U.S. President Barack Obama talks to the media as he meets with Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. September 14, 2016.
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President Obama said the Myanmar should now be allowed to benefit from preferential tariffs as it emerges from decades of military rule. The US had imposed sanctions on Myanmar in 1989 for human rights violations by the military during pro-democracy protests.
She also stressed that Myanmar welcomes worldwide investment to help promote strong, inclusive, and long-term economic growth.
Moe Thuzar, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said that providing trade benefits to Myanmar would light a fire under the country’s economy, as the National League for Democracy’s economic policy “recognises the importance of foreign direct investment to get the economy moving again”. “And because, in part of advocacy by the United States and others in the worldwide community, but more importantly, because of the courage and strength and resilience of the Burmese people, what we’ve seen over the last several years is a transition to elections, a representative Legislature that still has significant constraints from the previous military government but is giving voice to the hopes and dreams of a new generation of Burmese people”.
“When you are trying to invest in Burma, please don’t think you have to go with a suitcase bursting with dollar bills”, she said.
Months before planners hold an oil and gas exhibit there, the US government said it was opening the economic doors for a reforming Myanmar.
After visiting the White House, Suu Kyi met with some members of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been either targeted by sectarian violence or have attempted to flee on boats to Thailand and Malaysia.
He mentioned the ongoing transition to democracy in Myanmar is a good news story.
U.S. President George W. Bush imposed new sanctions, banning the import of products from Myanmar and the export of financial services, placing a freeze on the assets of certain Burmese financial institutions, and extending visa restrictions on Burmese officials.
On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized what he described as Suu Kyi’s “dismissive” reaction to concerns he had raised about her country’s record on human trafficking.
For now the White House is happy to follow Suu Kyi’s lead.
Washington lifted a host of financial and trade embargoes on state-owned banks and businesses in May, but U.S. firms have remained cautious.
“In part because of the progress that we’ve seen over the last several months, I indicated, after consulting with Daw Suu, that the U.S. is now prepared to lift sanctions that we have imposed on Myanmar for quite some time”. Last year, the transparency watchdog reported that Myanmar’s jade industry is worth almost half of the nation’s economic output and remains firmly in the grip of military elite, US -sanctioned drug lords and crony companies.
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A latest round of sanctions relief could ease restrictions on Myanmar’s military, which ran the country for decades and still controls important government functions like its borders and armed forces.
