China has lifted its ban on bird’s nest imported from Malaysia and has granted approval for nine Malaysian firms to restart exports. The lift is conditional however and the firms must make improvements to meet standards set by the Malaysian Health Ministry which is working with China. China had previously banned Malaysian bird’s nest due to suspected usage of nitrate additives.
Vietnam and China extended an agreement to jointly explore for oil and gas in the Gulf of Tonkin until 2016. The pact was originally signed in 2006 where the countries were looking to gain access to the potentially large stores of oil under the Gulf. The agreement came as a surprise considering the recent tension caused by territorial disputes in the South China Sea region.
The Myanmar government will renegotiate billions of dollars’ worth of its natural resources deals to clamp down on corruption and impose tougher environmental standards. Businesses owned by the previous military regime and Chinese companies are expected to be most affected. “Apparently, the government is preparing to renegotiate all previously agreed-upon projects to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place and to subject future projects to stricter social and environmental controls,” said a report by the Asia Society, a non-profit organisation dedicated to studying Asia.
The Myanmar government has announced it will soon hold an all-inclusive conference for ethnic minorities. The announcement comes following the draft of the Comprehensive Union Peace and Ceasefire Agreement, which is the result of work by the European-funded Working Group for Ethnic Coordination (WGEC), and was released last month in the Myanmar Peace Centre. While it is hoped that the agreement will serve as a basis for the all-inclusive dialogue, many issues still remain to be addresses, such as the code of conduct for the military and for armed ethnic groups.
ANZ has officially opened a representative office in Myanmar but ANZ was the first Australian bank to win approval to establish a presence last December. The representative office will serve as the first point of contact for customers interested in doing business in Myanmar, but Australia has been strengthening ties with Myanmar following the economic reforms.
Myanmar’s healthcare system faces several challenges before it can deliver effective and affordable care. Despite a rise in government budget, healthcare spending is still low at 3.9% of the total budget, compared with 20.1% allocated to the military. But the increased budget might not benefit patients yet as there is widespread corruption in the healthcare sector. Patients are frequently expected to make under-the-table payments to ensure they will receive quality care, or they can expect longer waiting times and even being ignored completely by the hospital staff.
The government will improve the protection of labour rights and intellectual property to ensure that before the end of this year Myanmar will be reinstated in the generalised system of preferences (GSP), which will grant Myanmar exports duty-free access to the US market, according to officials at the Ministry of Commerce. New legislation on minimum wage and standards for occupational health and safety, as well as new copyright legislation, will be discussed in the next session of parliament.
A group of 12 Nobel laureates released an open letter via the Nobel Women’s Initiative on 20 June, condemning the ongoing violence in both Kachin and Rakhine states and calling upon Thein Sein and Myanmar’s leadership to make reconciliation a “top priority.” The letter came following the 12th World Summit of Nobel for Peace Laureates.
Aung Sun Suu Kyi, opposition leader and head of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD), has united with leaders from five major ethnic political parties which are all members of United Nationalities Alliance (UNA), in a push to amend the constitution ahead of general elections in 2015. Suu Kyi emphasized the importance of gradually reducing the 25% of seats currently held by the military, as well as addressing other outstanding contradictions in the 2008 constitution. Along with the NLD’s Aung San Suu Kyi, party leaders attended from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, the Arakan League for Democracy, the Mon National League for Democracy, the Zomi National network, and the Karen National Congress for Democracy.
Thailand and Myanmar have signed an agreement to create a joint venture for developing the Dawei Special Economic Zone in Myanmar, which will draw capital from investors from Japan as well as other countries. The development of Dawei SEZ and related areas is expected to require US$1.4 billion of investments during the first 5 years, between 2014 and 2018. During this phase, a road will be built from Dawei to Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province, as well as a small port, a natural gas power plant, a water reservoir, and a residential area.