Burma Business Roundup (Saturday, March 24)

Burma’s current annual consumption of cement is only 50 percent of Indonesia’s, he said.

End Forced Labor Before Lifting Sanctions: UK Minister

The Burmese government needs to make progress in efforts to curb forced labor and land confiscation before the European Union’s economic sanctions can be fully lifted, a British government minister said this week.

However, the British foreign ministry was “cautiously encouraged” by the new cooperation between the Burmese authorities and the International Labour Organisation, said Minister of State Jeremy Browne in a parliamentary statement.

The EU is particularly concerned about forced recruitment of labor by civilian and military groups, especially of children, he said.

“The resolution of these issues forms part of a broader agenda of reconciliation with ethnic groups on which the UK expects the Burmese authorities to have made progress before we can consider lifting EU restrictive measures,” Browne said.

Dawei Port Plan ‘Going Ahead’ says Thai Developer

The Bangkok construction company Italian-Thai Development (ITD) said it is still going ahead with ambitious plans to build a large port and petrochemicals complex on the sleepy Burmese southeast coast at Dawei.

Doubts have been raised about the viability of the project, which also involves a crude oil transhipment facility, after the Burmese government blocked a key element—a huge coal-fired electricity generating plant.

"The funds are coming in. There's nothing to be worried about," ITD project coordinator Somchet Thinaphong told AFP news agency in response to reports that potential Thai and foreign co-investors were spooked by the power plant ban.

Somchet did not say what alternative plans ITD have for fuelling the development without the coal plant, but claimed that the Naypyidaw government had “urged us to accelerate the plan.”

ITD said the overall port plan could cost up to US $50 billion to complete and negotiations were still in progress to raise first-phase development funds of $4.5 billion.