2016 Myanmar Business Mission

This year's mission to Myanmar is timely for a number of reasons.  Foremost is President Obama's announcement on October 7 of the termination of National Emergency towards Myanmar, which ended economic sanctions; most notably the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, the ban on jade and ruby trade and reporting requirements for businesses investing more than $5 million.  Additionally, the White House also reinstated preferential tariffs for Myanmar under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which will grant Myanmar tax privileges on exports to the United States.
 
Myanmar is also expected to be the world's fastest growing economy, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook, which projects the country's GDP to grow by 8.6 percent in FY 2016. The Economist, earlier this year, also named Myanmar the "most favored nation in the World", given its impressive pace of democratic reform and potential for economic development. Nevertheless, the new government led by State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) will have to work on capitalizing off of this potential - which include accelerating basic infrastructure projects, addressing specific economic provisions that would accommodate better foreign direct investments (FDI)s, and increasing human capacity and development. The recently released 12-point Myanmar Economic Policy, and the newly drafted Myanmar Investment Law, which is set to be signed into law later this month, are examples of the government's initiatives to make Myanmar more competitive and business friendly.

With that in mind, the Council suggests that the following overarching themes can be used to frame industry and company-specific messages and/or policy advocacy priorities for this year's Myanmar Business Mission:

• Seek greater understanding of the priorities of the government of Myanmar by meeting with new government officials.
• Identify opportunities for U.S. companies to help Myanmar close its energy, transportation, power, and ICT infrastructure gaps and increase the resiliency of existing infrastructure.