If you are asked to state one unique profession within Myanmar, fortune tellers might come to mind. People here consult them whenever fortunes do not favour their circumstances. Yet most are simply prying on the misfortunes of the people to earn themselves a living. For how would Myanmar look in ten years’ time, we will not seek the answers inside these soothsayers’ parlours at the base of pagodas. Instead, we will look at the current state of affairs objectively and rationally to come up with a possible outcome on the path that the country would most likely proceed.
As Xi Jinping has stated in his book Governance of China, development is like a boat. Once you miss it, the boat is never going to come back for you. Myanmar has missed the boat to an enormous opportunity to progress from 2016 until now. After the stellar growth years of 2012-2015, the people chose an incompetent leader who spoke well on stage and committed economic suicide by focusing on nonsense and lack of focus on things that matter for economic development. Myanmar became the poorest country in ASEAN in 2017 (World Bank data) and has never recovered from that infamous standing. It is now doing even worse than in 2017, economically and militarily at least. It has fallen even behind the hyper-populated Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, because of the economic mismanagement of the Su Kyi era, instead of credible investments in infrastructure, Myanmar was left to dwell on the remains of the past infrastructure, a significant portion of which was built before the 1960s. Her administration’s most visible infra projects are not railways, highways, bridges or roads, but ‘Welcome to XX City’ signs put up in every town and city across the country.
FDI has fallen well short of what other ASEAN countries of similar populations are garnering. Vietnam and Thailand are receiving inward investments in billions of $, while the FDIs in Myanmar are still at miserable double-digit millions on average for the past four years.
Short of employment opportunities, most educated and capable have gone abroad. Think of the 5-10 million strong Myanmar diaspora in Thailand. You can go into almost all the shops in Bangkok and speak Burmese, and they will bring out one staff member who can communicate with you. Because of a lack of investment in infrastructure and diminishing FDI, Myanmar workers are deprived of the skills needed to earn increased wages in a competitive global environment. They have no experience with the latest technologies, nor are they well-versed in productivity in an office environment. The route learning that the universities taught them only prepares them to memorize. They had not learned how to self-learn or even google search, let alone use AI or programming. Even their word-processing skills are elementary.
Years of not focusing on production and exports have led to continuous budget deficits that added to the national debt burdens. If you are not producing anything, you cannot become rich. If you think of the products that Myanmar produces, other than natural resources, not many things will come to your mind. CMP perhaps. Agriculture products in unprocessed form. That’s it. How can we possibly come out of the poverty trap?
Recent attempts at price controls over foreign currency, gold, rice, edible oil, etc., are not fulfilling their intended purpose. Inflation has not gone down. Due to political instability and losses on the military front, local business confidence is in the trenches. No one is opening new shops or renting new premises, but just buying gold and $ and amassing them, adding no value to economic growth. Hence, stagflation sets in. It will not go out of fashion any time soon.
People are scared. All the cash the rich in Yangon, Mandalay, and Nay Pyi Taw have is being directed towards the great escape to a foreign land. The well-to-do in the second-tier towns have used up their buffer funds to relocate whole families into the safe heavens of Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon. Who would have thought that Lashio would fall, with the most prominent regional military command (RMC) centre as well as an air force? Who would then give the definite assurance that nothing will happen to whatever you own in Mandalay? Who would guarantee that Mandalay would not experience what has happened to Lashio? Once the artillery shells started to rain down upon the city, it would be too late to move out of the city in an orderly manner by then.
With losses of major territories in most states and some divisions, this civil conflict is not likely to end in the foreseeable future. That would commit a lot of national income, resources, and personnel into the war efforts, depriving other much-needed areas of their budget allocations and further downgrading the education system, public healthcare, and infrastructure development.
Which country are we starting to look like?
A country where the local wagesA country still at civil ent its national income and the survival of fellow relatives. A country with poor infrastructure, slums and a bad safety record. A country where their diaspora was doing most menial jobs overseas, ranging from maids to cleaners to factory workers to construction workers.
Can you imagine that country? Its name starts with ‘P’.
Myanmar is not there yet in totality, but it is on the verge of becoming one. But unless we shake up and shape up quickly, we will be that country with all the above characteristics in less than half a decade.
Consider yourself warned, my fellow citizens!
