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Myanmar regime chief Min Aung Hlaing offers money rewards to conventional artistes in Novosibirsk throughout his go to to Russia on July 16. / Cincds
By The Irrawaddy 23 July 2022
Coup chief’s electrical car fantasy indulged
The army regime nonetheless can’t provide electrical energy around the clock, even within the business capital Yangon, however that hasn’t stopped it from forming a national-level committee on electrical vehicles in a bid to meet one in all Min Aung Hlaing’s most persistent fantasies.
In line with the July version of the Gazette of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the nationwide committee main the event of electrical automobiles and associated companies, chaired by Protection Minister Normal Mya Tun Oo, a member of the regime’s governing physique the State Administration Council (SAC), was shaped in June.
Whereas it stays unclear when the electrical energy provide will likely be restored to regular, Gen. Mya Tun Oo and the committee’s vice-chairman, ex-admiral Tin Aung San, who can also be an SAC member and the regime’s transport minister, have even drawn up plans to advertise their “fortress within the air” venture.
These embody exempting toll and parking charges for electrical automobiles; establishing charging stations at buying facilities, bus stops, and parking services; and constructing separate roads and parking services for the automobiles.
In April, Omni Focus Co. Ltd., owned by grandsons of the late army dictator Ne Win, offered their plans for the operation of electrical buses to Tin Aung San. In the meantime, automakers together with Japan’s Suzuki and Korea’s Hyundai have suspended operations in Myanmar because of the regime’s misguided financial insurance policies.
Min Aung Hlaing’s financial classes
Whereas Myanmar has to import nearly every thing from medicines to gasoline, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, like his predecessors, eyes constructing the financial system based mostly on agriculture and livestock farming. Myanmar has wealthy agricultural land and ample rivers and creeks, the junta boss boasted at a gathering of his regime’s governing organ, the SAC, on Thursday.
Myanmar’s financial system has been in recession because of the COVID-19 outbreak and post-coup turmoil. The rise in the price of dwelling is taking a heavy toll on folks, with the costs of gasoline, cooking oil and medicines—all of which Myanmar has to import—having shot up. Unemployment has elevated and so has the crime charge. To make issues worse, the regime’s financial insurance policies are forcing native companies to halt their operations and overseas firms to go away the nation, and commodity costs rose even additional when the regime launched its newest restrictions on US {dollars}.
Whereas the junta boss claims that Myanmar has wealthy agricultural land, the sown acreage of paddy has considerably declined this yr due to the political instability and elevated fertilizer and gasoline costs.
The outlook for Myanmar’s financial system stays weak, says the World Financial institution, and the nation leads the Fragile State Index issued by the US-based Fund for Peace.
Junta chief’s nasty behavior: slamming the NLD
Multiple yr after the army coup, it has develop into more and more apparent that Min Aung Hlaing is de facto good for nothing besides killing folks, harming the nation and talking sick of the Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD). At any time when he visits army items across the nation, he by no means fails to talk sick of the ousted ruling get together. However just lately, he even took the chance to take action on overseas soil. Throughout his latest go to to Russia, he introduced conventional Myanmar snacks together with Mohinga alongside on his particular MAI flight handy out to army personnel present process coaching within the nation. The snacks had been shared round, and the Mohinga was cooked and fed to the trainees, in keeping with an article featured within the July 21 problems with the junta-run newspapers.
Min Aung Hlaing has needed to rally the Myanmar army, whose preventing functionality and morale are in decline. Despite the fact that he was in Russia, he ordered native commanders again house to carry feasts for his or her respective items in a show of fatherly benevolence. In Russia, over 120 Myanmar army trainees had been fed the Mohinga and conventional snacks, together with Min Aung Hlaing’s narrative of how the NLD authorities broke legal guidelines and rigged the 2020 normal election, making it mandatory for the Myanmar army to grab energy and “save the nation”.
Troopers play bankers at CBM
As Myanmar grapples with a overseas foreign money disaster due to the regime’s monetary mismanagement, six lieutenant colonels had been appointed deputy administrators on the Central Financial institution of Myanmar (CBM) in June, in keeping with the just lately printed Union gazette.
It has develop into customary after coups in Myanmar for army personnel to intervene in sectors they know nothing about. Myanmar’s financial system has failed many occasions because the 1962 coup due to army meddling within the financial and monetary sectors.
Lately, the junta-controlled CBM ordered firms and particular person debtors to droop repayments of overseas loans, each of curiosity and principal.
Furthermore, the regime has seized US {dollars} from firms registered with the Myanmar Funding Fee by ordering them to transform all their overseas foreign money into kyats. To protect the nation’s dwindling overseas foreign money reserves, it has additionally imposed restrictions on import permits.
All these measures will solely additional worsen Myanmar’s financial system, which has been spiraling downward because the coup, and drive extra folks into poverty. The World Financial institution stated in its newest report that the latest coverage shifts have added to the challenges for companies. Burdensome commerce license necessities, the abandonment of the managed float alternate charge regime, and the imposition of overseas foreign money give up guidelines have resulted in shortages of key imported inputs and inhibited exporters, it stated.
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