(The Seminar On Human Resource Development And Nation

Building)

• Today, the people of Myanmar can dare to entertain high hopes and aspirations for building a peaceful, prosperous and developed nation. The Government, on its part has laid down the required national tasks and guidelines for the realization of these aspirations. But taking into -consideration the desires and needs of the people, have also opened up many avenues to enable them to express their views and to participate in the actual implementation of the many tasks that nation building entails.
• Of the many avenues that the government has opened up, are the various seminars and symposiums where top technocrats, scholars and academicians expound and exchange their views freely on topics essential to the nation and the people.
• One such forum was the Seminar on Human Resource Development and Nation Building held at the International Business Centre in Yangon from 18 - 20 November, 1997. Foreign experts and scholars from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand were also invited to share their experiences and also get a first-hand view of the concerted efforts being made by the Myanmar people. It also provided these foreign friends an insight into Myanmar, that showed without doubt that it was indeed a worthy addition to the ASEAN family of nations.
• A summary of the floor discussions on the topics presented by eminent experts and scholars in their respective fields is hereby presented to our readers.

• Professor Ananta’s first question concerned the presenter’s assertion that in Myanmar at present, imports exceeded exports and that there was a trade deficit. So, he wanted to know how Myanmar anticipated solving this problem in view of the fact that ASEAN countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia etc. were facing a financial crisis because of such a deficit
• His second question was on the contribution of the Informal Sector and the policy of this country (Myanmar) with regard to this issue.
• The third question concerned the presence of foreign workers here in Myanmar and the policies on sending workers abroad.

1. Myanmar has been suffering constant deficits in her trade balance and there have been shifts in the exports - shifts in the sector of goods as well as in the direction of exports. The best thing to do in such a situation is to diversify exports and look for new markets, making, at the same time, some changes in the importing policy. The Ministry of Commerce allows various options for imports - imports first basis, consignment basis and so on and has made some amends to import procedures, but imports are not discouraged. The Ministry Commerce is also trying to increase export through diversification of items.

 

2. Myanmar has a very large informal sector and perhaps this is one reason why some of the figures are misleading and do not reflect the actual situation. The informal sector may amount to the extent of 40 - 50per cent. That is why, there appears to be a fall in employment because the informal sector is not on record. The existence of the informal sector cannot be denied and has great dominance in the economy. The authorities are trying to restate, that is, bring the informal sector out into the open to cure many of the economic problems.

 

3. As far as reception of foreign workers is concerned there is no problem. Especially under the Foreign Investment Law, experts who come with investment projects are welcome.

 

4. Concerning the outflow of workers, there are Myanmar workers in Malaysia, Singapore, Japan. But the Department of Labour is more competent to respond to this question. To my knowledge, there are no prohibitions, or restrictions. But at present Myanmar workers abroad do not get equal remuneration with the locals. We feel that is not fair.

• U Win Thein requested a brief explanation regarding the strategies for considering the trend analysis of the Myanmar economy in relation to the development of human resources.

• Reply- The composition of employment in various sectors as well as their contribution to GDP was presented in the paper and I stated that there was some imbalance. In the productive sector the employment is less than the contribution to GDP, so also with the services sector. But in the trade sector, the contribution to GDP exceeded the employment composition there, and this in a way discloses room for improvement in efficiency and productivity in the commodity and services sectors. Regarding strategy we have to refer back to the various training schemes which are conducted by the Department of Labour and various other ministries. These programmes hopefully, will enhance productivity and efficiency.

• He stated that education and training were important to HRD and that in the ASEAN context also, they were given high priority and he cited figures of the total percentage of expenditure of ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand etc:
• He went on to say that the education sector in Myanmar was also given a high priority. But he said in 1993, there was a large number of under-14 youths, about 15 million which was 36% of the population. So he said there would be a large pool of youths for the work force in the coming decade. He therefore wished to know if the Government would provide social expenditure including education for them and create employment opportunities for entry into the work force.

• Reply - U Maw Than pointed out that there were two points to be considered - education sector expenditure and education activities. Educational expenditure has increased nearly eight-fold. Educational expenditure in constant terms rose from 796 million in 1985-86 to 1005 million kyats in 1988-89. He said, in absolute terms it was fine. But in percentage terms of the total GDP, there should be a greater amount spent on education. Throughout the 9 years to date, the expenditure of education as a percentage of the GDP was the highest only in 1990-91/9192. Even then it comes to only a little over 2%, 2.4-2.6%. But in later years only a little over 1% of GDP was spent on education.
• Regarding activities in the education sector, there has been a dramatic increase in enrollment. This shows, he said a great demand for increase in educational facilities. Many colleges and universities have now been upgraded and there are universities/colleges in all states except the Kayah State, but it is learnt that it too, will soon have a higher institute of learning.
• The Basic Education sector has also been expanded. The number of schools has now been increased from 39,650 in 93-94 to 41,500.
• In 93/94 there were 150 technical and vocational schools but this was increased to 156 in 96-97. There have also been parallel increases in the number of schools and number of teachers.

• U Win Pe wished to know why productivity had fallen in the private sector though it had increased in the state sector.

• Reply - That, the speaker said, might be attributed to the dominance or presence of the informal sector.

• U Ba Than commented that more than 30 years had passed in experimenting with the economics of development in Asia and Africa and he then asked how much of the values heretofore past are still relevant in the present scenario and also with respect to human resource development.

• Reply - There are two elements, growth and development. Regarding development, there are two aspects, the material aspect and spiritual, intellectual or cultural aspects, that is the mores, the values, beliefs and so forth. Emphasis almost totally/entirely towards material development would result in a not too satisfactory state. There has been a shift in thinking and due regard is now given to cultural values, to the intangible aspects.

• Colonel Kyaw Thein said he had had the opportunity of hearing the discussions by U Maw Than and U Mya Thein on import policy and diversification of exports at a Trade Policy Meeting but requested the speaker to elaborate a little on how policy makers were going to encourage exports.

• Reply - He replied that great reliance had to be placed on the private sector. So, the current trend in thinking was to leave many of the initiatives to the private sector. One of the important things that the authorities of Commerce, National Planning and Economic Development and Company Registration could do was provide commercial information for the promotion of export. Disseminate commercial intelligence, like the state of the economies in the importing countries-context, connections and the items in demand. This is an area where the international trade department or commerce department is concentrating on, at the moment.

• Dr. Wattana asked if there was some awareness in the country of the side effects of economic development, the impact on family structure, social values especially with regard to the negative effects.

• Reply - As far as economic development at the environmental level was concerned, he said, Thailand would have had a lot of experience, such as littering, deforestation and pollution. Concerning the side effects on family, this, he said was unavoidable, and that we ourselves have experienced effects on the family structure. In the olden days life was easy; there was one breadwinner in the family and the rest tended to the elderly members and children. But now we are faced with a challenging and demanding environment and very few people are left at leisure. Many have to work. That applies in the various economic stages of a nation as well. The more developed and advanced a country the greater call there is on attention of the people and this affects the family way of life.

(N.B. Myanmar Perspectives will be publishing these discussions in monthly instalments for the benefit of our readers.)