The Intention, the Strength and the Milieu:

Although the present scenario is not absolutely one of high growth, the future is not that grim for Myanmar. I base my optimism on the following grounds:

• The Myanmar agriculture has recovered during the nineties, become more diversified and has shown increasing linkage with the global market. [¹⁵]
• The recent aggressiveness and sense of purpose with which the government has started pursuing economic objectives in its dealings with the other countries of East and South East Asia and the ASEAN really convey meanings. In fact, these have already started yielding results in terms of infrastructural and other projects. The issue fundamentally now is one of governance rather than appreciation of the needs for economic orientation in policies. The recent initiatives taken by the government seem to have convinced itself that the internal political crisis is more or less taken care, and what is left to be addressed is one of economic dynamism. The switching by China from a twin relationship of Party to Party and Government to Government to a single one of only Government to Government in the late 1980s has helped Myanmar a lot in addressing the political issues.
• ASEAN and the merging East Asian Community being initiated by Japan would definitely have a great bearing on the regional economy, which Myanmar must definitely try to exploit. In a sense, the country is quite pragmatic in this regard for it is in fact looking to the countries of East and South East Asia rather than North America and Europe for greater economic relationships.
• The Asian middle class is now a force and a growing force in that [¹⁶] . No country in this continent, well the entire globe for that matter, can ignore this driving force for economic expansion. Myanmar, given its recent economic orientation, must be aware of this. In fact, it seems to have done so considering the recent efforts towards expanding greater regional economic ties and surpass the limitations of American economic sanctions [¹⁷] .
• The global recognition of the power of emerging economic giants, India and China, need not be overemphasised. It is already being accepted that the future global growth leaders would be the Asian Triangle of China, India and the ASEAN, and the industrial clusters that would be formed in this triangle [¹⁸] . No country in Asia is geographically well-situated to take advantage of this scenario than Myanmar; well, it is the opportunity of Myanmar to now have the best of both the worlds to put it in the proverbial way.
• The core potential of Myanmar to exploit the unfolding scenario is very good. First, the high literacy rate accompanied by low gender gap in literacy is a positive strength. This can be seen in Table 7, which provides a comparative picture of all the least developed countries.

Table 7
Literacy Scene in Least Developed Countries, 2004