Min Aung Hlaing invites Chinese investment in agriculture sector

By Admin 06 Nov 2024

DMG Newsroom
6 November 2024, Sittwe

Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing has urged Chinese investors to invest in Myanmar’s agriculture industry.

As he met Chinese and Myanmar business owners on Tuesday in Kunming, China, Min Aung Hlaing said his regime is working to turn Myanmar into a major food producer to feed the world.

“We are trying to become a major global food supplier by utilising the good foundation given by nature for agriculture and livestock farming,” said the junta leader.

He highlighted Myanmar’s agricultural sector and the need to manufacture chemical fertilisers, natural fertilisers, and insecticides. He also invited investors to promote the farming machinery sector.

Myanmar’s agricultural industry, however, needs good agricultural practices as well as chemical and natural fertilisers and insecticides to develop, he said, encouraging Chinese investors to grasp investment opportunities in those sectors.

Despite Min Aung Hlaing’s claims, Myanmar’s economy has been in free fall since the 2021 coup he orchestrated. The agriculture industry has also been in decline as a food crisis deepens in the country.

Currently, one in four Myanmar people — some 13.3 million — are food insecure, with 2.7 million facing emergency levels of food insecurity, the World Food Programme said in a recent statement. Additionally, the cost of food staples has increased by 50 percent compared with last year.

“Even paddy, the staple of the agriculture industry, can’t be grown on a full scale in rural areas,” said one Arakanese business owner. “So, farmers still suffer from poverty. Things have worsened now. The military leader can’t even develop the agriculture industry of a state let alone the entire country. So, his statement that he would make Myanmar a major food supplier for the world is no more than building a castle in the air.”

From 1988 to September 2024, Myanmar has attracted foreign investments in 12 sectors. The agriculture industry only accounted for 0.48 percent of the total investment, and the livestock and fishery industry only accounted for 1.04 percent.

China has invested more than US$18 million in Myanmar’s agriculture sector, and over US$53.1 million in the livestock and fishery sector, according to the regime.