8 - Reform and Its Limits in Myanmar's Fiscal State

Summary

In 2011 Myanmar's economy remains in stalled transition. Twenty years from the first tentative steps away from rigid state control, the reform momentum that appeared promising in the early 1990s has dissipated into an uncertain redistribution of economic power amongst state, state-connected, and private entities. The installation of a nominally civilian government in Myanmar in March 2011 has as yet done little in concrete terms to change this basic equation, even as there have been some intriguing developments in the realm of policy “advice”. As has long been the case, however, all is clouded by a broader uncertainty with respect to Myanmar's fundamental political and economic institutions.

In this chapter we examine some of the more important economic developments that have taken place in Myanmar in recent times, but with a particular focus upon institutional developments in policy advocacy, upon Myanmar's public finances, and on capital formation in the private sector. Considered, accordingly, are issues concerned with state spending, “hidden” state accounts, developments in private banking, as well as the illicit capital outflows that further compromise Myanmar's ability to mobilize the financial resources that could turn its economy around.

Economic Reform

It is now more than twenty years since Myanmar took its first tentative steps away from the dirigiste model that imprisoned its economy following the military takeover in 1962. These steps, manifest in a series of laws enacted from 1990, allowed for the re-emergence of large private sector enterprises, for the formation of private banks, for the opening-up of the economy to trade and foreign investment, and for other activities necessary for a functioning market economy. The new freedoms triggered a brief period of economic growth and new institution building, but even before the decade was out this (modest) circle of progress and reform had run its course. Indeed, by the mid-1990s Myanmar's ruling authorities had begun to reverse some of the earlier openings, while a severe banking crisis in 2003 tarnished both the reform narrative and its advocates. Meanwhile, Myanmar's emergence from the mid-2000s as a significant exporter of natural gas provided “economic rents” of a sort and volume that sapped any remaining will or incentive for government-directed reform. As a consequence, and in striking contrast to its peers and neighbours (even authoritarian states), Myanmar has not embarked upon a single significant measure of economic reform for nearly two decades.