Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to a small group of students from Roosevelt Senior High School in northwest Washington, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 during a forum. The U.S. also dropped Myanmar from inclusion under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1997, which allows American presidents to annually declare the Asian country in a state of national emergency.
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The Obama administration will make a power transition later and US foreign policy to Myanmar may change in accordance with the new government.
The announcement was made during the visit of State Counselor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi’s to Washington where she met with U.S. President Barack Obama and asked him to drop the remaining sanctions.
(AP Photo/Thein Zaw). Maung Maung Than, a seaman, talks during an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. Removing barriers to trade and investment also will give US business more leverage vis a vis China, which has been Myanmar’s chief source of foreign investment for years.
Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is calling for U.S. companies to bring investment to the former pariah state, saying economic success would help convince people and the powerful military that democracy is the best way forward.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s pledge on September 14 to lift the remaining U.S. economic sanctions against Myanmar was hailed by the U.S. business community and is expected to attract more investment not only from American companies but also from other countries.
Suu Kyi says that lifting sanctions entails some political and economic risk, but adds, “It is time now for our people to depend on themselves”. By ending most of the remaining sanctions Obama has cleared the way for them to invest and trade more freely with Myanmar’s fast-growing economy, and for companies there to do business with the U.S. The restoration of Generalized System of Preferences trade privileges, such as lower import tariffs, will open the way for more exports from Myanmar of garments and textiles, core products of its nascent manufacturing sector. “It is the right thing to do in order to ensure that the people of Myanmar see rewards from a new way of doing business and a new government”, Obama said. Massive illegal trade in goods including jade and timber continues, as does civil war with many ethnic minorities.
Suu Kyi said that economic development could help foster national reconciliation.
Obama’s announcement will go into effect when he issues an executive order ending the national emergency, first declared in 1997, which referred to the country as an “extraordinary threat”, and under which the sanctions had been renewed annually for almost two decades.
For the USA, wider access to a resource-rich economy of 54 million people whose annual growth is estimated to average over 8 percent for the rest of this decade. Today it’s among Asia’s least developed and poorest countries, with more than a quarter of the population living in poverty.
The U.S. eased broad sanctions since Myanmar began political reforms five years ago, but kept in place targeted restrictions on military-owned companies and officials and associates of the former ruling junta.
“AWC (Asia World Company) expects to see a stronger economic growth and foreign investments in Myanmar with the removal of the sanctions”, the company said by email.
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Suu Kyi said she wanted US companies to bring investment “best practices” and urged them to report any signs of corruption.
