Establishing Infrastructure Projects: Priorities for Myanmars Industrial Development Part II: The Role of the State

The issue of establishing infrastructure projects for Myanmar's industrial development is addressed in two parts. Part I focuses on the role of the private sector, how Myanmar's conglomerates can take the lead on infrastructure development with financing from the new China-led multilateral development banks. Part II focuses on the role of the state. The government needs to work closely with the conglomerates and also adopt measures and policies that will facilitate this model of infrastructure development. For Myanmar's policy decision-makers a blind act of faith in free markets alone to deliver the prosperity that the country seeks the Washington consensus model is unlikely to be sufficient to bring about the structural change in the economy necessary to bring about sustained development. The more interventionist approach characterized by the developmental state, with its long pedigree among successful Asian economies, is far more likely to deliver the necessary results. For Myanmar the formula is the president works closely with the conglomerates to establish a pipeline of shovel-ready projects, with the necessary concessions assigned, in time to tap the new China-led multilateral development banks in their initial splurge of project lending.