AN OUTLOOK INTO MYANMAR’S MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY AND ITS NEED FOR VARIETY OF TALENTS

In my past posts, cutting edge international tech news and events were mentioned. Then, a few articles about Myanmar’s mobile sector were discussed in my previous post; it was an immense pleasure to see how fast it has been growing and which direction it is heading. This week, I have looked up manufacturing industry in Myanmar because manufacturing is historically a driving force to the growth of economy of a country just like back in industrial revolution in Europe and America. Manufacturing and Economy are also correlated in a big picture or, in a technical term, macroeconomy.

Here is an example using automotive industry to give you a picture of the relationship. Now, many foreign companies have imported cars into the country including Ford, an American automotive manufacturing company. A Ford Focus 2018 base version costs at (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retailed Price – MSRP) $17,950 in the US (Type and Search “Ford Focus 2018” in Google Search if you’re curious to check the information). The same car manufactured in the US and imported to Myanmar would cost way more since the corporation is taxed 25% of its income on Myanmar-source income and 2% advance income tax on the import goods on top of the corporate tax in the US, which is 21% recently reduced from 35%. Thus, the final price would include the corporate tax in the US, the corporate tax in Myanmar, and advance corporate income tax on the imported goods. Similar scenario is also applicable to Japanese cars; FYI, Japanese corporate tax is above 30%. The point of this example is that costs of high-valued goods would be lower if majority of the manufacturing process were done in Myanmar instead of importing end products which are completely manufactured in another country.

Back to the main discussion about Myanmar’s manufacturing industry mentioned in the beginning, there have been much changes and improvements in Myanmar’s manufacturing industry in the past five years as discussed in the following link:
https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/top-agenda-manufacturing-set-become-key-growth-driver-while-international-retailers-seek-capitalise

However, the country’s industry has a long way to go to get to where that of its economically successful neighboring countries like India stand. It is understandable that Myanmar has been gone through dramatic development in so many aspects in a very short time of several years, and manufacturing is only a portion of the whole picture. Nonetheless, the measuring scheme of its rate of development should not be compared to any of the countries’ in the past since these were in the past. Myanmar needs to grow faster to catch up with others which have already gone through these developments way back. Also, as mentioned in my previous post, Myanmar does not need to go through the same route taken by any of these developed countries in the past since present has way advanced technologies; thus, it should take account the lessons learned from these countries during their development instead.

To address the basic needs of growth advance manufacturing technologies, the question that Myanmar must ask is that if there are enough resources in the country? Of course, the country is rich of natural material resources for manufacturing, but how about other related aspects such as road infrastructure for transporting goods and highly-skilled human resources to support the growing high-tech manufacturing industry.

Myanmar needs many talents in a wide variety of fields not only just doctors and engineers. Since I was born and raised in Myanmar, I can say one thing about the perspective of Myanmar community on a successful life. Success is viewed as being a doctor, an engineer, or a business leader in majority of Myanmar’s community. Otherwise, people considered they have not been as successful in life as their friends or their high-school-classmates. This perspective needs to be changed. For the county to make a difference, each individual needs to make a difference. More people should take pride in their work and make their work worthy not just to make it through the day knowing that their work make an impact in the larger scale of their respective industries. The country needs talents in business to lead as well as to support growing the economy, lawmakers to regulate decent and fair rules in the development in all aspects of the country, scientist and engineers as well as tech geeks in all STEM fields to supply the demand in high-tech in various industries, and talents in all other fields which may even not exist today yet. The key is for each individual citizen to have his or her own opinion or judgement on his or her own talent and success and not to follow a popular crowd or anyone from any country.