Transport
From The Report: Myanmar 2014
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Despite years of isolation and being a relatively poor country, Myanmar has a surprisingly developed transportation network. It has 66 airports, eight airlines, more than 5500 km of rail and about 150,000 km of roads. However, those years of isolation left the country’s transportation infrastructure in poor condition, so Myanmar is making efforts to improve the system, and it is likely that these efforts will pay off in the medium and long term. The construction of less expensive and safer transportation options is vital to achieving Myanmar’s long-term development goals. If priority areas are dealt with quickly and if major setbacks are avoided, the sector will improve steadily until the more complex investments, such as urban rail, can be completed.
This chapter contains an interview with U Nyan Htun Aung, Minister for Transport.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Step by step: Extending and upgrading the nation’s road, rail and aviation infrastructure
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Despite years of isolation and despite being a relatively poor country, Myanmar has a surprisingly developed transportation network. It has 66 airports, eight airlines, more than 5500 km of rail and about 150,000 km of roads. Some of it is no doubt historic. The first railway line was installed in 1877 by the British and by the Japanese invasion in 1942, the system totalled over 3000 km. But Myanmar has also made significant progress on its own. After the Second World War, the country was left with…

Interview

OBG talks to U Nyan Htun Aung, Minister for Transport
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Interview:U Nyan Htun Aung How can the government encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) in the transport sector? U NYAN HTUN AUNG: Recent reforms have led to an increase in FDI in the transport sector, particularly with regards to aviation and maritime services, and 20 aviation service areas have been opened up to FDI. Foreign investors will be able to pursue 100% ownership in 18 areas, and to set up business as a joint venture in the other two. In terms of maritime transport, there are…

Analysis

A long drive: Improving regional road and rail links
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After years of underinvestment in transportation infrastructure, due to embargoes, insurgencies, regional autonomy and mixed relations with neighbours, Myanmar is an exceedingly hard place to reach overland, much less transit. The country has essentially been cut off from the world, with small isolated border gates as its only surface connections to the outside. It has not always been this way. The China-Burma road, from northern Myanmar to Yunnan, China, was in use in ancient times and was travelled…

Analysis

A race in the skies: The airline market is becoming increasingly competitive
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Soon Myanmar will have a dozen airlines. That is quite a few operators for a country with 1.6m passengers a year, the same number of passengers as Macao, Azerbaijan and Malta. Indeed, Thailand, a country that serves 35m passengers annually, has fewer airlines than Myanmar. To be sure, most of the Myanmar carriers have just a few small planes. The country is also large and diverse, so it might have a need for specialised carriers. Nevertheless, 12 airlines is a lot, especially as safety is one of…

Analysis

High flyers: Negotiations for a critical airport tender are under way
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When it was announced in August 2013 that a South Korean consortium had won the tender to build the new Hanthawaddy International Airport, Myanmar’s opening to the world gained critical momentum. The airport, which is scheduled to open in 2018, is a badly needed hunk of infrastructure. To sustain the country’s current pace of progress in international trade, investment and tourism, Myanmar must dramatically expand its airport capacity, especially for traffic in and out of Yangon, the business…

Analysis

Two if by sea: For Myanmar’s trade to flourish, its ports need a serious upgrade
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Yangon Port is in some ways still decidedly 19th-century. Cargo handling is manual and paperwork old-fashioned – a shipper must submit copies of each document to three separate offices. There is no single window and no electronic reporting. Bills of lading are inaccessible online and tracking is done by hand, making it hard to know the precise location of containers. Some even go missing. Machines, where they exist, are often obsolete; training is outmoded; capacity is low. Other inefficiencies…