Two years ago this month, Burma’s current government took office amid broad international condemnation for the rigged election — replete with fraud and intimidation — that put it there. Despite this inauspicious start, Burma politics have opened in the last year and a half, and the country’s economy has liberalized more quickly than any other on earth.
In many respects, it’s as though the global economy has discovered a new planet, one that is geostrategically located, not to mention rich with natural resources, a young labor force, and a population of roughly 60 million consumers. Uncovering and developing Burma’s vast potential will be expensive and dangerous, requiring an appetite for risk, though structural advantages do set Burma apart from its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors such as Laos and Cambodia. The International Monetary Fund optimistically calls Burma Asia’s “final frontier.”
looking beyond borders 