April 07, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428

YANGON, April 6: Myanmar's government has privatised more than 200 state-owned enterprises since it began opening up the economy a decade ago, a senior official said on Friday.

“Altogether 215 state-owned enterprises, of the 288 proposed by 10 ministries, were privatised,” a senior official of the national planning ministry told AFP on condition of anonymity.

About another 65 enterprises are set to be sold and new proposals are still coming to the privatisation commission, he added.

All of the state firms were sold to Myanmar nationals, the official said.

“Under our policy, we will not sell to foreigners. Our government wants the local private sector to benefit. That's why we privatised the enterprises.” Of those already sold, 124 belonged to the information ministry -- many of them cinemas around the country while another 25 firms had been owned by the commerce ministry, the official added.

Official media reported on Friday that six state-owned rice mills in the Sagaing Division of central Myanmar would be privatised.

According to official figures, nearly 80,600 factories were operating around the country in 2005.

When Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, became independent in 1948, it had one of the most promising economies in southeast Asia.

Decades of mismanagement under former dictator Ne Win drove the economy into the ground as he pursued a so-called “Burmese Way to Socialism” that included extreme isolationism that severed almost all contact with the outside world.

When the current junta took power after crushing a pro-democracy uprising in 1988, they began moving ever so slowly to open up the economy to private and foreign investment.

The privatisation scheme began taking off in the mid-1990s but the government rarely releases any official data about the programme.

The government's efforts at economic reform have been hampered by sanctions imposed by the US and Europe over the detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other rights abuses.

But in recent years, keen interest from other Asian countries -- especially in Myanmar's energy resources -- have thrown the junta an economic lifeline.

Thailand last year became the biggest foreign investor in Myanmar, with a $6 billion dam project on the Salween River, which will provide electricity for Thailand.

That single project represented nearly half of all foreign investment in Myanmar since 1989, according to statistics from the national planning ministry.

Total investment since the junta began opening the economy in 1989 totalled just $14.2 billion, ministry data showed.

Last year, the official statistics also said that Myanmar had a $1.4 billion trade surplus, with exports at $3.5 billion and imports at almost $2billion.—AFP