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Print Edition > 20131121 Hang on, Yangon > Cover Story

Chicago chefs keep fading Macanese flavors

alive

Print |
November 21, 2013 12:00 am JST

How Trump won the Twitter war

For multinationals, it's game on in

Myanmar

India shares record first weekly loss in three

weeks as Axis Bank slumps
Mahindra to buy controlling stake in Turkish
farm machinery maker

TORU TAKAHASHI, Nikkei staff writer

Australian state forges Asia's path on

euthanasia law
more

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South Korean hamburger chain Lotteria, which recently set up its second restaurant in Yangon, is
one of the many overseas players tapping the newly opened Myanmar market.

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YANGON -- If you are a MasterCard holder, your plastic is good in Myanmar.

The best content posted

You will know this as soon as you step into the arrival lobby of Yangon
International Airport, where the familiar logo can be spotted all over the

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facility, along with the gentle boast "The first credit card accepted in
Myanmar."

Most read
The president's flock of China hawks

The ride into town brings more reminders of big business, with billboards
from such multinationals as GE, Samsung Electronics, Coca-Cola, Unilever
and Canon vying for attention along the main road into the country's

Exclusive: Toshiba's nuclear loss could top

$4.4bn
Exclusive: Toshiba seeking investment in
chip biz from Western Digital

commercial capital and largest city.

My Personal History: Carlos Ghosn (17)

Gaining depth with the Renault-Nissan
Alliance

These corporate messages may

simply be business as usual for the
companies behind them, but they
are a stunningly new part of the

My Personal History: Carlos Ghosn (18)

Bringing back an icon

Videos

scenery in a country that is only just

starting to emerge from decades of

Novel design for Singapore ebike

isolation.
Waiting for tax amnesty inflow

Though it has become somewhat of

a cliche to describe Myanmar as
"Asia's last economic frontier," the

Japan-made jewelry alloy goes

global

expression holds a lot of truth. For

more

decades, the country has been an

economic laggard, weighed down by the concussive effects of the "Burmese
Way to Socialism" and economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe.
Its per-capita gross domestic product was a mere $834 in 2012, the lowest
among the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and just
one-69th that of top-ranked Singapore.

Hello, world
Now, with democratic reforms
Editor's picks

sweeping the country and

international sanctions falling by

Who's bracing for the 'great

rotation'?

the wayside, it is all about

Myanmar's potential. It will take

South Korea IPO market

headed for big 2017

time to reboot the nation's woefully

inadequate infrastructure so that
such basic problems as power

Halal cakes become hot issue

at McDonald's in Malaysia

outages disappear, but that is not

stopping some of the world's
biggest corporate names from

Arianespace sheds costs to

keep lead in space race

jostling for a piece of the action.

With its population of 63 million, Myanmar has the makings of an attractive
consumer market and a prime production base with low labor costs. From a

Asia's business calendar in

2017

corporate perspective, the country is all the more appealing when

considering the nearby markets of China, India and the rest of Southeast
Asia, whose combined population exceeds 3 billion.
The reforms set in motion when President Thein Sein took office in March
2011 have paved the way for new investment and created a pipeline through
which dollars can flow in. Amid this air of change, the government is
creating legal frameworks to attract foreign money, including introducing a
revised foreign investment law in January this year.
As companies rush in, competition is flaring up. Take, for example, the "cola
war" between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Coca-Cola resumed shipments to
Myanmar in fall 2012 after a break of about six decades and started local
production this June. The beverage titan plans to invest $200 million there
over the next five years to boost output capacity and expand its sales
network. The investment is expected to help create 22,000 jobs.

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Cover Story

Cover Story

Myanmar's rebirth

Japan Inc.'s makers smell opportunity

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