than hydropower development based on individual growth dreams.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.41-63
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• 2017

FDI can either be absorbed in the production cycle with domestic investment and create an inducement effect or it can remain as an exogenous factor and increase the volatility of GDP. The purpose of this paper is to research these different impacts that FDI could have. For that, the endogenous growth theory was employed. The statistic method used are the panel model for sectoral analysis, and GARCH model and VAR for time series analysis. Myanmar was selected as this paper's research subject because it is one of countries which had a colossal amount of FDI inflow recently. The panel analysis did not confirm the causality between sectoral FDI and sectoral GDP. The reason for this could be in the lack of data, since sectoral data exists yearly only during 2006-2016. Therefore this study conducted the times series analysis. According to the results, during 2006 until 2010, it showed signs of GARCH but the effect of FDI on GDP was nonexistent, which means FDI was not integrated into the domestic production cycle but stayed in residual terms. During 2011 to 2016, FDI seemed to affect the growth of Myanmar's GDP. The estimation confirmed the existence of GARCH and the Granzer causality test confirmed that FDI influenced the GARCH, which signified FDI increased the volatility of GDP. The VAR analysis showed responses of GDP to FDI was small(about 0.0007). This research assumes that FDI can be divided in two parts: one part which can be assimilated in the domestic production cycle and the other where it stays outside of the production cycle. The former creates production inducement effect and the latter only increases the volatility of GDP. According to this study, the latter outweighs the former impact in Myanmar.