The Irrawaddy Magazine

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Irrawaddy Business Roundup (November 30, 2013) Posted: 29 Nov 2013 06:36 PM PST Bangkok Street Protests 'Could Boost Burma's 2013 Tourism Tally' Civil unrest in Bangkok and other Thai cities could give Burma's 2013 tourism a spurt to boost the year's tally to around 2 million, industry observers said. Continuing anti-government mass protests will lead to holiday cancellations, said the trade newspaper TTR Weekly, and travelers could look to Burma. "Travel industry leaders have voiced deep concern over the current political unrest, pointing out that if it continues another week the trade should brace for cancellations and a loss of confidence in Thailand," said TTR Weekly. Burma already clocked more than 1.5 million visitors this year up to the end of October and the final 2013 tally could reach 1.9 million or even 2 million, said the paper quoting figures from Naypyidaw's Ministry of Hotels and Tourism. "More airlines are due to fly to tourist destinations in [Burma] and more overland checkpoints will be upgraded to allow international visitors to enter the country," said TTR Weekly, quoting a ministry official. "Thailand is [Burma's] leading travel supplier, followed by Japan, China, South Korea, and Malaysia. Most tourists visiting from Europe come from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland," said the paper. "Thais travel to [Burma] for both business and leisure. Buddhist pilgrimage visits are popular." Unilever Aims to Double Food Business in Burma Every Two Years The food ingredients producer and supplier Unilever Food Solutions intends to double its business in Burma every two years, the company's Bangkok-based Southeast Asia managing director said. From a start-up in 2010 delivering foodstuffs such as sauces to 200 Burmese restaurants, the firm now serves 1,000 restaurants in the country, Prasith Preechachalieo told The Nation newspaper. In association with the Myanmar Restaurant Association, Unilever is one of the sponsors of the SEA Games to be held in Burma Dec. 11-22 and is helping train staff to cook for the expected 4,000 athletes. "Thailand is still our [ingredients] production base for Indochina including [Burma], Laos and Cambodia in the business-to-business market, but when the market grows the company may set up a new plant in [Burma] in the future," Prasith said. Unilever Food Solutions is part of the giant British-Dutch food, beverages and hygiene products group Unilever based in London and Amsterdam. Rice Export Slump Leaves Burma Far Short of 3 Million Tons Target Burma has been able to export just under 413,000 tons of rice in the current financial year to date— only half the volume exported in the same period of 2012, government and industry leaders said. The low volume of overseas sales means the rice industry will fall far short of an ambitious target of 3 million tons for the 2013-2014 financial year proposed earlier by the Ministry of Commerce. With just over four months left of the financial year, Burma had exported 412,740 tons between April 1 and November 15, Eleven Media quoted the ministry as saying. Myanmar Rice Federation Secretary-General Soe Tun blamed the export decline on several problems, including a surfeit of rice on the international market and a drop on domestic production caused by higher costs and weather-affected smaller harvest. Neighbor Bangladesh Edges Closer to Being a Burma Gas Importer Bangladesh could soon be in the market to buy natural gas from Burma. The Dhaka government has approved plans for a US $200 million offshore floating terminal to process imported liquid natural gas (LNG) in a bid to ease Bangladesh's acute gas shortage. The terminal, easier to assemble than a land-based one, is to be located near Cox's Bazar close to the Burmese border on the Bay of Bengal to relieve energy shortages suffered by Bangladesh's main port city of Chittagong, the gas industry website Energybangla said. US firms Astra Oil and Excelerate Energy have been named as the preferred bidders for a contract from the Bangladesh government to build the LNG terminal, said Dhaka's New Age newspaper. Excelerate Energy of Texas is a specialist firm in building floating LNG terminals. Scores of factories have had to be closed in Chittagong because of the lack of gas to fuel electricity generation in the city. The industrial city gets less natural gas now than five years ago, the Financial Express reported recently. In 2008, Chittagong received 6.8 million cubic meters per day. Today it has on average only 5.2 million cm, the Express said. LNG is normal natural gas chilled into liquid form so it can be transported easily in sea tankers. New Non-State Newspapers Struggle to Survive in Marketplace Publishers of new non-government daily newspapers are struggling to survive financially as they face a shortage of advertising revenue and distribution cost problems, the New York Times reported. Twelve dailies were established six months ago following the end of state control of the industry, but they have to compete with government newspapers which still monopolize advertising revenue. Three of the 12 have already been forced to close due to financial losses, said the paper's reporter Thomas Fuller. "Distribution in big cities is still unreliable for the private papers, especially during the rainy season, and nearly non-existent in the countryside. And a typical cover price of 20 [US] cents a copy for the private papers is too high for many readers, publishers say," the paper said. "The state publications sell for a fraction of the price and have plentiful advertising, a legacy of military rule when they were the only dailies in the country." The post Irrawaddy Business Roundup (November 30, 2013) appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

‘They Shouldn’t Be Ill-Treated for Their Occupation’ Posted: 29 Nov 2013 06:00 PM PST Dr. Sid Naing, the Burma country director of Marie Stopes International (MSI), speaks to The Irrawaddy in Rangoon. (Photo: Sai Zaw / The Irrawaddy) The question of how to handle the sex industry in Burma was raised in Parliament earlier this year, with a proposal to legalize and regulate the trade ultimately rejected by lawmakers. The issue is a controversial one in Burma, pitting those who adhere to what they call "traditional Burmese cultural values" against those who approach the subject from a public health perspective, arguing that it is better to bring prostitution out of the shadows. According to data collected by the United Nations and Burmese government, an estimated 0.45 percent of women in the country aged 15-49, or between 40,000-80,000 people, are sex workers. The Irrawaddy recently interviewed Dr. Sid Naing, the Burma country director for Marie Stopes International (MSI), a London-based NGO that provides sexual and reproductive health care to millions of under-served women around the world. The doctor discussed whether the country's sex industry should be officially sanctioned, and described how Burmese culture has at times been an obstacle to the implementation of sex education programs in the country. Question: In our country, parents generally don't talk about sex education or share related experiences with their children. Prostitution is a crime and promiscuity is considered social deviance. What is your read of the situation? Answer: Prostitution is seen as a crime because the law says so. Whether it should be that way or not has to be debated among the general public, legal experts and concerned individuals in order to find a solution. However, the thing is that parents don't want to talk about sex with their children at all. Neither do the teachers because they think talking about it would bring disrespect upon them. What we suggest is asking a third party, which both parents and children trust, to talk about sex. Children do need to know about it. If they grow up without that knowledge, by the time they find out, they might have already had intercourse without any protection. Difficulties arise when it is termed 'sex education' at schools. It is not teaching about how to make love. In fact, it is educating children to make them aware of the good and bad, cause and consequences, of sex, as well as its dangers and how to deal with them. In some schools, we were asked not to talk about it with children who had already passed eighth grade. We were told that we could talk about anything but condoms. The bad does not wait for children. Who will protect them? Do we have a responsibility to let them know as much we can about how to protect themselves? The danger does not come with an age specification. Q: In our country, some doctors are pushing for proactive programs on contraception and sexually transmitted disease protection. Others say such efforts should be prevented because they encourage sexual promiscuity. What do you think? A: These two lines of thinking will exist. We will continue to argue for how to contain the bad and how to bring more positive outcomes based on the current situation. What we are being attacked for the most now is related to emergency contraception pills. Many people do not see the lives of women who were saved by these pills. We can't amend the law or change the culture so we will have to do what we can. There are those who are grateful for us but don't dare say so because of shame. Those who are not grateful for us speak out loudly. Q: In some foreign countries, prostitution is legal, licensed and regulated. Proponents of this approach say it helps reduce transmission of sex-related diseases and crime rates to a certain extent. How come Burma only has a law to penalize sex workers and no legislation to protect them? A: Like drugs, the prostitution business will never disappear completely. So, what should we do with something that will always exist? We can control it by granting official licenses and applying various strategies to prevent people from being harmed. Consequently, we can reduce social problems and crime. Q: Do sex workers come to MSI regularly for medical check-ups? A: Yes. We tried quite hard to reach that point because we had to come up with a special arrangement for sex workers to regularly receive medical check-ups on their free time. Some women cannot move around freely as their movement is restricted by pimps or others who manage their lives. In terms of medical check-ups, even those who have regular incomes and live in urban areas do not prioritize it, so you can imagine the situation for those who do not have proper jobs, are poor or live in the country's remote areas. Also, many people with official positions and military backgrounds do not think that health is something that they need to care about. Q: I asked a number of women from karaoke and massage parlors, and 'call girls,' whether they received regular medical check-ups, and they said they had never done so. A: We find it difficult still. When we tell those girls to keep condoms with them, they think we are accusing them of being sex workers. Even when we ask hotels to make condoms available inside, they respond that they are not prostitution-related establishments. Likewise, when we tell sex workers to take blood tests, they refused to do so, saying others will then know that they are involved in sex work. We still need to deal with these issues properly. Q: What kind of attitude do you think communities and authorities should have toward sex workers in Burma? A: As one of my teachers has said, 'I just want them to enjoy the same rights as others and have an opportunity to live like human beings. That's all.' I am not trying to encourage this business, but I do not think they should be ill-treated for their occupation. It seems to me that whenever an arrest order comes, it only targets those who are poor and cannot protect themselves. Efforts to stop this business appear to have suppressed poor people in it. This is not the way it should be. The post 'They Shouldn't Be Ill-Treated for Their Occupation' appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

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