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the extraction deals. Crony capitalists became rich from the lucrative government constructioncontracts the junta doled out. Goods and services provided to the Myanmarese people have remained

poor and unemployment has remained high.

Education system crippled

The education system has been crippled since the famous student protests of 1988, with variouscolleges dispersed far from each other in order to prevent students from bonding together and usingtheir youthful energy for protest. Yangon University, once the finest university in Southeast Asia,has been relegated to dustbin status. As a result, even if foreign companies were interested in hiringlocals, local citizens don't have the skills required for higher-productivity jobs. Those few, frustratedMyanmarese who do have high-end skills have fled to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Westto make a living.

This FDI picture is not destined to change simply due to the reentry of the West into Myanmaresebusiness. Though the Obama administration has taken the positive step of imposing reporting

requirements for new investment exceeding $500,000, and the proposed FDI law has provisionsproviding for the employment of Myanmarese workers, there is a concrete fact that cannot beignored: the people of Myanmar lack skills, capacity, and experience. The fear is that market forceswill likely incentivise Western companies, just as they have incentivised the Chinese, Thai, andHong Kongese companies before this year, to act only out of profit-maximising self-interest, onlyemploying skilled citizens of their own countries as workers and exporting most of Myanmar'sresources for refining and sale outside of its borders, largely cutting the Myanmarese people out.

For example, who is going to comprise the majority of the oil and gas engineers in deals Shell Oiland Chevronbroker with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE)? By a MOGE engineer'sown admission, "we cannot do the high-end, sophisticated work, so we will need workers from theUS and UK to come in".

It is also unclear whether crony capitalism will fade. Rent seeking will likely remain an issue forquite some time. I have observed businesspeople bringing in expensive gifts to government officialsin exchange for preferential treatment.

Real benefits

There are likely real benefits that will accrue to the Myanmarese people from FDI. If companies likeGE focus on energy, millions of Myanmarese can benefit by having stable electricity and running

water. In turn, improvement in the energy sector should enable improvements in thetelecommunications sector, and mobile phone use should increase exponentially, allowingindividuals to be able to contact someone far away in times of trouble or need.

Improved telecommunications should result in an improved banking sector, giving individuals sorelyneeded access to money in this mostly cash-based economy. Low-end manufacturing and textilesstand to improve, providing jobs for low-skilled workers. But if these improvements come withoutsubstantial investment in education and the training of a young, large, and unskilled workforce, percapita income and domestic demand can only grow so much. Without attention to these areas,Myanmar will experience an expansion of what it has been for so long - an extraction vein for Asiato the West.

Johns Hopkins University, which wishes to open a school in Myanmar to train local Myanmarese,has the right idea in mind. Unfortunately, Hopkins has not secured financing yet. But the best chance

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for Myanmar to become Asia's next tiger will be through a combination of investment in Myanmar'seducation system and a concerted effort on the part of foreign companies to hire and trainMyanmarese workers. Here's to hoping that Western companies realise there are greater goals thanmere profit, and that they adopt a synergistic relationship with Myanmar's people - rather than theexploitative regime on display from multinational companies that has prevailed up to this point.

Michael Lwin i s a Yangon-based consul tant for the Myanmar Medical Association (MMA) and

domestic companies run by Myanmarese citizens.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessari ly refl ect Al Jazeera's

editor ial poli cy.

Source: Al Jazeera