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Dawei SEZ, adjacent to the Dawei Deep Water port project

Unique laws for Dawei SEZ project

By Aye Thidar Kyaw
March 21 - 27, 2011
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Residents commute on the dusty main street in Dawei, in Tanintharyi Region, last month. Pic: Aye Thidar Kyaw

HOT on the heels of the January 27 promulgation of the Myanmar Special Economic Zone (SEZ) law, comes a set of laws specific to Dawei, which is likely to become the nation’s first SEZ.

The Dawei Special Economic Zone laws were published in the Union of Myanmar Gazette, a government-run newspaper, on February 18 but news of the announcement has taken weeks to filter down through government officials, business associations and the private media.

“I’d heard that the government had enacted specific laws for the coming Dawei SEZ [in Tanintharyi Region] but I have not read them and our research department has not seen them either. However, I expect that the two laws should be more or less the same,” said Dr Maung Maung Lay, secretary general of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI).

Like the national SEZ laws, the Dawei laws also include 12 chapters: Titles and Definitions; Objectives; Dawei Special Economic Zone; Formation of Central Body; Central Working Body and Management Committees relating to the Dawei Special Economic Zone and Functions and Duties thereof; Special Privileges of Investors; Specific Duties of Developers or Investors; Land use; Banks and Finance Management and Insurance Business; Management and Inspection of Commodities by Customs Department; Quarantine Inspection and Confinement so as not to spread Contagious Diseases; Matters relating to Labour and Miscellaneous.

Chapter Three outlines the various industries that are to be established at the SEZ, including high technology, information and telecommunication, export products, seaport area, support and forwarding, science and technological research and development, services, sub-trading, as well as other zones prescribed by the Central Body as it sees fit.

The laws also establish a chain of command for the zone, with the SEZ chairman directly responsible to the president.

U Zaw Min Win, UMFCCI’s vice president, said that he had heard that the Dawei SEZ chairman would be given broad powers by the government in order to make the running of the site as efficient as possible.

“I’ve heard that the SEZ chairman would report to the president [U Thein Sein], without going through any ministry, to save time,” he said.

He added that the chairman would have similar authority to that of a government minister.

Mr Suphap Satthatham, the project engineer of Italian-Thai Development (ITD), the Thai firm responsible for building the enormous 250-square-kilometre, $50-billion-plus site, said in early February that the Myanmar workers had chosen to cease work of their own accord.

“Our Myanmar workers just stopped. We’re waiting for new employees,” he said.


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MyanmarSpecial economic zones (Burmese: အထူးစီးပွားရေးဇုန်), which offer tax exemptions for different sectors (5 years for production, 8 years for high-tech, 2 years for agriculture, livestock breeding and forestry, and 1 year for banking) are undergoing preliminary construction in Sittwe Township and Kyaukpyu Township in Rakhine State.[6] An international standard airport is also to be constructed. The six free trade zones will be Thilawa Port in Yangon, Mawlamyine in Mon State, Myawaddy and Hpa-an in Kayin State, Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State and Pyin Oo Lwin in Mandalay Region.[7] According to the country's Special Economic Zone Law's Act 7, Section 36, homes and farming properties located on a proposed SEZ must be duly relocated and reimbursed.[8]

The Myanmar Port Authority has been involved in facilitating contracts to develop Myanmar's Special Economic Zones, including a USD $8.6 billion deal to develop a deep sea port at Dawei, by Italian-Thai Development).[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_economic_zone#Myanmar

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China should build a mega SEZ at Jinghong for the trade of 5 countries

Thilawa SEZ work to start
By Myat May Zin | Monday, 29 October 2012

4Workers unload teak logs at the Myanmar International Terminals Thilawa port in Kyauktan township.  Stuart Deed / The Myanmar Times
Japan External Trade Organisation and the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry will begin building the Thilawa Special Economic Zone in early 2013, officials said on October 21.

U Win Aung, UMFCCI chairman and head of Dagon International Construction, said the Myanmar side will own 51 percent of the venture, while the Japanese will have the remaining 49pc.

“We will invite investors to take part in the Thilawa SEZ. We will sell shares to the public before the project is launched in January,” U Win Aung told The Myanmar Times.

The 2400-hectare zone, which was announced in January 2011, is about 25 kilometres south of Yangon along the Yangon River in Thanlyin and Kyauktan townships. It incorporates the Myanmar International Terminals Thilawa – a deepsea port facility built in the mid 1990s.

Major Japanese companies reportedly involved in the project include Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Sumitomo corporations.

Minister for National Planning and Economic Development Dr Kan Zaw said the zone is the first step towards building an attractive business environment for investors – and a keystone of economic reforms intended to create the investor friendly-environment in Myanmar.

Deputy Minister for the National Planning and Economic Development U Set Aung said potential investors are required to accomplish a number of tasks before beginning projects.

“Investing companies must register their companies first,” he said “We have already simplified the registration process, which can be done in three hours, where it used to up to one year. Even when there is a delay it should take only a day to register,” U Set Aung said.

Interested companies must also register their planned projects with the Myanmar Investment Commission. Each economic zone will have a one-stop service centre to assist companies interested in investing, he said.

“Although investment is so far limited to private businesspeople, we plan to ease limitations later, especially in the energy and communication sectors,” U Set Aung said.

“Some large foreign companies have applied to invest in mining and energy projects too,” he added.

He said the special economic zones would be classified as either free zones or promotion zones. He said companies that focused on exports would be encouraged to work in the free zones.

“If they distribute goods to the domestic market from the free zones they will be required to pay taxes. And residential houses will not be allowed to be built in the free zones,” he said.

Shopping centres, hospitals, education centres, banks and insurance companies will be placed in the promotion zone, where companies focused on the domestic market would be based.

“From the promotion zone, they can distribute to the domestic market freely but they have to pay tax on products, importing raw materials and instruments when they export the products to other countries from the promotion zone,” U Set Aung said.

Translated by Zaw Winn

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