With its strategic locations, natural resources and young work force, it has important advantages, he said.

“Despite this, Burma still sits at the lower rungs of the human development rankings for countries in the region,” he said.

“Burma has historically been a country with a good basic education system. This is illustrated by a high degree of adult literacy at 91 percent according to UN published statistics. Burma’s literacy rate is higher than that of Bangladesh (56%), India (63%), Cambodia (77%), and very close to other ASEAN countries. Despite this, Burma’s education system exhibits relatively low rates of secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratios. For example, at 49% Burma’s secondary school enrolment is much lower than that of Indonesia (76%) or India (76%) and Vietnam (67%). The mean years of schooling in Burma were estimated to be just four years, compared with 9.5 years in Malaysia, 8.9 years in the Philippines and 7.5 years in China.”

He said the situation in the health sector for Burma is similar. “Between 1996 and 2006, the UN published data inform that under-five mortality declined from 83.7 live births to 76.1 per thousand while its infant mortality rate declined from 70.3 to 68.3 per 1000 births. Maternal Mortality also declined significantly from 420 in 1990 to 240 per 100,000 live births in 2008. Despite this progress, Burma lags behind the Asean league table in these health indicators.

“For example, Burma’s life expectancy of 65.2 years is much less than that of 75.2 in Vietnam, 74.1 in Thailand and 73.5 in China,” he said.

Since the 1980s, Asia has been growing around 7.6 percent annually, which helped lift 700 million people out of extreme poverty, he said. Available statistical sources indicate that the Burmese economy has ben growing at a moderate rate of just over 5 percent per annum in recent years, he said. “Poverty incidence has also declined in the past five years or so. Yet, the current level of poverty at 26 percent is high given the potential of the economy. Moreover, there is a huge disparity among geographic regions. Some states/regions are significantly poorer than others, such as the Chin state, with a 73 percent poverty rate.”

Access to education, sanitation, and jobs vary from rural to urban areas and from state to state. “Development experiences have shown that growth will be inclusive when it occurs in sectors where poor are employed most, such as in agriculture in the case of Burma,” he said. “Despite its vast agricultural resource base, the economic growth in Burma is increasingly relying on extractive industries. Extractive industries use capital-intensive technologies that tend to generate fewer jobs for the unskilled without linkages to the rural sector. In a country where almost 70 percent of people live in rural areas, rural development is crucial.’

Burma must develop its agriculture, agro-based industries, light industry and tourism for job creation, he said. Officials should implement
“pro-poor macroeconomic policies together with competitive and stable exchange rates to encourage investment in the tradable labour-intensive sector.”

One of the challenges in Burma is “the distortion in the foreign exchange rate market – huge difference between official and unofficial black market rate,” and development cannot take off without an integrated financial system.

A second major area of reform is in the agricultural sector. “Burma has substantial agricultural potential which has been held back by restrictions and policies,” he said. “The removal of these restrictive policies will immediately bring huge benefits to the country, by increasing its productivity, helping reduce poverty, and by increasing its exports.”

A third area that could benefit from quick reforms is the financial sector. “The new micro finance law is already a step in the right direction but more reform to increase access to finance and reduce the costs of financial intermediation is a vital key to accelerating growth and ensuring that the fruits of growth are spread more widely,” he said.
 
He said Burma has some advantages by being a latecomer to economic development in the region. Burma has abundant natural resources and it “must now ensure that it does not follow an environmentally destructive development strategy as some of its neighbours have done.” He cited Mongolia as a country that has recently created a Human Development Fund (HD Fund) based on its booming mineral revenue to promote human development.

“Experience shows that, effective and efficient revenue” Transparency, sound long-term development planning, strong anti-corruption laws, high civil society participation, and economic diversification are other common elements of effective management,” he said. Ensuring that the local areas where mining resources are extracted also benefit is vital to avoid conflicts, he said.

He said many first-generation Asian tigers focused exclusively on fast growth but neglected to build the social policies and social protection needed to ensure that their citizens acquire the resilience needed to manage economic and health crisis and natural disasters. “Burma has the resources to invest in increasing its resilience through social protection,” he said.

The agricultural and tourism sectors also offer tremendous economic growth areas, he said. “Burma’s underexploited coastline and its huge potential to increase the value added of its exports are a benefit of a latecomer,” he said.