Myanmar has maintained high rates of economic growth – around 6 to 7 per cent – for several consecutive years now, amongst the fastest in Asia, said Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in her address delivered at Asean Business and Investment Summit 2019 in Bangkok on November 2.
In her speech, the Myanmar State Counsellor said: “In emerging and frontier markets such as Myanmar, our MSME are estimated to provide four in five new positions in the formal sector – some 90 per cent of total employment when the informal sector is also included. Therefore, in consideration of this year’s theme – Empowering ASEAN 4.0 – I very much welcome our focus on micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, arguably one of our region’s most important sources of job creation, human empowerment and economic growth.”
In Myanmar, it is our micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises that are currently at the front line of this transformation. Our MSMEs are a driving force within our domestic economy. Not only are they crucial employment generators, they are also a source of national innovation, wealth creation, poverty reduction and human empowerment. Ensuring the health of this critically important sector as we make our transition will be vital to ensuring sustainable, inclusive, quality growth, and to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. It is therefore crucial that we put into place a supportive business and investment enabling environment that ensures our MSMEs can keep up with the relentless pace of contemporary change, better manage uncertainty, embrace complexity, and realise technology’s promise, she added.
As you will know, Myanmar has undergone and is still in the midst of multiple, simultaneous, complex transitions. Much like our transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, these transitions have affected all aspects of our country’s social, political and economic life. No sooner had Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab introduced the phrase “Fourth Industrial Revolution” into our common lexicon in December of 2015 we took over the reins of government in a newly democratic Myanmar. Since then we have remained fully committed not just to the pursuit of sustainable and inclusive economic development, not just to striking a careful balance between development and stability, but also to preparing our country, and our young people, in particular, to take hold of the new and emerging drivers of change that will enable Myanmar to make that much needed quantum leap into the 21st century, she continued.
As a result of our collective efforts, we have maintained high rates of economic growth – around 6 to 7 per cent – for several consecutive years now, amongst the fastest in Asia. This growth has been sustained in ways that do not threaten economic stability nor risk economic overheating, she said.
