Myanmar Life's Official Blog

Myanmar GDP 2013

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:22:37 PDT

According to to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Myanmar's economy could grow by 6.75% this fiscal year, led by natural gas sales and investment as the country moves to modernise its financial system. "The authorities' ambitious reform programme is bearing fruit, with macroeconomic stability and high investor interest," Matt Davies, the IMFs mission chief for Myanmar, said in a statement after a 15-day visit to the country.

EU lifted Myanmar political and economic sanctions

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:19:42 PDT

Myanmar has hailed a European Union decision lifting political and economic sanctions against the former pariah state, pledging to continue its reforms and march toward democracy. Senior Myanmar diplomat Aung Lynn told reporters on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference in Brunei's capital Tuesday that the international community can expect more reforms, especially in the socio-economic sectors.

Kyodo News Agency in Myanmar

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:09:40 PDT

Kyodo News Agency of Japan opened its branch in Yangon Tuesday under a memorandum of understanding signed with the News and Periodicals Enterprise of the Ministry of Information, official media reported Wednesday. Kyodo is the third foreign news agency set up in Yangon after NHK of Japan and US-based Associated Press (AP) since early this month.

56 political prisoners released

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:01:03 PDT

Myanmar's president announced an amnesty on Tuesday for about 100 prisoners, a senior official said, 56 of whom were confirmed as political detainees by a group monitoring activists held in the country's jails. The release is the latest in a series of amnesties decided by reformist President Thein Sein and came a day after the European Union lifted all sanctions on Myanmar excluding an arms embargo.

Dr. Zar Ni Comments on Myanmar Ethnic Cleansing

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:05:01 PDT

Myanmar human right activist Dr. Zar Ni Comments on Myanmar Ethnic Cleansing, how do you think? Please comment below....

Photos - Mandalay Thingyan 2013

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 22:02:31 PDT

Photos of Mandalay Thingyan 2013 (Alpine Mandalay thingyan 2013) - Enjoy photo collection of Mandalay Thingyan 2013. As the second largest city of the country, many celebrities and singers are joining Thingyan there and crowed everyday.

Source : FB

Myanmar president Thein Sein in Thingyan

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:41:04 PDT

Myanmar president U Thein Sein is enjoying Thingyan festival in Nay Pyi Taw, the Capital City, with some popular celebrities of the country. Do you have a chance to visit there and join the president?

Source: FB

Loneliness on Myanmar

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 08:04:19 PDT

Myanmar was under dictatorship for several decades. Under these dictators Myanmar became loneliest country in the world. With this photo I describe the loneliness of Myanmar's pass.

Aung San Suu Kyi at Narita international Airport

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 07:57:04 PDT

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, center, arrives at Narita international airport in Narita, near Tokyo, Saturday, April 13, 2013. The visit by Suu Kyi, in Japan for the first time in 27 years, is highlighting Japan's interest in helping to craft a blueprint for Myanmar's economy and tapping its growth potential.

11 Things to Know about Myanmar before You Go

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:32:50 PDT

CNN said 11 things to know before visiting Myanmar - here we go...

New Year celebrations last four days
Myanmar has fantastic beaches
The Internet isn't censored anymore, but it's still slow
You'll need plenty of cash -- and make sure it's clean
A kissing sound gets you a beer
Hotels are expensive
The men wear skirts (Longyi)
The food is exceptional
The trains are seriously bumpy
Yangon has a newspaper vendor on every street corner
he people with red teeth aren't vampires

12 International Consortia Race to Myanmar Mobile Telecom Licenses

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:19:09 PDT

Myanmar has shortlisted 12 international consortia in the race for two of mobile telecom licenses, which include names such as Singapore's SingTel and M1, India's Bharti Airtel, Japan's KDDI, Africa's MTN, and China Mobile.

The 12 shortlisted applicants comprise:

Airtel Consortium
Axiata Group
Digicel
France Telecom-Orange + Marubeni
KDDI + Sumitomo + Myanmar Information and Communication Technology Development Corporation (MICTDC) + A1 Construction
Millicom International Cellular S.A.
MTN Consortium (MTN Dubai + M1 + Amara Communications)
Qatar Telecom (Qtel) Q.S.C ("Ooredoo")
Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) + KBZ + Myanmar Telephone Company Limited (M-Tel)
Telenor Mobile Communications
Viettel Group
Vodafone + China Mobile

Myanmar opens Oil Auction

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:07:29 PDT

Myanmar has opened a long-awaited auction for 30 offshore oil and gas exploration blocks in its latest effort to attract foreign investment even as it considers recasting a series of older contracts with outside companies. The government has invited foreign companies to submit expressions of interest by June 14 and the auction is expected to attract fierce competition.

Myanmar SIM Price to drop 2 USD by 24th April

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:33:35 PDT

The Ministry of Information announced on TV that SIM prices in the country will drop from 230,000 kyats (about $260) to 1,500 kyats on April 24th. A public relations official for the ministry also posted the news to his Facebook page (link in Burmese), garnering a massive response.

ဧျပီလ ၂၄ ရက္ေန႕က စျပီး CDMA 800 , WCDMA 3G ဖုန္းကဒ္မ်ားကို ၁၅၀၀ က်ပ္ျဖင့္ ေရာင္းခ် ေပးမည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ျမန္မာ့ဆက္သြယ္ေရးလုပ္ငန္းက ေၾကညာခဲ့ပါတယ္။ အေသးစိတ္ကို ျမန္မာ့အသံႏွင့္ရုပ္ျမင္သံၾကားကေန သတင္းထုတ္လႊင့္ေပးေနပါတယ္။

Myanmar Has Approached PTT to Help

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:28:13 PDT

Myanmar has approached PTT Thailand Power giant to help upgrade an old oil refinery, which has a capacity of 50,000-70,000 barrels per day. Meanwhile, Thailand's Neighbouring Countries Economic Development Cooperation Agency (Neda) will consider granting a soft loan of Bt1 billion to Myanmar's government as part of its request for assistance in installing power-transmission lines between Ye and Dawei to ensure national electricity security.

Aung San Suu Kyi will visit Japan

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:23:07 PDT

Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will visit Japan from April 13 through 19, according to a Japanese statement released late Wednesday. It will be her first visit to Japan in nearly three decades since her previous stay as a visiting researcher at the prestigious Kyoto University from 1985 to 1986, the foreign ministry said in the statement.

Myanmar Violence Total Death 43

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:29:33 PDT

Recent violence against Muslims in central Myanmar has risen to 43 death with more than 1,300 homes and other buildings having been destroyed, state media reports. It said 1,355 houses, shops and buildings were destroyed. More than 9,000 people were in temporary refuges.

Jimmy Carter To Visit Myanmar

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:24:44 PDT

Former US president Jimmy Carter headed Friday to Myanmar and Nepal, hoping to find ways to encourage democracy in the two Asian nations, which are undergoing political transitions. The former president will then head to Myanmar to meet political leaders and civil society as the erstwhile military regime pushes ahead with reforms that have included an easing of press censorship and the release of prisoners.

Young Generation Ready to Push Myanmar Up

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:44:55 PDT

Young Generation Ready to Push Myanmar Up - Many Young people, foreign-educated and brimming with ideas, are returning to Myanmar to either set up their own companies or work for multinational corporations.

Thaung Su Nyein, who is the managing director of Information Matrix, said: "I am in the Young Entrepreneurs Association. We have a couple of guys that are in their 20s. They've returned from overseas and I think everyone's trying to contribute because we know that Myanmar needs such talents and there are many things that everyone has to contribute."

According to the Asian Development Bank, Myanmar has some 13 million citizens aged between 15 and 28, and this group accounts for about 40 per cent of the country's working age population.

"What I would like to see is to see people like me bring back their talent, bring back their experience and just find ways of contributing in a positive way and in a very efficient way," said Su Nyein.

Myanmar to use Force to Halt Deadly Roit

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:34:38 PDT

Myanmar President Thein Sein said Thursday that he was prepared to use force to quell the religious rioting that has shaken his country, answering calls even from longtime democracy advocates for more forceful security measures. “I am firmly committed to use the power to deploy the security forces vested in me by the Constitution,” Mr. Thein Sein said in a televised speech, his first public comments since anti-Muslim rioting in central Myanmar killed at least 40 people last week.

Myanmar Gas Exports to Reach $4 Billions

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:33:28 PDT

Myanmar Gas exports will total $4 billion this fiscal year, said the official who asked not to be named. Gas exports have risen in value by about 75 percent since fiscal year 2006 when they totaled about $2 billion. In fiscal 2010 they totaled $2.5 billion and in the last fiscal year they reached $3.5 billion.

Aung San Suu Kyi Among the Generals

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:19:58 PDT

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate, National League of Democracy Party Chair, presence among the generals, attends a military ceremony, an unthinkable occurrence a few years ago.

Su Xiuyu won Myanmar's highest religious medals

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:41:04 PDT

Su Xiuyu won one of Myanmar's highest religious medals of commendation conferred by Myanmar's President U Thein SeinTuesday in honor of her outstanding contribution to the cause of education, religious affairs, social welfare and China- Myanmar friendship. China's Myanmar language expert Su Xiuyu (front R), a professor from China's Beijing Foreign Studies University, poses for photos in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, March 26, 2013.

Myanmar To Resume Exports Rice in Japan after 45-years

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:24:28 PDT

Myanmar will resume exports of rice to Japan after a 45-year hiatus, marking a milestone in trade relations between the former military dictatorship and Tokyo. Mitsui, the trading company that arranged the cargo, the first between the two nations since 1968, said a shipment of 5,000 tonnes of long-grain rice would leave the southern port of Yangon in May, bound for Nagoya. It added that Japan’s agriculture ministry, which is the buyer, may sell the rice to domestic producers of beer, crackers and shochu, a distilled Japanese drink.

Military will continue to play a political role in Myanmar

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:18:28 PDT

Myanmar’s commander in chief says the military will continue to play a political role as it supports the country’s transition to democracy. Speaking to thousands of troops at the annual Armed Forces Day celebration, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said Wednesday that the military must strengthen its capabilities with modern weaponry and training. He also said the country would like to deepen military engagement with other countries, particularly within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and will abide by international human rights conventions.

Curfew in three Burmese townships

lifemyanmar@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:12:22 PDT

Myanmar authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in three Burmese townships on Tuesday after anti-Muslim violence touched new parts of the country, edging closer to the main city, Yangon. State television reported episodes in the three townships in the Bago region, all within about 100 miles of Yangon, saying the latest attack happened Monday night in Gyobingauk, where “troublemakers” had damaged a religious building, shops and some houses. The report said attacks on religious buildings, shops and houses occurred in nearby Otepho and Min Hla on Sunday.