SPEND a day in Yangon, shuttling among new high-rises and bars before retreating to your boutique hotel, and you can almost believe that after decades of isolation, Myanmar is squarely on the road to prosperity. Spend more than a few days, however, and the cracks start showing: intermittent power cuts, ancient sewage systems, insufficient housing for an influx of migrants from the countryside.
The situation is worse in rural Myanmar, where much of the population lives not just in extreme poverty, but also mired in debt. Bad roads make it costly to get goods to market and impede investment. Around three-quarters of the country’s children live in homes that lack electricity. Myanmar’s voters hope their first freely elected government since the 1960s, which took office this week, will change things for the better.
The task ahead is daunting: within South-East Asia, only Cambodia has a lower GDP per person. Its infrastructure (both physical and financial) is somewhere between crumbling and non-existent; its laws are archaic and, after decades of isolation and underinvestment in education, its...Continue reading
Source: Business and finance http://ift.tt/1Spb6Xl
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