Myanmar Morning News For July 20

Remembering modern Myanmar’s founding father
Car horns blared in the streets of Myanmar’s most populous city at 10:37 a.m. Wednesday, 70 years to the day that independence leader Gen. Aung San was gunned down as the nation stood on the brink of achieving his dream.
– Nikkei Asian Review (paywall)

Time to switch to natural gas to protect the earth
Resident Trump’s decision to withdraw the USA from the landmark Paris climate accord must not become a distraction from urgent global efforts to combat climate change.
– The Myanmar Times

Tourism law in parliament
Myanmar Tourism Federation says the country’s new tourism draft law has already been submitted to parliament and it is expected to be enacted this year.
– TTR Weekly

Myanmar and Japan cooperate to produce quality rice amid shortage
Myanmar and Japan will cooperate to produce quality rice seeds under a local project, Deputy Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation U Myo Tint Tun, said.
– The Myanmar Times

Vegetable exporters at Thai border in a pickle
Customers in Thailand have stopped buying vegetables from the villages at the Myanmar border area since the end of last year.
– The Myanmar Times

Sugar traders ordered to balance inventory amid glut
Banned sugar re-exporters must balance their inventories by month-end, according to a letter from the Directorate of Trade, one sugar trader told The Myanmar Times.
– The Myanmar Times

ASX-listed iSentric closes deal to acquire Myanmar’s MyPlay for $4.5m
ASX-listed iSentric Limited has inked a sale and purchase agreement for the acquisition of Myanmar’s My Play Company Limited (MyPlay), a mobile game developer and publisher, for a consideration of up to $A6 million ($4.5 million).
– Deal Street Asia

Myanmar’s business community must tap cluster potential to compete on global scale
Although small-and-medium scale industry clusters have formed in the Mandalay Region, local investors and businessmen are not very interested in harnessing the business potential of these clusters, U Myo Htut Swe, director from Region’s Directorate of Industrial Supervision and Inspection, said.
– The Myanmar Times

Dollar exchange remains above Ks1,360
A US dollar exchange rate remains above Ks1,360 in the domestic currency market despite a recent global decline of the dollar.
– Global New Light of Myanmar

Convictions in Thailand after major Rohingya trafficking trial
A Thai court found dozens of people guilty of human trafficking offences on Wednesday in a mass trial exploring links between corrupt officials, including a senior army general, and the grim but lucrative trade in Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants.
– Frontier Myanmar

Thai labour ministry sets up 99 centres to register illegal foreign workers
Thailand’s labour ministry plans to register workers from Myanmar who do not have proper documents at 99 migrant centres around the nation, according to Thai-based migrant worker rights groups.
– The Myanmar Times

Myanmar plane: Bad weather blamed for Andaman Sea crash
Bad weather caused a military plane to crash in Myanmar last month with 122 people on board, state media say.
– BBC

In Suu Kyi’s Myanmar, concern rises over press freedom
In the old, military-ruled Myanmar, it would not have been a surprising scene: three journalists, bound together in chains, raising shackled hands in unison and speaking out against their repressive government.
– The Seattle Times

As U.S. Attention Wanes in Southeast Asia, China Woos Myanmar
When Myanmar’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, wanted to hold a peace conference to end her country’s long-burning insurgencies, a senior Chinese diplomat got to work.
– The New York Times (paywall)

Feature photo Niels Steeman
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Myanmar morning news by AEC News Today is your one stop source for Myanmar news on matters of governance and policies affecting Asean business communities. It is published M-F by AEC News Today: Governance, not government; policies not politics.