Daily News- September 16- 2002-Monday

  • Premier Oil set to quit Burma
  • Myanmar's soaring rice price a major headache for military junta
  • Myanmar's alternative parliament marks anniversary
  • 85,000 TB cases estimated in Myanmar annually

    • Premier Oil set to quit Burma

    Source : Evening Standard (U.K)

    INDEPENDENT oil group Premier Oil is poised to relinquish its stake in its controversial oil project in Burma as part of a £400m deal to buy out its two major backers.

    Amerada Hess of the US and Petronas of Malaysia will give up their combined 50% stake in Premier in exchange for a number of assets.

    Apart from the gas field and pipeline in Burma, it will also give up a part of its stake in the West Natuna field off the coast of Indonesia. Human rights groups and shareholders have attacked Premier for the Burma project, claiming it used slave labour.

    The deal - which may be unveiled with Premier's half-year update today - will see the group's output reduced from 50,000 barrels per day to 35,000bpd. It is now expected to focus on exploration and the early development of new finds.

    Petronas and Amerada baled out Premier during the Nineties when it ran up massive debts in an expansion drive. But their influence has been criticised by shareholders and weighed on Premier's shares, now trading at around 24 1/4p.

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    Myanmar's soaring rice price a major headache for military junta

    YANGON, Sept 15 (AFP) - Soaring rice prices in Myanmar have put the staple out of reach of millions of poor citizens, posing a major problem for the ruling junta which is trying to stop the situation spiralling out of control.

    Experts in the capital Yangon say there is no shortage of rice, but that there are severe problems with the supply of the commodity and that hoarders are worsening the problem by seizing the opportunity to make huge profits.

    "We have enough rice to go around and enough to meet international commitments," said one independent rice expert. "You can get it if you can pay for it."(But obtaining rice) has become a huge problem, especially for the impoverished as it is now priced way beyond their means".

    Myanmar-watchers observe that the military, which currently enjoys an iron grip on power, could be felled by just two things -- splits within the ranks and a rice shortage severe enough to spark a mass uprising.

    To head off this dangerous "desperation factor", the junta is trying to ensure that rationed quantities of low-grade rice are available at subsidised prices, particularly in urban centres.In recent months, long queues have been seen at government stalls set up in Yangon as people wait for hours for a few tins of the staple.

    On the open market, rice prices have risen 30 percent in the past week alone to around 50 cents a kilogram -- four times the official rate. A senior government worker earns a salary of just 15,000 kyat (14 dollars) per month.

    Annual inflation in Myanmar is estimated at more than 40 percent, and the kyat is languishing near an all-time low after bottoming out at 1,200 to the dollar last month.

    The alarming figures are symptoms of Myanmar's creaking economy, which has virtually ceased to function due to decades of mismanagement and harsh international sanctions aimed at forcing the regime to introduce political reform.

    Now the rice market is also being assailed by traders who have identified the grain as an item for profitable speculation -- alongside gold, hard currency, real estate, luxury cars and edible oil.

    Serious ongoing floods in some parts of Myanmar and neighbouring countries have fuelled the belief that prices will rise further.

    "With the huge gap in the government's fixed price and that prevailing in the open market, rice has attracted speculators who see its potential for profit-making," one analyst said."Hoards of speculators have emerged to take advantage of the government's penchant for fixing commodity prices.""The government has not changed its fixed-purchasing price of rice for the last three years whereas the open market price is way beyond that."

    Isolated reports of looting of rice stores by desperate villagers have trickled in from the provinces, raising fears the situation could degenerate into mayhem, but the junta insists that no such incidents have taken place.

    Analysts say the military is taking whatever action it can -- from subsidising rice for the poor to cracking down on speculators and looters -- to ensure the population remains fed and disciplined.

    The junta remains anxious that an upsurge of unrest could pose the first serious threat to its hold on power since 1988 demonstrations which led to a humiliating election loss -- a result it never recognised.Analysts say the regime must look towards market reform to prevent economic unrest in the long term.

    "Myanmar has gone some way in improving its physical infrastructure, the hardware," one analyst said, noting that new dams, irrigation systems and land-clearing meant Myanmar was capable of producing enough food for its needs."The time is now right to take advantage of the physical capital and business infrastructure that has been built by turning more to the software aspects of economic development," he said.

    In particular, a better pricing system, improved distribution and management of production that adequately compensates farmers and prevents middlemen from taking advantage of them could all be implemented, he added.

    "Myanmar must increasingly move towards a system that allows a free play of market forces and free and fair competition to operate in the economy," said a retired UN expert."The ability of the government to maintain a stable exchange rate at a desired level will depend a lot on how much it can inspire confidence."

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    Myanmar's alternative parliament marks anniversary

    YANGON, Sept. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Myanmar's Committee Representing the People's Parliament (CRPP) elected in the 1990 General Election, formed by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), held a ceremony at the NLD headquarters Monday to mark its fourth anniversary.

    CRPP Secretary U Aye Thar Aung, who was released on August 16 by the military government, attended the ceremony. He was given a 21-year prison sentence in April 2000 for allegedly violating political emergency and publishing laws.

    The 10-member CRPP , an alliance comprising the NLD, Shan NLD, Arakan Democracy League, Mon Democracy Party, Zomi National Congress and individual elected representatives, was unilaterally formed by the NLD on Sept. 16, 1998 with NLD chairman U Aung Shwe as chairman and U Aye Thar Aung as secretary.

    The CRPP declared that it would perform parliamentary function until a formal parliament is convened and stated that all laws, degrees, orders and directives issued since the present military government took power on Sept. 18, 1988 shall be approved by the people's parliament. However, the government declared the CRPP as illegal and insisted that it must be abolished, otherwise it will take severe action against the organization.

    The Myanmar military took over the power of state on Sept. 18, 1988 and sponsored the multi-party general election in May 1990, in which the NLD won a landslide victory with 396 parliamentary seats out of 485. The NLD complains that no parliament has emerged yet since the end of the election.

    Meanwhile, since October 2000, the government and the opposition had held confidence-building talks until Aung San Suu Kyi, NLD general secretary, was released on May 6 from 19-month house arrest and no further substantive talks continued since then.

    In the meantime, the government has been releasing NLD members and the number of the detained party members and its activists hascome to 316 since January 2001, including 62 released after restriction on Aung San Suu Kyi was lifted.

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    85,000 TB cases estimated in Myanmar annually

    YANGON, Sept. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- About 85,000 cases of tuberculosis(TB) occurred in Myanmar annually in recent years with about 20,000 patients dying of the disease each year, according to a latestassessment of the World Health Organization (WHO).

    A team of the WHO, who visited Myanmar earlier this month, said Myanmar would require 3.2 million US dollars for its campaign against TB in 2003-04, of which about 1.4 million has so far been made available.

    According to the WHO, Myanmar is one of 22 countries with high rate of TB but the treatment cost in the country is low compared to other countries.

    With the assistance of the WHO, Myanmar has been setting up TB control centers to implement Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS) strategy in every township.

    According to the 2000 WHO report on global TB control, only two million TB patients including Myanmar received DOTS treatment in 1998 and about 80 percent were successful in the treatment. The report estimated that if every TB patient receives DOTS treatment, mortality rate, infection rate and disease outbreak rate will fall.

    Meanwhile, a report of the Myanmar Ministry of Health revealed that it spends 25 million Kyats (about 62,500 dollars) annually infunding medicines for TB.

    TB is seen as one of the major public health problems in Myanmar and it constitutes the second priority disease in the country's national health plan.

    It was reported that HIV infection among TB cases in Myanmar is 4.5 percent and 60 to 80 percent of AIDS cases are suffering from TB, becoming one of the challenges for TB control programs in the future.

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