1st big trade fair held in Myanmar since 1988

1st big trade fair held in Myanmar since 1988

By Dan Thomas

YANGON (Reuter): The colorful leather jacket made from barking deer hide and snakeskin was definitely more Mandalay than Milan.

Red and brown blotches on a light tan coat fringed in rough green and black boa constrictor skin may not be everybody's idea of style, but it drew a lot of attention at Myanmar's first major trade fair this month.

"We call this our three-color flower design," explained Myint Than, chairman of the Mandalay-based Nila Leather Jerkin Product Cooperative.

"My 15-year-old son invented this unique technique while playing around with different dyes. The inspiration comes from Allah," he said with an engaging waggle of the head.

Surrounding his stall were hundreds of other displays by Myanmarese businessmen and civil servants hawking everything from plastic buckets and handwoven textiles from the Golden Triangle to vast tracts of farm land and a new brand of cigarettes.

Foreign businessmen and curious tourists joined thousands of local residents for a stroll along the aisles as eager salesmen invited them to take a closer look at their wares.

Formerly Burma, politically and economically shunned by all but a few nations since its ruling generals crushed a pro- democracy movement in 1988 and renamed the country Myanmar, has recently been opening up in a bid to boost its economy.

Organized by the ministry of trade, Myanmar Trade Fair '94 was part of a relatively new drive by the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) to attract investment and win export orders.

The only problem was that almost all participants at the show were new to the export game.

"We are beginners. We haven't any customers. Now that the government has opened the economy this is our first chance to find exporters," said Myint Than.

Opening the fair, which ran from April 1 to 12 under the slogan "Export expansion -- the national strength", Trade Minister Lt. Gen. Tun Kyi said one of the main aims was to get international exposure for Myanmar's exportable goods.

"The government is therefore giving top priority to export promotion," he said at the opening ceremony attended by leading members of SLORC, diplomats, local and foreign businessmen and a bevy of beautiful Myanmarese models.

Of the 203 stalls, 33 were taken by state-owned corporations, 18 by government joint ventures, 60 by cooperatives and the rest by private enterprises.

Thein Win, chairman of the Myanmar Industry Association and a successful Myanmarese entrepreneur himself, was busily looking for buyers for his new brand of cigarettes, Polo Nine, which he hoped to be able to export to Russia and China.

The cigarettes, which wholesale at just US$2.50 for a carton of 200, were made locally from the purest Myanmarese Virginia tobacco by the Myanmar Glacier Tobacco Ltd -- a joint venture set up one year ago with backing from South Korea's Glacier Tobacco Ltd, he said.

"A lot of people believe the game polo was invented in Burma and everybody here considers the number nine to be lucky, hence the name Polo Nine," he said.

Asked if he thought SLORC's poor human rights record might put off potential buyers and investors, he said Myanmar was better than China "in a political sense" and that China didn't seem to have any problems selling its goods.

"Just because of the human rights situation, do I have to stop my work?" he demanded to know. "My people need work, politics is a different issue."

Beneath a large sign inviting foreigners to "grab the golden opportunity now", civil servant Myo Myint from the ministry of agriculture was on the lookout for foreign businessmen to persuade to invest in farming, plantations and food-processing.

He said the government had identified 1.55 million hectares (3.83 million acres) of fallow land and 8.23 million hectares (20.33 million acres) of culturable wasteland which would be suitable for joint ventures.

"This is the first time we have been to a trade fair to invite foreign investment," he said excitedly. "Come and sit down."

American businessman Scott Montgomery, who has lived in Yangon for just over a year, said amidst the bustle that the Myanmarese government was trying to follow China by encouraging state-owned enterprises to play a leading role in building up the economy.

"It is getting more and more open but it isn't a free market yet," he said.

Back at the Nila Leather Jerkin Cooperative stand, Myint Than was trying to interest Ecuadorean tourist Gustavo Chabes in his multicolored jacket.

"They certainly have their own sense of style," said Chabes as he made his excuses and left.