Qatar Airways to relaunch Yangon flights

QATAR Airways will launch flights to Yangon later this year as part of an expansion of passenger routes, the airline's chief executive officer said last week at a leading travel trade fair.
 Mr Akbar Al Baker said on March 7, the opening day of the ITB Berlin travel trade show in Germany, that Qatar Airways would add flights to Myanmar, Iraq, Tanzania and Serbia during a six-month expansion plan beginning in May.

Quintana calls for sanctions rethink

GENEVA – A UN expert called last week for a review of sanctions by some Western states against Myanmar.
 "I am not saying that they must be lifted, but they must be analysed in detail," UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Mr Tomas Ojea Quintana, said on March 13.

US envoy offers praise to hluttaws

THE performance of the national hluttaws since they first convened just over a year ago has been "extraordinary", the US special envoy to Myanmar, Mr Derek Mitchell, said last week.
 "No one expected them to be much more than a rubber stamp," Mr Mitchell said in an interview in Yangon on March 17.
 "The terms of debate and openness and transparency when it started were so limited that the idea of checks and balances and the balance of power seemed almost laughable," he said

United States considers Myanmar 'a friend', says government official

UNITED States special envoy Mr Derek Mitchell told Pyithu Hluttaw Speaker Thura U Shwe Mann his country considers Myanmar "a friend" as a result of reforms over the past 12 months, an official present at the meeting told The Myanmar Times last week.
 Mr Mitchell made the comment during a meeting with Thura U Shwe Mann in Nay Pyi Taw on March 13, said U Toe Naing Mann, the speaker's son and a member of the Legal and Special Affairs Assessment Commission.

Myanmar drafts new foreign investment rules

YANGON – Foreigners will no longer need a local partner to set up businesses in Myanmar and may be granted a five-year tax holiday from the start of commercial operations, according to the draft of a new investment law obtained by Reuters.
 The long-awaited new investment regulations, along with plans to float its currency, the kyat, from April mark the boldest economic reforms since resource-rich Myanmar emerged from decades of dictatorship last year, its economy decimated by chronic mismanagement and trade-crippling sanctions.

Philippine mining giant eyes Myanmar investments

MANILA - The Philippines' largest gold miner said on March 14 it is keen to invest in Myanmar as the former military-ruled state makes tentative political reforms and tries to lure investors with tax breaks.
 Philex Mining Corp has sent representatives to Myanmar in recent weeks to look at opportunities and assess the investment climate, company senior vice-president Michael Toledo told AFP.