မနေ့က Fox TV က ... Tucker Carlson show မှာ ... အမေရိကားမှာ ရာဇဝတ်မှုတွေ ထူပြောလာတာ ... အထူးသဖြင့် နေ့စဥ် homicide လူသတ်မှုတွေ နှစ် ၃၀ အတွင်း နှစ်ဆတိုးလာတာ (အခုအခါ တစ်ရက်ကို လူသတ်မှု ၃၀၀ ခန့် ဖြစ်လာတာ) ဟာ ...ဂျော့ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်ကြောင့်လို့ ... အချက်အလက်အကိုးအကားတွေနဲ့ထောက်ပြ ပြောဆိုသွားခဲ့ ...
ဂျော့ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ် (ယခု ၉၄ နှစ်) ဟာ ... အရှေ့ဥရောပက ဟန်ဂေရီနိုင်ငံမှာ မွေးဖွားခဲ့တဲ့ ... ဂျူးလူမျိုးဖြစ်ပြီးတော့ ..
ဒုတိယကမ္ဘာစစ်အပြီး အမေရိကားကို ဒုက္ခသယ်အနေနဲ့ရောက်လာရာက ... အခု ဘီလျံများစွာချမ်းသာပြီး ... သူ့ရဲ့ နယ်စည်းမခြားလူတိုင်းကြိုက်တဲ့နေရာကို ကြိုက်သလိုကူးသန်းသွားလာနေထိုင်ရေး ပွင့်လင်းလူ့အဖွဲ့အစည်း open society ရူးကြောင်ကြောင်အိပ်မက်ကို ...
လူတွေသေသွေးထွက်သံယိုဖြစ်စေတဲ့နည်းလမ်းတွေအပါအဝင် ... နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံနဲံ အကောင်အထည်ဖေါ်နေသူဖြစ်ပါတယ် ...
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ ... ဘဂ်လီတွေ ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်အနောက်တံခါးကနေ အတားအဆီးမဲ့ ဝင်လာ အခြေချနေထိုင်နိုင်ရေးအတွက် ... သူ့ရဲ့အထောက်အပံ့တွေနဲ့ daily operations တွေ run နေကြတဲ့ INGO/NGO တွေ ရာချီပြီး နာမည်အမျိုးမျိုးနဲ့ အခြေစိုက်လှုပ်ရှားခဲ့တာတွေကိုတော့ ... Uncle Ronnie အပါအဝင် ရေးသားကြတဲ့သူတွေရဲ့ post တွေမှာ တွေ့နိုင်ပါတယ် ...
Fox TV က ... Tucker Carlson show မှာ ... ပြောသွားတာတွေက ...
ဥရောပမှာ ဂျော့ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်က ဒေါ်လာဘီလျံ ၄၀ လောက်သုံးစွဲပြီး ... သူ့အထောက်အပံ့နဲ့ ဥရောပနိုင်ငံတချို့တွေမှာ သူကြိုးဆွဲမယ့်သူတွေ အာဏာရရှိစေအောင် နှစ် ၂၀ အတွင်း နည်းအမျိုးမျိုးနဲ့လုပ်ဆောင်ကာ ... အာရှအာဖရိက ကနေ ဒုက္ခသယ်အမည်ခံတွေကို ... လူလှိုင်းလုံးကြီးတွေနဲ့ နှစ်စဥ်မောင်းသွင်းပေးခဲ့လို့ ...
ပြင် သစ် ဂျာမဏီ အီတလီ လို ... စက်မှုဖွံ့ဖြိုးပြီး G7 နိုင်ငံတွေကနေ ... ဆင်းရဲချို့တဲ့တဲ့ ဟန်ဂေရီ ရူမေးနီးယားလိုနိုင်ငံတွေအထိ ... ရာဇဝတ်မှုတွေ တိုးပွားလာတာကြောင့် ဥရောပနိုင်ငံတွေက ခေါင်းဆောင်တွေ ဒုက္ခတွေများနေကြရတာတွေ အပြင် ...
အမေရိကားမှာ ဂျော့ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ် မွှေပုံက ....
သမ္မတဂျိုးဘိုင်ဒင် နဲ့ အောက်လွှတ်တော်ဥက္ကဌ နန်စီပလိုစီတို့ရဲ့ Democratic Party ထဲမှာ လူမွေးပြီး မွှေတယ်လို့ ... ဆိုတယ် ... (ဂျော့ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်ရဲ့ open society သဘောထားကို လုံးဝလက်မခံတဲ့ ဒေါ်နယ်လ်ထရမ့်ပ်တို့ရဲ့ Republican Party ထဲမှာတော့ ... ဘယ်လိုမှ တပည့်မွေးလို့မရ)
Tucker Carlson show မှာ ... ဥပမာပေးထားတာမှာ အဆိုးဆုံးက လက်ရှိ Florida ပြည်နယ်ရဲ့ governor ပြည်နယ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးမှူး Andrew Warren ဖြစ်တယ် ...
ဂျော့်ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်အထောက်အပံ့နဲ့ ပြည်နယ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးမှူးရွေးကောက်ပွဲနိုင်ခဲ့တဲ့ ... Andrew Warren ဟာ ... Florida ပြည်နယ်အတွင်းဥပဒေပြုခွင့်ရှိသူ prosecutor (ပြည်နယ်ဥပဒေအကျိုးဆောင်အရာရှိချုပ်)ကို ... ဂျော့်ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်စိတ်ကြိုက်လူကို ခန့်ပေးတယ် ...
အဲဒီ prosecutor (ပြည်နယ်ဥပဒေအကျိုးဆောင်အရာရှိချုပ်)က ... ဂျော့ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ် ... ဖြုတ်သိမ်းခိုင်းတဲ့ဥပဒေတွေကို ဖြုတ်သိမ်း ... ပြဌာန်းခိုင်းတဲ့ဥပဒေသစ်တွေ ပြဌာန်းပေးရတယ် ...
ရာဇဝတ်မှုကျူးလွန်သူတွေအတွက် ဖျော့တော့တဲ့ဥပဒေတွေကြောင့် ... အဖမ်းခံရပြီးရင်လည်း ပြစ်ဒဏ်တွေက ခပ်ပျော့ပျော့တွေ ဖြစ်လာလို့ ... လူဆိုးတွေက ပျော်ပျော်ကြီး ရာဇဝတ်မှုတွေ ကျူးလွန်လာကြတယ် ...
ဘာသာရေးအဆုံးအမတွေနဲ့ ... လူတွေကို ပဲ့ပြင်ထိန်းကျောင်းနေကြတဲ့ ... ခရစ်ယာန်တရားဟောဆရာ pastor တွေကို ... အပြစ်ရှာ ဖြုတ်ပစ် ... ဂျော့်ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်အထောက်အပံ့ခံ pastor တွေနဲ့ ... လူလဲပစ်တယ် ...
ပြည်နယ်တော်တော်များများမှာ ... prosecutor (ပြည်နယ်ဥပဒေအကျိုးဆောင်အရာရှိချုပ်)တွေဟာ ဂျော့်ချ်ဆိုးရို့စ်သြဇာခံတွေ ဖြစ်လာနေပြီလို့ ...
Tucker Carlson show က ... ဆိုလေရဲ့ ..
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George Soros ရဲ့သား Alexander Soros ... နေပြည်တော်မှာရုံးဖွင့်... မြန်မာစစ်တပ်ရဲ့ လှုပ်ရှားမှုတွေနဲ့ data တွေ စုဆောင်းတဲ့အလုပ်လာလုပ်ဖို့...ဘယ်သူတွေက ဒလန်လုပ်ပေးခဲ့လဲ ဆိုတာရယ်...
ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက် မတိုင်ခင် ၃ ရက်အလိုမှာ...- အာဏာထိန်းတော့မယ်..မင်းပြေးတော့... မင်းနဲ့ Sean Turnell ကို ဆွဲစေ့လိမ့်မယ်...ဆိုတာ...ဘယ်ဒလန်က သတင်းပေးလိုက်လို့...Sean Turnell မလွတ်ပဲ... ဒီကောင်လွတ်သွားလဲ... - ဆိုတာ...
မြန်မာပြည်မှာ မြန်မာ့နည်းမြန်မာ့ဟန်နဲ့ ... ဂျော့်ဆိုးရို့စ်မွှေခဲ့ပုံတွေ ... အရင် acc တွေမှာ Uncle Ronnie တင်ခဲ့ post တွေထဲက ... တစ်ခု ...
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FMI ဆိုတော့ မေမေကြီးဘော်ဒါ မွှေမွှေကြီး George Soros က မြန်မာ့စီးပွာေးရးထဲ ၀င်ပြီးမွှေဖို့ ထည့်ထားတဲ့အထဲက ပိုက်ဆံ တစ်ချို့တစ်၀က်...ပဲပေါ့...။
- FMI ဆာ့ဂ်ျပန်း (ဦးသိမ်းဝေ) ရဲ့ Star City + ရိုးမဘဏ် + ရန်ကုန် တိုင်းဒေသကြီး၀န်ကြီးချုပ် ရဲ့ ရန်ကုန်မြို့သစ်စီမံကိန်း စတဲ့ဟာတွေ လည်း ဂျော့ခ်ျဆိုးရိုးစ် ပိုက်ဆံ ...
Reuters: Soros has invested several million dollars through businesses run by Serge Pun, chairman of the SPA Group, he said, but not directly.
“We would be eager to do it in the areas of banking, finance and agriculture. This is where we feel the country, the people, need this investment most,” Soros said.
- ခိုး၀င်ဘင်္ဂလီတွေအတွက် မကြာသေးခင်ကမှ အမေရိကန်ဒေါ်လာ (၁၀) သန်း ပေးလိုက်တာကလည်း ဂျော့ခ်ျဆိုးရိုးစ် ပိုက်ဆံ
- အခု YBS ကားမှတ်တိုင်တွေလည်း ဂျော့ခ်ျဆိုးရိုးစ်ပိုက်ဆံ
- ဂျော့ဆိုးရိုးစ် တပည့်ကြီး ဦးသောင်းထွန်းကလည်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရဲ့ လုံခြုံရေး+စီးပွားရေး+အုပ်ချုပ်ရေး ၃ ခုမှာ အကောင်ဖြစ်လာ
(၁) အမျိုးသားလုံခြုံရေးအကြံပေး National Security Adivisor
(၂) ၀န်ကြီးများအဖွဲ့ရုံး၀န်ကြီး Minister of Cabinet Office
(၃) မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုကော်မရှင်ဥက္ကဋ္ဌ Chairman of Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC)
- ဂျော့ခ်ျဆိုးရိုးစ်ရဲ့သားက နေပြည်တော်မှာ ရုံးခန်းဖွင့်
- ဒီနိုင်ငံရဲ့ လုံခြုံရေး+စီးပွားရေး+အုပ်ချုပ်ရေး - အတွင်းစည်းက သတင်းနဲ့အချက်အလက်တွေဟာ ရခိုင်မှာ မဆူဆူအောင် ဘင်္ဂလီ issue ဖန်တီးပေးနေတဲ့ ဂျော့ခ်ျဆိုးရိုးစ် လက်မရောက်ရင် ဘယ်နိုင်ငံခြားသားလက် ရောက်မလဲ ???
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Yangon Bus Service - YBS
အဆင့်မြင့် ကားမှတ်တိုင် ၅၀၀ မှ ပထမဆုံးမှတ်တိုင် စတင်ဖွင့်လှစ်
July 5 ,2018
ဒေါ်လာ ၁၃ သန်းကျော် တန် ရန်ကုန်မြို့ ကားမှတ်တိုင် များ အဆင့်မြှင့်တင်ခြင်းစီမံကိန်း မှ ပထမဆုံး ဘတ်စ်ကားမှတ်တိုင် ကို ဇွန်လ ၃ ရက်တွင် စတင်ဖွင့် လှစ်ခဲ့ကြောင်း စီမံကိန်းလုပ်ကိုင် ခွင့်ရထားသည့် FMIDecaux က သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်သည်။
FMIDecaux က အဆင့်မြှင့် တင်မည့် ကားမှတ်တိုင် ၅၀၀ အနက် တစ်ခုဖြစ်ပြီး ဗဟန်းမြို့ နယ် ကမ္ဘာအေးဘုရားလမ်း မြန်မာ ပလာဇာရှေ့ရှိ လမ်းနီမှတ်တိုင် ဖြစ်သည်ဟု ကုမ္ပဏီက ထုတ်ပြန် ထားသည်။
ကုမ္ပဏီသည် မှတ်တိုင်ခေါင် မိုးများတွင် ဘတ်စ်ကားရောက်ရှိချိန် ဖော်ပြချက် LED Screen များ၊ ကွန်ပျူတာနှင့် အီလက်ထရွန်နစ် ပစ္စည်းများအတွက် USB ပေါက် များပါသည့် ဘတ်စ်ကားမှတ်တိုင် သစ် ၅၀၀၊ ကြော်ငြာစာမျက်နှာ နှင့် ရန်ကုန်မြို့ သတင်းအချက်အ လက်ပါသည့် ဆိုင်းဘုတ် ၅၀၀ တပ်ဆင်မည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့အပြင် အမှိုက်ပုံးများနှင့် သောက်ရေ၊ သုံးရေအတွက် ရေစင်များ ထားရှိမည်ဟု ကုမ္ပဏီက ထုတ်ပြန်ထားသည်။
ကားမှတ်တိုင် ၅၀၀ ကို သုံး နှစ်အတွင်း အပြီးဆောင်ရွက်မည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ကုမ္ပဏီက ဆိုထား သည်။
တင်ဒါအောင်မြင်ထားသည့် FMIDecaux ကုမ္ပဏီသည် FMI ကုမ္ပဏီရှယ်ယာ အချိုး ၄၀ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းနှင့် ပြင်သစ်ကုမ္ပဏီ JC Decaux ကုမ္ပဏီက ၆၀ ရာခိုင် နှုန်း ပိုင်ဆိုင်သည်။
အဆိုပါ ကုမ္ပဏီသည် ကား ဂိတ်များတွင် ကြော်ငြာ လုပ်ငန်းနှစ် ၂၀ လုပ်ကိုင်ခွင့်တင်ဒါ အောင်မြင်ထားပြီး ကုမ္ပဏီဘက် က ကန်ဒေါ်လာ ၁၃ သန်း ရင်းနှီး မြှုပ်နှံမည်ဖြစ်သည်။
ထိုပမာဏနှင့်ဆိုပါက ဘတ်စ်ကားမှတ်တိုင်တစ်ခု အဆင့်မြှင့်တင်ရန် ကန်ဒေါ်လာ ၂၆,၀၀၀ (ကျပ်သိန်း ၃၅၀ကျော်) ကုန်ကျမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ အဆိုပါ ကုန်ကျစရိတ်များကို ကုမ္ပဏီက စိုက်ထုတ် သုံးစွဲမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း FMI က သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ထားသည်။
ယင်းစီမံကိန်းအတွက် ရန် ကုန်မြို့တော် စည်ပင်သာယာရေး ကော်မတီက ၂၀၁၇ ဇန်နဝါရီ ၃ ရက်တွင် တင်ဒါခေါ်ယူပြီး ၂၀၁၈ ဇန်နဝါရီ ၂၀ ရက်၌ FMIDecaux အား လုပ်ကိုင်ခွင့်ပြုခဲ့သည်။
https://www.facebook.com/ybsservice553/posts/679003962434183
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ဆက်စပ် link များ
ဂျော့်ချ်ဆိုးရိုးစ် ဆိတဲ့လူ-
https://www.facebook.com/100020990552307/posts/179073276135690/
ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်ကို မီးရှို့နေတဲ့ George Soros
https://www.facebook.com/100020990552307/posts/115386105837741/
အမေရိကန်ရဲ့ တရုတ်ကို ဝိုင်းပတ်ပိတ်ဆို့ရေးမူဝါဒ
https://www.facebook.com/100041369508182/posts/626290505426594/
George Soros ရဲ့သား Alexander Soros
https://www.facebook.com/100020990552307/posts/763714317671580/
Philanthropy News Digest
Soros, Open Society Create $10 Million Fund for Rohingya
April 3, 2018
Soros, Open Society Create $10 Million Fund for Rohingya
On the eve of the South Asian monsoon season, the Open Society Foundations have announced the creation of a $10 million emergency assistance fund to help Rohingya people displaced from Myanmar as well as host communities in Bangladesh.
From April to October, there is a high risk of flash floods, landslides, and cyclones in southern Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Rohingya are sheltered in makeshift settlements that are vulnerable to water contamination and the spread of disease. The fund includes an $8 million gift to BRAC, an international development organization based in Bangladesh, and $2 million in support of other initiatives affecting the Rohingya.
According to OSF, BRAC has mounted the largest civil society response in support of the Rohingya, including more than thirty-two hundred aid workers on the ground. With the aim of ensuring the dignity and well-being of displaced families, the organization's integrated approach includes attention to sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, health care, education, protection, economic security, distribution of non-food items and shelter, and behavioral change counseling.
"The Rohingya people have already suffered serious abuses in Myanmar, and unless exceptional measures are taken, their suffering will continue in Bangladesh when the monsoon season starts this month," said OSF founder and chair George Soros. "The more people are moved out of harm's way, the better the chances of the remaining ones to survive....I urge other philanthropies, governments, and the private sector to develop a comprehensive action plan to provide Bangladesh with major financial support, debt forgiveness, and trade concessions while continuing to call on the Myanmar government to ensure safe, voluntary, and dignified return for the Rohingya."
(Photo credit: UNHCR/Roger Arnold)
http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/soros-open-society-create-10-million-fund-for-rohingya
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Consult Myanmar
Serge Pun Constructs A Real-Estate Empire In Myanmar
September 11, 2013 by Thiha
The road to Star City is a rutted two-lane highway that threads past the ragtag outskirts of Yangon, crosses two rusted bridges and ends, almost an hour later, at a slick showroom on a grassy riverbank. A roadside billboard welcomes me to “A Model City of Tomorrow.” After a bumpy ride in monsoon rains the real estate showroom comes as a relief and something of a mystery. As a salesman clicks on interactive screens showing condominium designs and floor plans, I wonder who would choose to live out here in the boondocks.
Later I step outside and, as the rains pause, look upriver toward the city. And there, shimmering above the grimy streets, is the golden spire of Shwedagon, the Buddhist temple that is a symbol both of a nation’s ancient riches and popular resistance to five decades of military rule that ended in 2011.
Only then do I grasp the shiny promise of Star City and why local buyers are snapping up units aimed at middle-income families. The 400-acre site will eventually be linked by ferry to downtown and by road to a Japanese-backed port farther downriver. With a planned community of 25,000, it’s a self-contained commuter belt for a city with a population of 5 million that may double in the next 20 years, driving up land prices and pinching public services. It’s a bet on a promise of peace and prosperity.
The man behind Star City is Serge Pun, a former exile who returned to Myanmar in the 1990s to build a property-to-banking empire that came close to collapse a decade later. Reinvigorated by the political thaw, Pun is now tapping foreign capital and talent to double down on holdings like Star City that lay fallow during the dictatorship. Other Burmese tycoons are sitting on prize assets but could struggle to unlock their value compared with Pun, who is Myanmar’s top residential developer and among its richest men.
An ethnic Chinese, Pun is both an insider and a curious outlier in an opaque political economy geared to crony capitalism. He styles himself as a principled businessman who says no to corruption and isn’t afraid to make enemies. This dualism, the insider and outsider, is reflected in his penchant for gated suburban communities that circle the city. That said, his next big project, running in parallel with Star City, is a mixed-use redevelopment of 9.6 acres of prime downtown land that he’s sat on for two decades and is conservatively valued at $100 million.
His ambitions don’t end with real estate: First Myanmar Investments (FMI), his flagship, has interests in agribusiness, auto distribution, tourism, civil aviation and retail. Barely a month goes by without a new venture or spinoff. Pun’s impeccable image and overseas exposure have made him a go-to guy for Asian and Western firms seeking partners in Myanmar, a bridge between worlds. He has permanent residency both in Hong Kong, where he founded his first venture, and in Singapore, where he has a listed company, Yoma Strategic Holdings. “International companies consider us as foreign. Burma’s government consider us as a Burmese company,” he tells me.
Pun isn’t in Yangon when I visit Star City, so we meet instead in a hotel lobby in Beijing. With a shock of silver hair over an unlined forehead and rimless glasses the 60-year-old has a modest, avuncular air. During breaks he pops outside to smoke Al Capone-branded cigarillos. His reputation, though, is that of a shrewd and dogged bargainer. “He’s a great closer,” says a party to a recent transaction. When he pays for our drinks, he chides the Chinese waitress at length over an unwarranted charge on our $34 bill and vows to talk to the hotel manager. I’m left unsure if he’s putting on a show of frugality for me or is truly ticked off.
To his family and friends he’s Serge, an affable workaholic. “There’s no difference between personal life and work life; it’s always the same thing,” says Melvyn Pun, his eldest son and chief executive of FMI. Ken Mandel, an American Canadian who worked for Pun in the 1990s, says: “He loves what he does. It’s obvious.” Inside the company he’s known as S.P., perhaps to avoid confusion with the other Puns. His Burmese name is Theim Wai. But he’s proudest of being called Burma’s Mr. Clean, the man who dared to say no to the grasping generals. “I’ve never paid a cent. But I’ve never been short of opportunities,” Pun avers.
This reputation set him apart from tainted tycoons like Tay Za, one of dozens of individuals subject to U.S. financial sanctions. Most analysts agree that Pun is scrupulous in his governance and didn’t consort with the hated junta that stepped down in 2011. But “you don’t get where Serge is today without having some friends in high places,” says a foreign consultant, who discussed Pun on the condition of anonymity.
Analysts point to Pun’s extensive land holdings and a banking license acquired in the 1990s, when Myanmar’s corruption was rife. Yoma Bank would later have a near collapse during a run on private lenders. In 1997 FMI acquired a minority stake in a now-defunct joint venture between the regime and Suzuki Motors to assemble cars and motorbikes for a near-captive market.
Pun says that he works with pragmatists in government and that land and other concessions were awarded on the basis of performance, not favoritism. “We do things properly. We don’t cut corners,” he says. By refusing to compromise, Pun says he lost out on crony deals. “We paid a high price during the dark years, at the brink of elimination. We stood firmly to our principles,” he insists.
Pun is upbeat on Myanmar’s economic prospects after decades of stagnation and misrule. In the last 18 months he’s hired dozens of expat managers and returning Burmese, including three of his four foreign-born sons. This investment in foreign talent, and their willingness to relocate, is another aspect that sets him apart from local entrepreneurs and gives him credibility with multinationals.
However, it also jacks up his costs. Yoma Strategic reported an 81% drop in profits in the three months to June 30 on a doubling in administrative costs and a modest 12% year-on-year rise in revenues. A small net profit for the full year is forecast, but investors seem undeterred: Yoma’s stock is trading at over 80 times future earnings.
Myanmar doesn’t have a stock market, so shares in FMI, which Pun founded in 1991 and owns 70% of, are traded over-the-counter in Yangon. Both FMI and Yoma, which reverse-listed in Singapore in 2006, have issued new stock as investors dive into Asia’s newest frontier. These include George Soros, whose fund invested in Yoma and later teamed up with Pun and Jamaica’s Digicel to bid unsuccessfully for a wireless telecom license in Myanmar.
Yoma’s main revenue comes from property sales in Yangon, where prices have soared since 2010. “The demand is there. And the supply continues to fall short,” says Tan Ai Teng, vice president of DBS Vickers Research in Singapore. That makes Yoma, as Singapore’s only Burmese stock, a proxy play on the market.
Yangon has only a handful of modern office buildings. Pun estimates the total supply of office space at roughly 430,000 square feet, which explains why rents are higher than in Hong Kong as multinationals scramble for berths. “They may bitch about it, but they always end up paying because they need the space,” chuckles Pun, who has a net worth of $500 million on our list.
His road to riches had a bumpy start. The son of a Chinese-born banker, Pun enjoyed a privileged childhood until a coup in 1962 put Burma on a nativist path to penury. General Ne Win ordered schools to stop teaching in English and began to nationalize private property. “That’s when most people decided to leave,” says Pun. In 1965 his father, an ardent leftist who worked for China’s Bank of Communications, moved the family to Beijing, where Pun and his brother enrolled in a school for overseas Chinese who didn’t speak the language. They wouldn’t see their homeland again for nearly a quarter-century.
Nine months later the Cultural Revolution began. Pun, set free from the strictures of school, became a teenage Red Guard. “We ran around and did all the things that young revolutionary youngsters did. Riding around the country, writing big-character posters,” he says. Four years later he was packed off to a border village to live among the peasants under army supervision.
By 1973 had China loosened its border controls, and Pun was allowed to leave for British-ruled Hong Kong, following his family. He crossed the border with HK$5 in his pocket. “I came from the most remote, poor community, where you walked miles to get somewhere and lived on very basic things. Suddenly you enter Hong Kong and get on a train. It’s a different world.”
Pun labored briefly on berthed ships in Hong Kong harbor before finding a job as a door-to-door salesman for air sanitizers. One day he walked into the office of a real estate broker, Elmer Busch, and attempted, in his broken English, to sell him a sanitizer. Busch noted his drive and told him to come back on Saturday. When he did, the German offered him a job. Pun said he accepted but only if Busch made a purchase. “That’s the last air sanitizer that you will ever sell. From now on, you work for me,” Busch told him.
For the next ten years Pun learned the business inside out from his mentor, who took him on marketing trips to Europe and Canada. “I knew nothing of the world,” he says. The roles have now reversed: Pun recently hired Busch, who was living in Toronto, to manage Yoma Strategic’s property division.
Pun went solo in 1993 and built a successful real estate business in Southeast Asia and China. He married a Hong Kong woman whom he met at a Chinese investment forum. In 1989 he took his wife to see Burma, his first trip back in 24 years. The regime was starting to relax socialist controls on a stricken economy.
Pun spied opportunity. A Burmese army friend introduced him to General David Abel, who was in charge of trade and finance. “He virtually convinced me that there was no alternative but for me to go back and help the country,” Pun says. He tried to take over a state-owned hotel, but when a new minister ordered a fresh tender, Pun lost out to a rival whom he suspected of bribery. “I was so mad. I couldn’t drive past that hotel for a few years,” he says.
His next venture was more fruitful. In 1994 he broke ground on FMI City, a 500-acre gated community on Yangon’s western flank, near an industrial zone. Pun developed the site, sold land rights and took a management fee. The first plots went on sale at a time of rising expectations as Myanmar tacked toward a market economy and multinationals began to step up their investing.
Pun shared this optimism. He convinced his mother to move back from Hawaii (his father had died) and found jobs for his siblings. It was a way to bring a clan together after decades apart. “We thought this was it. The last stop,” he says.
Pun’s next residential project was an ambitious 600-acre estate with a country club. Its centerpiece was a lush, 18-hole golf course designed by Gary Player that would become a fixture of Myanmar’s golfing scene, which is synonymous with its business scene. Among the most avid golfers were the generals, which gave rise to accusations that Pun was currying favor with the regime, which he dismisses. “No generals can play free on my course. They have to pay,” he tells me.
One of those generals Pun did cultivate was Khin Nyunt, the military intelligence chief who served briefly as prime minister. “You could talk logic and reason with him. He was open-minded,” he says. When Pun Hlaing Golf Resort opened in 2000, Khin Nyunt wrote in the guest book that Pun deserved thanks for investing in such a high-risk venture. “For you to have taken this risk for the country, I thank you,” he wrote, according to Pun.
Four years later the junta arrested Khin Nyunt and purged his faction. By then Pun’s empire was in trouble. In February 2003, when rumors of unreported bad loans sparked a run on private banks, Pun tried to save Yoma from collapse. He soon found himself at loggerheads with the Army general in charge of the crisis, who vetoed additional central bank liquidity and ordered bankers to call in loans immediately. Factory owners who had taken out loans to buy equipment and property owners were told to repay–or face the regime’s wrath. Meanwhile, bank managers had to face the wrath of customers who couldn’t withdraw cash.
Ten years on, Pun still seethes over the fallout. “The guy they assigned to be the head of the crisis committee single-handedly and overnight killed the whole country’s economy in one stroke,” he says. “That was the beginning of cronyism because there was no real economy left.”
Two of the largest private banks were shut down. Pun managed to keep his license but was barred from taking deposits or making loans, so he switched to domestic remittances. He continued to scoff behind the back of the general in charge, making a powerful enemy. “He never forgave me for that,” he says.
However, Yoma wasn’t blameless. Its loan book was geared to Pun’s other businesses, defying a 15% limit on related-party lending, and some depositors had to wait years to get all their money back. Pun admits that Yoma broke the rules on group loans but says other banks did the same and insists that everyone was repaid.
Yoma had to wait until last September to get back its full banking license. Pun thought he’d got a green light in 2011 when President Thein Sein approved its restitution and finance officials called to congratulate him. A few days later they called back. The approval was stuck in the office of the vice president, who was the same general who had mishandled the banking run. Might Pun want to call on him and try to smooth things over? “I’m not talking to him,” he shot back.
It took another year and a change of vice president, but Yoma finally got its license back. Pun stuck to his guns and won, just as he insists that he never kowtowed to the men in uniform who plundered the nation during the dictatorship. And if he seems to be gloating, that’s because he is. This is his moment of vindication. “Many people expected him to fail,” says Melvyn Pun. Big mistake.
Source: Forbes
(NB: The best way to find information on this website is to key in your search terms into the Search Box in the top right corner of this web page. E.g. of search terms would be “property research report”, ”condominium law”, “Puma Energy”, “MOGE”, “yangon new town”,”MECTEL”, “hydropower”, etc.)
https://consult-myanmar.com/2013/09/11/serge-pun-constructs-a-real-estate-empire-in-myanmar/
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Reuters
September 24, 2014 / 7:01 PM /
Myanmar investment message undermined by politics, sanctions
by Daniel Bases
NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The rapid economic transformation of Myanmar, less than two years after transitioning from military control and opening itself to the world, is not without its rough patches, the nation’s top economic minister said on Wednesday.
At the same time, George Soros, one of the earliest investors in Myanmar’s economy and even more so its social reform, said he was troubled by the slowdown in reforms ahead of next year’s elections. Still, he believes multinational companies must be involved in one of Southeast Asia’s last untapped areas.
Soe Thane, Myanmar’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Development, oversees roughly 11 different economic ministries. The former commander of the Myanmar Navy likened the reform process to driving along a potholed street.
Describing a complicated web of land ownership rules and regulations, he expressed hope it would be fixed in the next year.
“I think we will have a comprehensive umbrella law on land policy and land use within six months to a year,” Soe Thane told Reuters on the sidelines of a Myanmar investment conference.
“And after that, we have to go for water reform. It’s a big issue for agriculture, forestry, industrial development” he said.
Parliamentary elections will take place next year, for the first time since President Thein Sein embarked on the reforms that dismantled control by the military, which ruled the Southeast Asia nation since seizing power in a 1962 coup.
While the U.S. has suspended economic sanctions, they have not been lifted entirely and large swaths of the Myanmar economy remain off limits because of rules governed by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
OFAC maintains the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, a so-called black list that forbids U.S. nationals or companies from doing business with persons or entities listed.
Given the country’s history of military control and its persisting influence over the economy, plus a legacy of drug trafficking, the names of a significant number of Myanmar nationals and companies can be found on the SDN list.
“It is better than nothing that reforms were suspended, but we prefer lifting them,” Soe Thane said.
There is added political uncertainty as Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will go into next year’s parliamentary elections with no presidential candidate. The constitution, drafted during military rule, bars Aung San Suu Kyi from running. Under Myanmar’s political system, parliament chooses the president.
Soros, who sat beside Soe Thane during a panel discussion, said that 20 years after establishing an office for his Open Society Foundation in Myanmar, he had “stuck it out.” The reforms process had been “a wonderful experience, up until about half a year ago,” he said.
“Things have come to a standstill because the elections are now casting a shadow on the activities. I hope it will restart after the elections, because it does need to be restarted,” Soros said.
There is still a land grab under say, said the billionaire investor, and American companies need to be careful about the provenance of titles on properties in order not to fall afoul of OFAC. He also expressed concern about the racial tensions that have flared up, with anti-Muslim violence leaving hundreds dead since 2012.
However, Soros said he believes multinational corporations cannot ignore Myanmar, where the government expects foreign direct investment will grow to more than $5 billion in the fiscal year starting in April.
Soros has invested several million dollars through businesses run by Serge Pun, chairman of the SPA Group, he said, but not directly.
“We would be eager to do it in the areas of banking, finance and agriculture. This is where we feel the country, the people, need this investment most,” Soros said.
(Reporting By Daniel Bases; editing by Gunna Dickson)
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
https://www.reuters.com/article/myanmar-investment/myanmar-investment-message-undermined-by-politics-sanctions-idUSL2N0RP31420140924
Ronnie
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