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NEWS - Myanmar minister on investme



Subject: NEWS - Myanmar minister on investment body retires

Myanmar minister on investment body retires

  
YANGON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A minister in Myanmar's ruling military
council on the country's foreign investment commission has retired, the
third cabinet member to step down in two months. 

Official Myanmar Radio and Television announced on Tuesday night that
Brigadier-General Maung Maung, a minister in the office of State Peace
and Development Council (SPDC) chairman Senior General Than Shwe, had
been permitted to retire. 

Maung Maung was also secretary of the Myanmar Investment Commission,
which is responsible for policy on foreign investment into the country.
He was expected to be automatically relieved of that post. 

Myanmar, under U.S. sanctions since 1997 because of its human rights
record and failure to democratise, announced dismal foreign investment
statistics in July this year. 

It said it had approved just $29.5 million of foreign direct investment
in the fiscal year to March, down from $777.4 million a year earlier and
$2.8 billion the year before that. 

Officials of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development
blamed the sharp fall on the Asian economic crisis rather than on the
sanctions. 

Several foreign firms have pulled out of Myanmar due to concerns about
being associated with its poor rights record. However, some large U.S.
and European oil firms, such as Unocal and TotalFina, remain in the
country. 

The declaration announcing Maung Maung's retirement was signed by
Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, officially number three in the SPDC but
considered its must powerful figure. 

Maung Maung had been one of three ministers in Than Shwe's office since
November 1997 and had been livestock and fisheries minister before that.
Previously he was commander of Yangon airbase. 

Last month, the SPDC announced that Major-General Kyaw Than had been
permitted to retire as minister of commerce and Brigadier-General Sein
Win as minister of sports. 

22:21 11-30-99