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The passage of US Senate Bill 926 that banned garment imports from Burma, however, has put a serious dent in Burma’s textile industry with some factories shedding their workers and others shutting down altogether. Official unemployment statistics are unavailable in Burma, but when asked by foreign journalists a few months ago about the growing unemployment problem, Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Brig-Gen Thura Myint Maung replied, "If you step out of your home, you can catch fish and prawns." Journalists were incredulous, as perhaps were Aung Khin and Than Lwin. But Thura Myint Maung’s words certainly rang true for some. Southern Burma’s wealthiest businessman, U Htay Myint, has found success since his move to Rangoon, as have a group of business tycoons who have come to town to further their enterprises in banking, import-export and construction. U Htay Myint established Yuzana Co Ltd in 1994 and is now the company’s chairman. His close ties to Gen Khin Nyunt have helped him land the chief-executive seat in many businesses: the Construction Owners’ Association, the Myanmar Vessel Owners’ Association, the Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association, the Myan- mar Projects Association, Industrial Holdings Ltd, as well as Yuzana’s multiple business concessions. Others from the ethnic nationalities’ areas have capitalized on ceasefire agreements by laying down their arms and coming to do business with their former adversaries. Perhaps the most famous is Khun Sa, who abandoned his Mong Tai Army and his domination over the opium trade in 1996. By capitulating to Rangoon, he was granted hotel, gem and transportation concessions by the generals. From a similar mold is U Eike Htun. An ethnic Kokang with suspected involvement in the drug trade, U Eike Htun runs a Rangoon-based construction business and is also vice president of one of Burma’s best-known private commercial banks, Asia Wealth—established in 1994. His move to the upper echelon of Burma’s business elite has been aided by his close connections with ruling leaders, particularly Gen Khin Nyunt. For Burma’s elite business tycoons with personal or financial ties to the ruling generals, the move to the city has generally proven successful. For others, the transition to urban living has been more unsettling but is the only way out of Burma’s rural poverty trap. Still, the magnetism of Rangoon’s economic promises draws millions out of the countryside—skilled and unskilled, educated and uneducated. "I have heard a saying that encouraged my family to come here," says an internal migrant who runs a small factory in Rangoon. "‘Change of pastures makes fat calves.’ But I still cannot make myself fat."