Open up, Burma

CHANGE is in the air of my country. Our new civilian government is busying to meet incoming several ministers from the west and region. Myanmar's leaders are experiencing this new trend like never before. Foreign investment companies are trying to seek an opportunity in our land. Some are cautious while some think no better time to invest in Burma. Some government are sending several delegates to assess our improvement. The oldies like China and Thailand may have worried with the flow of westerner to gauge our reform. Anyway, anyhow, nobody can deny that Myanmar is on the road of democratic. It make some companies and countries rush to engage with our authority to get permit for their investment. It's obvious that no government could able to create enough jobs without FDI. Thus, our government would pave a way to welcome such investment if they are right and worthy investor.

Today, there is a news related to Myanmar's development. It states that Asian firms in pole as Myanmar beckons in title. The news highlighted that Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic Holdings last week announced plans to develop a project known as Star City, near Yangon, that will include housing estates and shopping malls. One head of Singapore law firm commented that "Myanmar presents a relative low-risk, high-return proposition that is hard to ignore". He continue to say that "I've had queries from corporate clients in infrastructure and construction who are keen to explore Myanmar for the simple reason it presents a compelling high investment growth strategy". Japanese businesses are among those looking to expand, and the two governments agreed last month to start talks on an investment pact.

What a good news for my country is it? I am pretty happy to see such positive news. Usually I could able to see my country news as a negative one. This time, the local newspaper is highlighting a good part of our country. I hope our leaders will able to magnet FDI so they can decrease our human resource loss to neighboring countries in future. Who will want to go outside country if they can find a proper job within home land? Being foreign worker myself, it is hard to see educated workers from Thailand, even Vietnam here. It suggest that their educated workers are able to find a good job in their country and no need to go out abroad. For us, it's inevitable to find greener pasture in abroad as it's not possible to get a suitable job. I do believe, we all could return our homeland sooner than later if our government keep changing policies in positive way to lure potential foreign direct investment both in technology and dollars.

May our leaders wise enough to choose the best possible business partner from apparent opportunist ones.

Pay matter to all politician ?

TALKING focus has been on recent salary review statement by government and still in its people mind. Just like Singaporean, I also quietly curious in how much their millionaire minister's wages are above the rest of the world. As I stated in previous post based on top 10 world leaders who got highest salaries. Now I'm wondering how much Asian leaders receive for their role in policy making. As a part of finding true answer in people's concern, I wanted to know if the salary matter to other famous regional leaders whose performance are highly recognized just like Singapore's minister do. The following standing might have told us some dimension of answer.

Top 10 Asia Pacific Leader's annual salary in USD

1. Hu Jintao (China) - $10,633
2. Manmohan Singh (India) - $36,200
3. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - $124,000
4. Lee Myung-bak (South Korea) - $162,000
5. Ma Ying-Jeou (Taiwan) - $184,000
6. John Key (New Zealand) - $310,000
7. Yoshihiko Noda (Japan) - $316,000
8. Julia Gillard (Australia) - $495,000
9. Donald Tsang (Hong Kong) - $550,000
10. Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore) - $1,650,000

Finally, I can't stop thinking our leader's salary to compare against regional counterparts. To the best of my knowledge, our president earn Kyats 50 lakhs per month. Thus I could able to convert it to USD to compare apple to apple. Assume 1USD is equivalent to 800 Kyats. Our president's salary can be calculated as follow:-
Basic salary : 5,000,000 Ks
Exchange rate: 1US$ = 800 Ks
Thus salary in US$ = (5,000,000/800) x 12 = $75,000

WOW, not bad, even higher than China & India counterpart. Exactly, 7 times to China's president and 2.7 times to India's PM. If we calculate based on GDP per capita, the figure might have gone further. Since our country was once one of wealthiest country in Asia, the pay is right to our newly elected civilian president. As the pay come better, the leader should be expected to perform better. Hopefully our president is doing his work by showing the world how he is trust-worthy with the serial reform. For sure, our ministers are never mind on the salary issue as the perk behind might have been the best in the world. May our leader able to please with their salaries. May our ministers able to have enough salaries to put corruption at bay.

Vegetarian Friend

I everyday take my lunch box to work and enjoy home made food. One Indian colleague also brings his own food like me. So we became lunch-mate and have been together eat lunch for more than 3 years now. Thus, he notices that I am everyday having meat lunch. He is vegetarian and everyday eat rice and bean soup only. I am surprise to see him everyday enjoy standard curry which is bean-soup. He cannot eat my food but he always give me his curry.

Besides, we sit side by side work desk and he can see whatever I do. I take at least one medicine after lunch and he also notice that. I have assorted medicines both English and Myanmar in my workplace drawer. As time goes on, we become more friendly and one day he asked me frank question. He raised, "I see you are eating meat, vegetable everyday and also eat medicine". I said "yes". He don't take any medicine with regular basis like I do. It make him puzzle why I needed to take medicine everyday while eating a lot curry. I also sometime asking myself that why I still need to take medicine. Perhaps, I am too much concern about my health. Or my immune system is vulnerable compare to my Indian friend. Anyway, my daily routine has been long practiced and became habit. So I find it hard to change it and keep doing the same.

My Indian friend might have understood that I will keep my daily procedure as usual despite his suggestion and never told me the same again. Strange thing is I still encountering sickness more frequent than my Indian colleague does. Am I able to rid of taking medicine in future? My answer is probably no since I became older and older. I simply hope that hectic life style in lion city and insufficient nutrient will keep me taking multivitamin supplement tablet. Myanmar has a saying that " Our live could be guarded by only wisdom".

Forbidden Country

VERY often, I am disappointed to learn Myanmar is not in the list of worldwide countries at the commercial ground. Recall one day when I was taking haircut at the local barber which is run by Japanese saloon. The hair-dresser guess I am a foreigner and ask me where am I coming from. I answer her shortly as "Myanmar". Surprisingly, she don't know my country despite she is from the region. She even added, she never heard such name before that prompt to explain by referring famous neighbour countries. I asked her if she knows Thailand, China, India. Easily she said yes and I explain that my country is located amid them.

Every time, I read airline's boasting advertisement, again I am upset to see there is no Myanmar destination in the long list. Even Cambodia's Siem Reap could be found in the list. Why like that? Only our authority may know the reason. What I know for sure is we suffer paying much higher from limited airlines. It's look like some type of monopoly is happening in our country's nature. Why our country leaders are not concerning about its citizen? If they are thinking themselves of civilian government, it's their obligation to try all possible way to ease our people's life. Otherwise they will never gain people's eternal love and trust.

Most recently was happening on yesterday to me. I was at the Mustafa shopping center to buy a prepaid sim card. The staff was needed to register my sim card to activate. But he was encountering difficulty to make it successful because there is no Myanmar under country list. He needs to fill up online form which require personal data such as Name, NRIC No, Nationality, DOB. While the rest is Ok to fill up, we couldn't go through as we can't find Myanmar in the drop down box. The problem is we are not allowed to manually key in. Eventually, we take Malaysia wrongly and luckily it is successful. Why not Myanmar in the list?

Above some matters in mind, I asked myself in the way back home, "Are we from forbidden country?" Only the God will know. May our country be recognized by world's society soonest possible following democratic reform recently.

Salary Matter ?

FOLLOWING the recommendation for Singapore's minister's salary, there have been a lot opinions on local newspaper and online. Senior minister Grace Fu posted on her Facebook wall and got several hundreds comments, mostly are negatively response. She recalled her days before she joined politic from her successful career with PSA in 2006. She reiterated that it wasn't salary that make her thinking to enter political world. I'm quite agree with her statement on her Facebook page. To be honest, I didn't think of government office holder's feeling. Her short brief can make me sympathize of politician at least. To make her opinion alive in my memory, let me share how did she face difficult junction before she skip her successful career for political office. Her original controversial respond to the salary cut recommendation could be found in her Facebook as follow:-

"When I made the decision to join politics in 2006, pay was not a key factor. Loss of privacy, public scrutiny on myself and my family and loss of personal time were. The disruption to my career was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I experienced a drop in my income. So it is with this recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for anyone considering political office."

The above her opinion appeared some warning words in the end. We have to be realistic in thinking things especially for those affect policies. Some may not be agree with her opinion while others may agree. I would like to be in the latter group because Singapore has only human resource to rely on. Besides, republic may find it difficult to maintain its momentum if they fail to attract highly talent people to join politic. We cannot expect all politician to work passionately regardless of their pay. Some might be while other think other way.

In fact, I am just foreign worker in lion city whose application for SPRs had been rejected for twice. However I cannot assume recent minister's salary review is non of my business. Because without able cabinet ministers, Singapore will fail to create enough job opportunities that may affect us our current jobs. It's obvious that Singaporean come first when the government consider employment. Thus we have to pray a goodness of Singapore's economy if we are to work for longer term. Otherwise, it would be real risk of loosing job sooner than later.

May Singapore find an excellent solution with regard to current salary cut review so that its ministers can enjoy their public service absolutely.