Lack of a fully functioning financial sector has constrained Myanmar's growth and made it difficult to access funding - in respect to large projects and small businesses. It has also impinged on Myanmar's ability to introduce the financial products, liquidity and practices found in many other economies. While we've come a long way since a few years ago when one presidential advisor told me there were only about 20 computers in the Ministry of Finance, how do you see this sector evolving? What is in store in regard to central bank management, the role of foreign banks and insurance companies, and how will development of the financial sector effect corporate practices in Myanmar?

Yes, this is such a serious problem. As with so much else, however, a lack of true resolve has been apparent. The government has passed quite a number of laws designed to update Burma's financial system, but in practice they bog down amidst administrative recalcitrance and conservatism, and an all-pervasive fear of change in critical institutions. These very much include the Central Bank of Myanmar which, some prominent internal reformers notwithstanding, remains in the clutches of people with little understanding of modern financial practices, and great antipathies toward anything smacking of 'international finance'. So much in the financial sector can be improved by simply removing a vast array of excessively restrictive, irrational and contradictory regulation. This has not been done. On the upside, change must surely come, and World Bank support for institutional and regulatory transformation seems to be imminent. Another silver-lining is that this sector represents very much 'low-hanging fruit' (apologies for the cliché), and so could be the arena for early reforms by the new government.

You recently referenced a recent Economist article which noted that in spite of movement seen in recent years the "deep state" including the security apparatus, military corporations, large crony companies and other entities of this kind remain largely undisturbed. Your view was this equilibrium needed to be "disturbed" to create a prosperous and peaceful country. Can you talk further about your views and how Myanmar can transform itself while maintaining balance, stability and a spirit of national reconciliation? Given it will be some time before there are alternatives, how quickly can this "disturbance" proceed?

A genuinely competitive economy, overseen by institutions determining the rules of the game, will be (as it always is, if imperfectly applied everywhere) the best antidote to cronyisation and rent-seeking.

This month Myanmar launched the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) in an effort to improve the ability of local companies to access funding using market-oriented criteria from private investors and the Deputy Finance Minister has announced that he expects the YSX to catch with Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange within three years. What are your thoughts on the YSX and the role it will play moving forward.

I believe the development of the YSX is positive but that it will take a while to work out the mechanisms that will allow it to operate effectively. This way the organizers got to hold to their launch date while allowing time to work out all the details. Longer term, we might hope for it to evolve into something like the Vietnam exchanges which, though starting badly, eventually became a useful device for capital formation and market liquidity.

Eoin Treacy's view

While the media tend to focus on the very worst news, there is clear evidence that a growing number of countries are embarking on a path to improving standards of governance. Myanmar is certainly in that camp. Provided it can implement the reforms necessary to encourage foreign direct investment and develop normal business relations with international lenders there is every reason to expect Myanmar and its people to have a bright future not least because it has oil and gas as well as some of the world’s best jade and ruby deposits. 

Yoma Strategic remains the primary avenue for participating in the Myanmar market outside government bonds. The share has been consolidating in the region of the 200-day MA since the election result that empowered the long embattled opposition and a sustained move above 50¢ would break the medium-term progression of lower rally highs.