The Irrawaddy Highlights Asia Foundation Myanmar Report

The Irrawaddy details Myanmar’s Companies Law which will take effect on August 1st. The law was instituted with the hopes of bringing in more foreign investment, transparency and regulations. This law comes at a time when Western investors are concerned about civil unrest in the country and the Myanmar government is hoping to diversify investors, who have mostly been Chinese. The Asia Foundation’s  Myanmar research is cited from its 2017 report, The Contested Areas of Myanmar: Subnational Conflict, Aid, and Development. The publication is the culmination of a year-long study which found that far from being a problem restricted to the periphery, Myanmar’s subnational conflicts are widespread and shape many of the country’s most pressing national challenges. Subnational conflicts directly affect up to one-quarter of the population. For more than half a century they have severely impacted the entire country’s political trajectory, economic growth, and human development.

In 2017 the Asia Foundation published research that said the civil war was inherently linked to economic development and that peace was essential to developing a national economy under a government pushing for more foreign investment.