MYANMAR BUSINESS SURVEY: DATA ANALYSIS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS enterprises, joint ventures between Myanmar enterprises and foreign enterprises. At the same time, the Government encouraged the establishment of joint ventures between SOEs and domestic and foreign investors in order to upgrade the capacity of SOEs through the transfer of technology and knowhow.
7
In addition to financial incentives such as tax and duty exemptions, special economic zones are directly managed by the central Government and provide the international standard facilities. Traditional industrial zones are typically developed by subnational government authorities, and equipped with substandard facilities and utility supplies.
8
The Myanmar Company Act and associated rules and regulations are expected to be revised within a couple of years, while other business-related laws, such as the new Private Industrial Enterprise Law and legislation on intellectual property and arbitration, have also been drafted in cooperation with international donor agencies (OECD, 2015).
9
Those seven themes include: institutions; human capital and research; infrastructure; market sophistication; business sophistication; knowledge and technology outputs; and creative outputs. 10
China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam.
11
Transparency International has published the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) annually for the past 18 years. The CPI allows comparisons of public sector corruption across countries. The CPI is a composite indicator based on various surveys of corruption perceptions from business people and country experts in each country. In the case of Myanmar, CPI 2014 is based on seven surveys: (a) the World Bank’s Country Performance and Institutional Assessment for Myanmar; (b) the WEF Executive Opinion Survey; (c) the International Country Risk Guide; (d) the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Country Risk Assessment; (e) the Global Insight Country Risk Rating; (f) World Justice Project-Rule of Law index; and (g) the Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index (Transparency International, 2014b). 12
This global business survey mainly focused on medium and large-sized enterprises, and excluded micro or smaller enterprises.
13
It should be noted, however, that both the Institute of Economic Development and JETRO have conducted a number of business surveys in Myanmar. Although they addressed limited geographical or sectoral issues, the surveys made substantive and substantial contributions to enhancing the understanding of the current situation of the Myanmar economy and its challenges (see, for example, Aung, 2011; JETRO, 2013; and Kudo, 2005). 14
12