ABSTRACT
Introduction In all of Southeast Asia, Myanmar is perhaps the only country that is facing an unexpected transformation on a series of fronts, what the World Bank calls a “triple transformation.”1 Politically, Myanmar has decisively moved away from an authoritarian political system to one that is seemingly a more open liberal democracy, witness the elections of November 2010 and by-elections of April 2012. The latter has been considered a watershed in Myanmar’s politics that brought the National League for Democracy, long an outlawed social movement, into the mainstream of political life in Myanmar. Headed by former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected candidates of the NLD today constitute the largest opposition party in Myanmar’s Parliament. The State Law and Order Restoration Committee (SLORC) is now defunct as was its predecessor, the Burma Socialist Program Party from whom it usurped power in September 1988. The overt disappearance of the generals in Myanmar’s political life signal that perhaps military rule has firmly ended, giving way to a civilian-led democracy based on regular elections and open contestation. This, however, has yet to be tested when the next general election in 2015 is scheduled to take place. Also, a National Human Rights Commission has been created, and media freedoms have been restored through abolition of censorship. A second transformation is in the economic sphere. Since the April 2012 elections, a series of economic reforms have seen rapid changes in Myanmar’s economy. Chief of these are the following: the abolition of a multiple exchange rate regime and the introduction of a managed float of the Myanmar kyat established currently at an exchange rate of US$1 = Kt.818; liberalization of car importation; gradual liberalization of the telecommunications sector that resulted in cheaper pre-paid SIM card services; and a signed Memorandum of Understanding with the International Monetary Fund which entail a series of marketoriented policies, among them further exchange rate reforms, a deficit cap at around 5 percent of GPD, improved taxation and fiscal management, and clearing of international arrears. All these are aimed at improving the country’s macroeconomic stability, in particular, and, more generally, at creating a climate that is conducive to market operations.2
