Myanmar offer to WB remains unclear
By Stephen Collinson
BANGKOK (AFP): Myanmar's motives in inviting a World Bank team to discuss its limping economy were shrouded in doubt Tuesday, as analysts debated if the move was merely a ploy to ease foreign pressure on the junta.
While genuine dialogue with the World Bank would indicate a new spirit of openness, its validity would hinge on the generals' willingness to act on World Bank recommendations, observers said.
The invitation was made public after a highly critical World Bank report leaked to a newspaper warned that Myanmar's economy was on the verge of collapse, submerged in debt, choked by inflation and starved of foreign investment.
Extracts reported by the International Herald Tribune said the military must promote political reform to stave off a systemic banking crisis.
Myanmar expert Mohan Malik of Australia's School of International Defense Studies gave a measured reaction to the junta's invitation, warning it had a history of adopting apparently conciliatory stances while retreating behind entrenched positions.
"From time to time, the regime gives out encouraging signs, but it is often a device to ease Western pressure and then they carry on doing what they have been doing."
"Political reform -- that is the bottom line, if they do not do it then everything else is secondary," he said.
Potential points of contention between Myanmar and the World Bank appear on to center on the causes of the economic malaise.
Myanmar ministers have said their problems lie in an investment drought and Western trade restrictions imposed to punish alleged human rights abuses.
The World Bank report puts the blame squarely on the military dominated state apparatus and tightly controlled economy.
Myanmar analyst Sunai Pasak, from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University sees little hope the junta will admit mistakes.
"They might introduce some kind of 'structure of reform' but it is very problematic how far they would go," he said.
Sunai said Myanmar had failed in an attempt to emulate China, one of the few states with close links to Yangon, by giving economic development priority over political reform.
"It does not have the fundamentals to use as a stimulus for economic growth as China did," he said.
World Bank sources have told AFP that any new initiative in Myanmar would first aim to build confidence similar to the bank's efforts in North Korea. There is little prospect of substantial aid being granted early in the process.
Observers in Yangon detect no sign the junta is ready to embrace a purported aid for reform payoff mooted by diplomats as a "carrot and stick" drive for reform last year.
"I think there is a sense in which none of the leaders here think they have done a bad job with the economy," said one political observer. Ministers told AFP recently that Myanmar looked towards the outside world for help and hinted it could endure a subsistence level of existence.
Signs of Myanmar's economic morass are obvious on the streets of Yangon where inflation runs at around 30 percent and the beleaguered kyat currency trades on the black market at 350 to the dollar compared to the official rate of around five.
Copies of the scathing World Bank report were delivered secretly to Yangon's top generals and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi by a World Bank envoy last month.
The study was based on an examination of Myanmar's economy that had reportedly received "unusual cooperation" from the junta. A Myanmar spokesman told AFP the government had "invited the World Bank representatives for further discussions."
"For the time being there is no comment to give on the World Bank's findings," he added.