NAYPYIDAW (Myanmar): Myanmar’s dusty new capital Naypyidaw is filled with glum civil servants shuttling between their stifling new apartment blocks and faceless ministries.

But some wily business people are smiling.

Entrepreneurs from around the country have spotted an opportunity and their profits are soaring at the handful of small businesses that have opened in the purpose-built city.

The military junta which rules impoverished Myanmar began moving to this remote central location in late 2005, and as more civil servants arrive to fill up the ministries, they are searching for places to shop, eat and relax. Myoma Market, a dun-coloured block cut into red dirt hills, is the commercial centre of Naypyidaw, a city that foreign diplomats have described as a “construction site” or “resembling a barrack”.

It may not be paradise, but for Sai Lone Kyio, 30, it has offered a chance to start a business he could not afford in the old capital Yangon, 400 kilometres to the south. One place which has undoubtedly seen a boom is Pyinmana, a small logging town that was literally engulfed as Naypyidaw was built around it.

Any businessman or official leaving the station will walk into a bustling market full of vendors offering snacks and supplies.

But food and drink are not the only services people crave. Foreign officials say that with any concentration of people, sex workers will follow.—AFP